1) You ship stuff often. Programming isn't useful unless someone besides you benefits.
2) The code you put into production is stable and doesn't require a lot of operational work (bugs)
3) Other people can understand your code easily and modify it when needed, without requiring long explanations from you
4) You can work with other programmers and use best practices they recognize, and you are also good at teaching these things
> Programming isn't useful unless someone besides you benefits.
I beg to differ. I did http://loup-vaillant.fr/projects/ussm/ only for myself. Its release, documentation, and the few external users multiplied its usefulness accordingly, but even if I didn't release it, it would still be useful.
