Have you ever noticed the feeling of superiority or a pride of being an awesome programmer?

Even though I don’t have a degree in psychology, I am pretty sure that for most people the more one accomplish in something, the more pride and ego he has. That also absolutely applies to many programmers. For me, I always think of programming as a game which you can never lose. As long as, you don’t attempt to solve things like Millenium Prize Problems. You will eventually find a solution either by code it yourself or google it somewhere.

As time pass by, you solve more and more problems without any problems (as you are an awesome programmer). Here is where pride and ego gradually stacks up in the programmers’ mind without their awareness.
There are a lot of problems associate to this. For example, I once got a comment about my work, of course, just like an instinct, I rejected it instantly and think that my way of doing thing is correct. That made me ignore some of the valuable comments in the past and I was the one who regret it at the end. Even worse ego can, in fact, even change your programming team into a nightmare if it is not deal with.

So, what can we do to prevent that?
In a team perspective, there is many articles out there for helping a team to avoid this problem. Most of them involves with the way to explain and compliment the team. Here is one guideline when you have to program as a team. How about what we can do for ourself as a personal improvement?
For me, I think the key is to avoid taking things personally. Well, this is easier to say than to do it.
Another effective way for me is to find and spend times with genius programmer, then, talk with him in the area he is specialized and realize that how stupid I am. At least, this helps me knowing that I’m not that good. Turn your ego into an inspiration to further expand your knowledge and becomes more opened to fruitful comments and advise.

Give it a try. Or if you have a better idea, I would love to hear it!

Note: I’m surprised when joining at Novaleaf though… Everyone are truly genius, yet, nice environment =)

- Chainan