As a programmer, recognizing the subjectivity of software development and embracing its inherent trade-offs is crucial to becoming an excellent programmer. Humility, caring about customers and their needs, obsessively revisiting fundamentals, valuing soft skills, and measuring code value are key indicators of programming excellence. While traditional metrics like SLOC or defects per SLOC have been flawed, newer approaches such as static code analysis can provide insights into coding quality. Ultimately, evaluating a programmer's skill is subjective and requires a nuanced understanding of the craft, with no single reliable way to measure programming ability.