In my recent blog posting "The Secrets to Becoming a Great Programmer" I discuss a couple of characteristics of great programmers. You can read about those characteristics at
The Secrets to Becoming a Great Programmer
What other characteristics make a programmer great? Do you agree with my assessment?
For: "Do not reinvent the wheel" and all replies.
My interest in RISC started in mid- to late 1990s. For me then, RISC is "reinventing the mill." Several implementations of the concept succumbed to technical, commercial, political, and other sorts of obstacles but the surviving architectures (with ARM not just surviving but highly successful) brought us new, previously inconceivable devices and a way of refining good old things. We should be grateful to all those who did not accept the status quo.