If you're willing to restrict the flexibility of your approach, you can almost always do something better

Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn't take it away from you. I'm happy to share what I can, because I'm in it for the love of programming.

An interesting question: is it easier to motivate a learned individual that never does anything, or educate an ignorant individual that actually produces things?

Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the whole process.

The situation is so much better for programmers today - a cheap used PC, a linux CD, and an internet account, and you have all the tools necessary to work your way to any level of programming skill you want to shoot for.

The Xbox 360 is the first console that I've ever worked with that actually has development tools that are better for games than what we've had on PC.

Honestly, I spend very little time thinking about past events, and I certainly don't have them ranked in any way. I look back and think that I have done a lot of good work over the years, but I am much more excited about what the future holds.