What should a good programmer know and be able to do?

Hi there! I would say that some of the basic requirements would be:

• Be able to solve problems creatively
• Be open to constructive criticism
• Take "detail-oriented" to the next level. In a discipline where a single space, punctuation mark, or misspelling can break everything this is extremely important
• Be willing to teach others. This reinforces your learning. To quote Richard Feynman "If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it "
• Be persistent. The solution is there somewhere.
• Read the documentation. You likely won't start off as friends with the documentation, but you will get there. It's an acquired taste... and then a necessity.
• The rest is just code

Hope this helps!

I can't quite remember were I got this from or the way it was worded. Maybe it was Uncle Bob and it was something along the lines of: your primary objective should be to write code a human can understand rather than (only) the machine. With that being said, code golf is quite funny!