Wow, I am just impressed by the number of +50 year olds that still code and commented on this blog. I just turned 50 and still coding daily – and love it.
Kids, forget about the management track, you will just end up wiping other peoples bums 
Stick to coding and enjoy daily enlightenment - who needs levels!
There are only 2 levels of programmers:
The ones that open their code, and the ones that close it. In other words, the ones that give a shit and the ones that don’t. Success has nothing to do with money or fame.
You can go to the grave and take all your shit whit you, or you can pass it on. Who knows, maybe in 10 years someone comes up with a brilliant idea that converts shit into food, and thanks to your shit, hunger becomes history.
2 levels only. Successful, famous, working and average programmers mean shit to the people that have cancer or are starving to death.
But will you be sitting in front of your computer programming when you’re 50? October, so yes.
When you’re 60? If I don’t manage to get what I’ve heard called an FY fund together in the next 10 years, probably.
When you’re 70? I hope not.
Oh god, Chala.
Success has to do with how the individual defines success. If you require money and fame for success, then success has to do with money and fame. If you do not, then it does not. But successfulness is a contextual measure. Is DHH even rich? I don’t know. Obviously, it’s impossible to use well-known example people who are not famous, so complaints that the examples of successful people are famous is pretty much a non-starter.
Anyway, whether or not Jeff’s scale is valid, open and closed source has little-to-nothing to do with it. And random invocations of cancer and starvation make you a level 1 asshole on a scale of 8 types of asshole.
What about the ‘Infamous Developer’ - you know the ones that think they are famous and helpful, but really just start projects then never finish.
I’m somewhere at the bottom of the list 
Jeff has a knack for depressing me beyond measure. i have just now found out that after 8+ years of coding, that i’m incompetent and unworthy of the level one that so fits my current lifestyle or cyberstyle.
pitiful really. what if ones carrier path doesn’t lead down the path of coding but the will, love and urge to code is there? i code a lot in my free time and i’m conversant with all current coding standards and technologies. but those standards above, they don’t place me anywhere!
they also inspire me.
i take solace in that closing These levels aren’t entirely serious. Not every programmer aspires to the same things in their career.
Nice one Jeff congs on the leveling up to seven 
I’d replace Dead with Epic… or else, Holy Coder of St. Cuthbert
The best thing you can do with your programming talent is share it with others. Become a teacher or a mentor. Knowledge is wasted if it’s not shared.
I meant Dead Programmer figuratively, not literally.
As in people will remember you after you’re…
Sheesh.
Wow.
That confirms it. Coding Horror is dead.
Y’know, like, figuratively.
I agree with the Earlier comments where is Admirial">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper]Admirial Grace Murray Hopper?
B@@@er forgot the no html bit!!!
i worked for a while at a large software corp which had quite a good differentiation between the mgt. track and the programmer track.
for programmers it was something like:
not sure the names are right but these mapped directly to the management levels all the way up to svp.
On the topic of dead programmers, how about Phil Katz? He’s dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz
Anyway, whether or not Jeff’s scale is valid, open and closed source has little-to-nothing to do with it.
Open-source has nothing to do with it? Nothing to do with success? With cancer? You bunch of Visual Basic morons. Remember, while rock stars talk, programmers code. Keep reading blogs you uncivilized microsoft cockroaches.
Read, read, read!
http://www.informatics-review.com/open.html
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Jon Skeet yet given his micro-celebrity status on Stackoverflow
What about the Programmer who realized they can’t be programming all their life and decided to do the next best thing, become a systems analyst. That’s ME.
I rather be ‘successful’ in everything in life than just be a dead programmer, let alone famous programmer. Balance is key to life. It’s cliched but often missed by geeks. I mean no offense to geeks.
Hey, you forgot Programmer who blogs rather than programming
B@@@er forgot the no html bit!!!