-There are many metrics for which folks rank various programmers. You've likely seen these metrics manifest themselves in competition sites, commits to projects, productivity, turn-around of code, and good ol' gut feelings. We do it to ourselves and others. We compare our work against our peers and folks that we admire. But that can lead us to make comparisons that aren't objective or based on all of the data. I can compare myself against folks who do low-level programming and find that I don't measure up in that realm; never mind that I haven't done a whole lot of low-level programming. Or I can compare myself against folks who were mentored by programmers whose names are legendary in the field. Unfortunately I will likely find gaps between my knowledge and their knowledge. Comparisons like this tend to be unhelpful and lead us into punishing ourselves for not being the other person. We look at our projects and our history and find that we're not the other person, nor could we ever be the other person.
+There are many metrics which folks use to rank programmers. You've likely seen these metrics manifest themselves in different ways: competition sites, numbers of commits to projects, productivity measurements, time to turn-around code, and good ol' fashioned gut feelings. We do it to ourselves and others. We compare our work against the work of our peers and folks that we admire, but that can lead us to make comparisons that aren't objective or based on all of the data. I can compare myself against folks who do low-level programming and find that I don't measure up in that realm. Never mind that I haven't done a whole lot of low-level programming; the comparison is valid. Or, I can compare myself against folks who were mentored by programmers whose names are legendary in the field. I will find gaps between my knowledge and their knowledge, because I didn't have access to those mentors (or worse: I didn't take advantage of the mentors I could have accessed. Whoops!). Comparisons like these are not helpful and lead us into punishing ourselves for not being someone else. Our assessment of our projects and history give us the conclusion that we're not that other person, nor could we ever be that other person.
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+The major problem with ranking programmers (or ranking anything for that matter) is that ranking systems are based on one set of criteria. There is no real standard for ranking programmers. Sites that rank programmers based on numbers of problems solved or difficulty of problems solved have only determined that there are a set of programmers who really enjoy solving these types of problems. They've also collected a set of programmers who will spend the time and effort to solve these problems and will be competitive while solving them. It tells us little about the programmer's abilities outside of that domain.