I realized that, paradoxically enough, good programmers need to be both lazy and dumb. Lazy, because only lazy programmers will want to write the kind of tools that might replace them in the end.

Here’s a typical conversation from the lost land of web development:

- Since yesterday, our client can’t see the logo on the web site.”
- Did he restart his browser?
- Yes.
- Did he restart his computer?
- Yes.
- Did he empty his cache?
- Yes.
- Does he run Internet Explorer 6?
- Yes.
- Is he sure he can’t see it?
- Yes.
- Did he look at the web site on the screen?
- What?
- Well, he might have printed it out.
- No, he was looking on it on the screen.
- Did he also not see other images besides the logo?
- What? Well, I will ask him.
...

For the sake of argument (and this was entirely hypothetical) let’s say the client indeed turned off images in his browser. Or his son did. Whatever the case, this answer could not have been found if you would work in “smart” mode*. None of the questions asked by the programmer required any programming skills. No; simply because the problem is so stupid, only stupidity can tackle it.