Those who were on my level could write simple scripts that could run out of the current directory and relied on the system perl install. Ask us to put something in our path and we showed the confused face and maybe blurted out "I'm more of a biologist, I don't care about a path, just help me get it to work.". God programmers were everyone else who knew what the path was and how to use it.
As I got a bit more skilled, I separated myself a little from the Rob's and assumed I was closing in on God. I recognize these folks now in the mailing lists when they correct the old-timers in such a loving camaraderie sort of way.
As I got a bit further along, I actually became capable of writing software - not much, but it was definitely beyond scripts running out of the current directory. This seems to be where things changed for me. I was now interacting with people that I could place in the "pretty good" category as well as those that I considered God for reasons other than knowing how to add something to PYTHONPATH and why that was different from PATH. On a project that shall remain nameless, I ran into s spectrum of people where I fit somewhere in the middle, but with at least one big outlier...
The dude with the high skill level could write stuff like nobody's business. Unfortunately, it often became nobody's business because no one else could really get it. The code was slick with lots of what people at my level call "magic", and people at his level call "optimized".At first glance, one would think "what an asset to the project to have that guy on board". That is true to some extent, but that guy also gets bored of acting as the teacher and would rather work with people at their own skill level. The project risks them wandering off or becoming electronically absent. Another risk which could be compounded by this departure is that the less skilled folks become dependent on the God to answer all their questions. As the project wore on, there was a lot of complexity built into the code which was a great experience for those of us learning, but we couldn't actually maintain that code or that pace. A division grew between the teacher and the students and the project suffered.
I was left with the question of what is the best mix of people on a project? Everyone wants to have a situation like what Fog Creek appears to be - everyone at a high skill level, learning even more, making great software. I doubt I'll ever be in that situation so I'm ignoring those sorts of projects. I need to finish this idea later while I chew a bit more on it now...
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