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Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

thenewstack.io

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Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#11

Post by rhapsodic »

ljw1001 wrote: post #5

10x programmers exist, but often it doesn’t matter. The only way one programmer is 10x better than the median of a team of solidly educated peers is in the very few extraordinarally difficult problems that require something like real genius. If there’s someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers it’s by avoiding other work that isn’t being tracked as carefully. Also, people who write less new…

> If there’s someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers it’s by avoiding other work that isn’t being tracked as carefully.

You can't possibly know that for a fact.

Oh, and "someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers" is not what 10x programmer refers to.

Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#13

Post by rhapsodic »

slededit wrote: post #3

This article is strange, they provide lots of counter evidence that in fact there are 10x programmers. They don't really provide any evidence for their thesis at all except to say the concept makes others feel bad, and that they are too rare to base hiring decisions around. Betteridge's law of headlines works here too as they later go on to say that being a jerk and a 10x programmer are unrelated concepts.

>This article is strange, they provide lots of counter evidence that in fact there are 10x programmers.

Yeah. It looks like the author laid out her views in the first sentence.

  > The myth of the 10x programmer persists, but the 
  > shine is wearing off.
"Myth" implies that they're non-existent, and "the shine is wearing off" implies that she doesn't much care for them whether or not they exist.

Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#14

Post by std_throwaway »

EliRivers wrote: post #2

This again. Here's something I churn out every time a 10x thread starts again. It has some references in it: A 2nd edition of Peopleware summarises it; the 10x programmer is not a myth, but it's comparing the best to the worst; NOT best to median. It's also not about programming specifically; it's simply a common distribution in many metrics of performance. The rule of thumb Peopleware states is that you can rely on…

In my view, being 10x highly depends on selecting the right problems. People usually can only breathe so much air or type so many words per minute. It's hard to get up to 10x if that's what you are measured by. But if you are challenged with a hard problem where most others will fail completely or barely succeed after several tries, you can really shine. It's very important that you can successfully select such hard problems and not get bogged down with the daily grind of average difficulty problems.

The downside is that if you solve hard problems without breaking any sweat, most people won't notice at all. In order to not only perform 10x but also get rewarded 10x you need additional skills of playing politics and marketing yourself.

Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#15

Post by std_throwaway »

rhapsodic wrote: post #11
ljw1001 wrote: post #5

10x programmers exist, but often it doesn’t matter. The only way one programmer is 10x better than the median of a team of solidly educated peers is in the very few extraordinarally difficult problems that require something like real genius. If there’s someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers it’s by avoiding other work that isn’t being tracked as carefully. Also, people who write less new…

> If there’s someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers it’s by avoiding other work that isn’t being tracked as carefully. You can't possibly know that for a fact. Oh, and "someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers" is not what 10x programmer refers to.

> You can't possibly know that for a fact.

That's the nature of this beast.

Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#17

Post by std_throwaway »

ljw1001 wrote: post #5

10x programmers exist, but often it doesn’t matter. The only way one programmer is 10x better than the median of a team of solidly educated peers is in the very few extraordinarally difficult problems that require something like real genius. If there’s someone on a team doing 10x more average code than his or her peers it’s by avoiding other work that isn’t being tracked as carefully. Also, people who write less new…

Probably because that project is just a lot of average difficulty work that has to be done.

Did your project ever run into obstacles where >50% of the previous work had to be thrown out?

Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#18

Post by std_throwaway »

rhapsodic wrote: post #13
slededit wrote: post #3

This article is strange, they provide lots of counter evidence that in fact there are 10x programmers. They don't really provide any evidence for their thesis at all except to say the concept makes others feel bad, and that they are too rare to base hiring decisions around. Betteridge's law of headlines works here too as they later go on to say that being a jerk and a 10x programmer are unrelated concepts.

>This article is strange, they provide lots of counter evidence that in fact there are 10x programmers. Yeah. It looks like the author laid out her views in the first sentence. > The myth of the 10x programmer persists, but the > shine is wearing off. "Myth" implies that they're non-existent, and "the shine is wearing off" implies that she doesn't much care for them whether or not they exist.

Donald Knuth's contributions are probably 3x of the average. You could easily hire three average computer scientists to do his work...

...or maybe there is something to the "myth" that some people contribute extraordinary achievements in a their field.

Re: Are You a 10x Programmer? Or Just a Jerk?

#20

Post by sunstone »

Hmmm a 10x programmer is not mostly programming at all. It's the guy who mitigates the technical risk of a project properly, chooses the most appropriate tools to complete the job and assembles a team to get it done.

A project that handles these tasks poorly can easily cost ten times as much as the same task executed well.

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