Certainly there exist truly incredible programmers. However, I think the modern internet tends to be a distorting lens highlighting them and their accomplishments. In real life programmers and other computer professionals seem… well, let’s just say that the words "gamma distribution" come to mind.

Saw this on a Linux irc channel this morning.

06:55 <A> i work with people that think if you change .xls to .txt then
                you just changed the file
06:56 <B> i'm dealing with a supposed IT department now that thinks about
                the same thing
06:56 <A> they also think that giving me a PDF instead of the raw data is
                in fact helping me out
06:57 <B> they are generating a "word XML document" which should have a
                .xml extension, but they call it .doc and pretend it's a binary
                doc format.  so my spam filter swats it down.
06:57 <C> where the heck do you work ?!
06:57 <B> why they have chosen the ridiculous word xml format, i do not
                know
06:58 <B> it's some reports generated by a 3rd party marketing company
06:59 <A> "can you guys handle our new fixed width format" "this isnt
                fixed width. it's comma delimited" "YES WE KNOW THAT! but can
                you work with it?"
06:59 <A> i should have just said yes no matter what since i dont even
                care what format it is
07:00 <D> i wonder how they survived for so long
07:00 <A> drugs
07:01 <A> we have a whole branch in another location that doesnt know how
                to handle tab delimited files.
07:01 <A> they call themselves "programmers" too