Every blogger I read claims to have superior coding skills, and every place I have worked claims only to hire superior developers. In my current position and in my prior one, my employers say they interviewed more than twenty candidates to fill each position.
If that's so, where are the average coders?
I heard one theory - they are all unemployed! And they keep trying to get jobs but they can't. So interviewers have a skewed sampling of coders.
I will confirm that in my current and previous position i have worked with much better developers than I had previously.
But I wonder. I have learned so much in the last year (WCF, TDD, LINQ, PLINQ, Ruby, statistical modeling techniques with third party tools, Dundas charting, advanced NAnt builds, Webparts development, Appistry fabric development, Map-Reduce algorithms, etc.) - perhaps if I were to meet my former self from a year ago I would consider myself an average programmer.
My sense is that all coders are improving by leaps and bounds each year.
And that most of us have an inflated opinion of our own coding skills.
What do you think?
Interested in your thoughts,
Jonathan