"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief."
Granted, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was a nazi fuck and was talking about leadership, but I have found the best programmers are extremely lazy, however they have a constant drive to figure things out, take them apart, and put them back together again.
They also generally have a need in the same vein of "write programs so they don't have to do the work of copy pasting 100 times in the first place" even if they spend 4 hours figuring out to do that.
Granted, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was a nazi fuck and was talking about leadership, but I have found the best programmers are extremely lazy, however they have a constant drive to figure things out, take them apart, and put them back together again. They also generally have a need in the same vein of "write programs so they don't have to do the work of copy pasting 100 times in the first place" even if they spend 4 hours figuring out to do that.