@Developer Dude

A professional needs to be aware that they can make mistakes, and know how to mitigate them. For example, with unit tests and code reviews. Believing that you are infallible is certainly an unprofessional attitude.

But a professional does also need to be good at their job, and have the confidence to use their expertise. I feel that constantly saying, “I suck at everything”, however tongue in cheek the intention, does not inspire confidence, either in yourself or others.

@james L

"then you didn't read his post about surgeons a few days ago"

You mean the quote from this article?

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/08/02/1999_08_02_057_TNY_LIBRY_000018760?currentPage=all

Don’t see anything in that about neurosurgeons knowing everything they do sucks. There’s the quoted part that says that the best surgeons are those that admit to making mistakes, and not blaming them on outside factors. As I've said before I agree completly that professionals need to admit they make mistakes, and try to avoid them. But the article then goes on to say, “What this attitude drives you to do is practice over and over again, until even the smallest imperfections are ironed out.”

Note, it doesn’t say it drives them to try to suck a little less next time.

Another quote from the article,

This is the hard part about understanding physical genius, because the source of that special skill—that "feel"—is still something of a mystery. "Sometimes during the course of an operation, there'll be several possible ways of doing something, and I'll size them up and, without having any conscious reason, I'll just do one of them," Wilson told me. [...] When he talks about his extraordinary success as a surgeon, he gives the impression that he is talking about some abstract trait that he is neither responsible for nor completely able to understand. "It's sort of an invisible hand," he went on. "It begins almost to seem mystical. Sometimes a resident asks, 'Why did you do that?' and I say"—here Wilson gave a little shrug—" 'Well, it just seemed like the right thing.'

"In fact, that's the tipping point between amateurs and professionals in our industry: the professionals realize everything they write sucks."

If that were true then it would be a very sad reflection on our industry. I cannot think of any other industry that would regard knowingly being incompetent as a definition of professionalism.

Yes, of course, Jeff never means what he says. Yes when he says that he knows that everything he writes sucks, he really means not everything he writes is perfect; it’s just a slight exaggeration for comic effect (or trolling, I’m never sure).

But in this case, it doesn’t matter. It’s not what Jeff intends that is the problem, it’s what it implies about our industry. The problem is that most people outside the industry already think that everything we do sucks. Anybody can claim to be a professional developer, and most of them do suck all the time, and as long as we emphasise our incompetence (however tongue-in-cheek we know we are being) it’s difficult to convince anyone that there are developers who take a pride in their work, and are capable of writing code that does not suck, I cannot see this attitude changing.

Again, I cannot think of any professional who would say that they suck, even as a joke, because such jokes are not professional.

@Developer Dude

“Oh, and BTW, it takes a lot of confidence in ones self to admit they 'suck', even if it is only self-deprecating humor.”

Possibly. I think it really depends on context.

If you genuinely do suck at everything, then admitting it takes a lot of confidence – but if you do suck at your job, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but maybe you’re in the wrong job.

If you’re brilliant at your job, then it takes a lot of confidence to say you suck, because you are hoping that everyone knows how good you really are and will immediately see how brilliant your joke was. But it’s quite likely your confidence is misplaced.

If, as is most likely, you’re somewhere in between – you know you don’t suck at everything, but do make mistakes – then saying you suck suggests a lack of confidence. Either you genuinely believe everything you do sucks – you lack self-esteem, or you are being self-deprecating in a way that is intended to lower peoples expectations. When you do a half-decent job, people will congratulate you for not sucking, rather than ask why you didn’t do a fully decent job.

@CrotchRocket

Pay attention. If Jeff knows this blog sucks, he's a professional blogger. If he doesn't know it sucks, he's an amateur.

@Adam

"We're invalidated every year. Every time our language is updated, we're offically outdated, like a MS language. A new VB.NET comes out every couple years. Don't know the latest .NET framework inside and out? You're gone. You're worthless."

This is a good point, but is not true of all programmers.

I suspect (i.e. this is a wild guess) that the majority of programmers are using C\C++ and other languages that haven't changed significantly for decades. Also, I don't think it should be _that_ hard for a professional to learn a new version of a language every couple of years. The language is just our tool, and other professions do have to learn to use new tools from time to time.