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agree. gold
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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What surprises me is that someone who can write some of the best code you've ever seen didn't recognize his own ability. Perhaps he's among the apparently not-so-small group that are high performers yet secretly believe that they're actually incompetent and that their world will come crashing down once people realize it.
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Greg Utas wrote: group that are high performers yet secretly believe that they're actually incompetent and that their world will come crashing down once people realize it.
It's called "impostor syndrome"[^] and my daughter is suffering from it: an over-achiever who is permanently certain that everyone else in the room is smarter and knows more than her. I don't know where she got this from. Me, on the other side.... 
Mircea
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And it might be a huge burden if not watching out.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I agree. I was mind-boggled. Maybe he just made an excuse to leave the company??
The code was absolutely beautiful.
Great use of classes that made it easy to see what he was doing.
Used some C++ define macros but they were so clear and actually made things better.
Just really great code.
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Greg Utas wrote: he's among the apparently not-so-small group that are high performers yet secretly believe that they're actually incompetent
This sentiment deeply resonates with me. I have no college degrees, have no published books, and have little recognized public domain work. Being surrounded by brilliant, acclaimed engineers my entire career has always been a source of great anxiety. Even today, 25 years into my software development journey, I still fear I could be discarded at any time for my lack of credentials and/or incompetence.
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Nothing you listed, other than incompetence, will get you discarded unless, for example, you falsely claimed to have a college degree. And even that might be overlooked, given that you've demonstrated your skills. The fact that you're still around after all these years proves that your employer values you.
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Of course, its self-perceived incompetence, not actual incompetence. Its a quirk of human nature whereby the more you learn, the more you realize how much you have left to learn.
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My degree is in filmmaking. I am self taught. The best developer I work with has no IT degree. Two of the best hires I have made over the years had fresh degrees with ink still wet and no experience - and both knock it out of the park every day. I respect the work it takes to earn those degrees, but "getting it done" is all that really matters in the long run.
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And receiving a degree (any degree) is just one form of proof that “you can get it done/complete something”.
I had a very smart roommate whose motto was “College is four years of bulls**t. If you can put up with this, you can put up with a job.”
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and with just a touch of encouragement.....
We (techies pounding code, designing systems, etc) have been programmed to think we cannot ask for help. Decades ago I read a book on software teams and development processes. One of the chapters was titled, "Beware the Dark Office" where you had this one person desperately trying to complete a task.
We could do better.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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We can't ask for help because, as Brooks pointed out, adding more people to a late software project makes it later.
One person desperately trying to complete a task often means the truck number of that group is 1. 
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truth. But there is a difference between asking for help, being encouraged to ask for help, and the PM trying to make a baby in one month 
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Having imposter syndrome is real possibility, though this would seem to be an extreme case. Maybe they had mental health issues, a nervous breakdown, a family/non-work-related issues of an emergency nature, or a mob hit-man was coming after him. We have no idea what was going on inside his head at the time.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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raddevus wrote: I hardly know anything but I have the weird ability to try a (technology) thing 1,000 times and not get bored or give up entirely.
Story of my life!
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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"Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force, but through persistence." - Ovid, Roman poet
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That's a great one. I'm keeping that one in my list of quotes! 
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perhaps you will favor this one as well . it is yet another of the many in my signature id est : “Much becomes obvious in hindsight, ... Yet it is striking how in both physics and mathematics there is a lack of proportion between the effort needed to understand something for the first time and the simplicity and naturalness of the solution once all the required stages have been completed.” - Giorgio Parisi, recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics
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thank you for that fascinating story . would it be possible to elaborate re/ the beautiful code . perhaps a few examples . i am eager to learn . on the occassion of an interview i informed the interviewer i attempt to make my code "pretty" . he almost laughed . perhaps i should have said "beautiful" .
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It was C++ (and a long time ago), but what I remember was:
1. Fantastic / balanced use of classes & OOP
2. Code organization / design which made it easy to discover his original intent.
3. Just enough comments -- actually quite light because the code just did exactly what it "said" it did.
4. Amazing use of C++ #define macros. I'd never seen macros like the ones he created. So clear and so helpful -- but no more. Just like "Einstein"* said 'As simple as possible but no simpler'
5. No over-engineering or confusing stuff, just clean, pure code broken up into pieces that made it all digestible.
Keep in mind with all of these comments that this was MFC / C++ which used some custom-created COM components and I had to understand the COM components themselves too (the dev created them) because they interfaced with a laser micrometer.
*Pretty sure Einstein never actually said this but it's a great quote.
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raddevus wrote: Just like "Einstein"* said 'As simple as possible but no simpler'
*Pretty sure Einstein never actually said this but it's a great quote.
I knew that as: As simple as possible, as difficult as needed.
Don't know who said and I don't give a crap about knowing it. I just like it. (but to be honest, yours sound nicer )
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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raddevus wrote: hey interfaced with a laser micrometer.
I just realized that when you mentioned "speak with a hardware device", the code was actually not a text-to-speech implementation for a voice-commanded hardware piece  I am an idiot. 
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"Pretty" and "beautiful" are ambiguous when talking about code. It could mean that you make the text easy to read (align curly braces, consistent indentation and capitalization, style enforcing, etc.), or it could mean that you remove all code smells, make code easy to maintain, and appropriately comment your code.
I require my developers to write pretty code in both senses of the term. It's just easier for everyone else to look at and understand what they did. I highly encourage use of auto-formatters prior to check-in.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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my meaning of "pretty" / "beautiful" is hopefully in the highest sense . thus no ambiguity . i attempt to write code which another developer can understand w/ ease . apparently i fail as i am surprised i myself have difficulty understanding my own code after some duration . though on one occasion a job interview i seem to have succeeded as i was informed my solution to the assigned problem was the only one which required no assistance for the interviewer's programming assistant to understand . i was not offered the job .
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