You'd do that too if you had to present in front of a large group of Python developers. Calling them the center of the valley was a little over the top, though.
If true, it's especially interesting that Paul B. was the creator and lead developer of Gmail and that he corrected PG by stating that "GMail has become painfully slow" instead of "GMail is painfully slow" thereby humorously dissociating himself from the act of having developed something slow.
My apologies. I did not mean that you were being used. More that your friend did not have the option to come out publicly criticizing Google, but you were able to. Google is in the position of target of criticism lately just as Microsoft and many other large companies are, however by referring to your conversation with your friend in the same context, you lend credibility to the notion that perhaps some of the criticism was his.
PG seems down on Google from the initial statement that it may have peaked, to making fun of its search results as similar to the scientologist principle of "what's true is what's true for you" or something that makes you feel like you are being A-B tested, to Gmail being painfully slow. PG said he would pay $50/month for a good email replacement, and after just having talked about his friend at Google complaining of too much email and saying Gmail was slow, I think he was implying that Gmail needs to be replaced.
So, what interests me most about this is his mention of his friend at Google.
Matt Cutts (search engine God of Google) said "I’ll stop with a story. I have a friend at Google who is really good at noticing things that annoy him. While walking from his car to his desk in the morning, he can easily find six things that irritate him because they should be improved."
Matt says this is "his" friend, but is Matt Cutts PG's Google friend? This sounds very similar, and there is a hint of their relationship at the end of this article when PG got him to personally handle an issue with HN not being listed first in search results: http://getoffmyinternets.net/2011/11/25/paul-graham-knows-ho...
It's interesting that PG is pushing for someone to compete with Google though. It is almost like these comments were meant to be a public criticism of Google by his friend via PG rather than just to provide startup ideas.
I do not write tests for my code. I do not write very many comments. I change styles very frequently. And most of all, I shun the predominant styles of coding, because that would go against the very essence of experimentation. In short: all I do is muck around.
So, my way of measuring a great programmer is different from some prevailing thought on the subject. I would like to hear what Matz would say about this. You should ask him, seriously.
I admire programmers who take risks. They aren’t afraid to write dangerous or “crappy” code. If you worry too much about being clean and tidy, you can’t push the boundaries (I don’t think!). I also admire programmers who refuse to stick with one idea about the “way the world is.” These programmers ignore protocol and procedure. I really like Autrijus Tang because he embraces all languages and all procedures. There is no wrong way in his world.
Anyway, you say you want to become better. I mean that’s really all you need. You feel driven, so stick with it. I would also start writing short scripts to share with people on the Web. Little Ruby scripts or Rails programs or MouseHole scripts to show off. Twenty lines here and there, and soon people will be beating you up and you’ll be scrambling to build on those scripts and figure out your style and newer innovations and so on.