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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?

#21

Post by Felz »

It feels to me like if there are "10x programmers", they'd get dragged down by process and environmental mediocrity. In other words, they'd be subject to Amdahl's law: the programmer may be 10x, but the tech environment will still only be 1x. Assuming a 50/50 contribution, that caps the 10x programmer at 2x, where they will feel keenly how much they're underperforming their potential.

Breaking free of that environment probably looks like being a jerk. E.g. using languages and patterns nobody else knows, ignoring work they have no comparative advantage in (documentation, massaging people and bug reports), not writing as many unit tests, skipping peer review, writing harder to follow code, etc.

(By the way, would be very interested in places with a minimum of process)

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

#23

Post by TomMarius »

rhapsodic wrote: post #10
pkaye wrote: post #8

When we say 10x programmer, are we comparing to the worst or median skilled programmer?

> When we say 10x programmer, are we comparing to the worst or median skilled programmer? The worst.

I always saw 10x average, not worst. See: http://antirez.com/news/112 (first result on google after writing "10x developer")

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

#24

Post by rhapsodic »

TomMarius wrote: post #23
rhapsodic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we say 10x programmer, are we comparing to the worst or median skilled programmer? The worst.

I always saw 10x average, not worst. See: http://antirez.com/news/112 (first result on google after writing "10x developer")

>I always saw 10x average, not worst. See: http://antirez.com/news/112 (first result on google after writing "10x developer")

It's a pity that's the first result, because it's flat wrong. This article actually talks about the origin of the claim:

https://www.ybrikman.com/writing/2013/09/29/the-10x-develope...

I believe in 10x programmers, because I have known many programmers over the years, and I can think of many pairs where one was clearly 10x as productive as the other. And I think the reason there are 10x programmers is that our profession tolerates a lot of embarrassingly incompetent people. If someone were 10x as productive as an average developer, that would be truly extraordinary. But I don't see 10x programmers as all that extraordinary, because there are so many people who get paid to program but suck at it so bad, that being 10x as productive as they are is not all that impressive.

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

#25

Post by lgas »

rhapsodic wrote: post #10
pkaye wrote: post #8

When we say 10x programmer, are we comparing to the worst or median skilled programmer?

> When we say 10x programmer, are we comparing to the worst or median skilled programmer? The worst.

That doesn't make any sense since the worst programmers are negatively productive -- they cause more problems for the rest of the team than anything they produce could ever outweigh.

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

#26

Post by TomMarius »

rhapsodic wrote: post #24
TomMarius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always saw 10x average, not worst. See: http://antirez.com/news/112 (first result on google after writing "10x developer")

>I always saw 10x average, not worst. See: http://antirez.com/news/112 (first result on google after writing "10x developer") It's a pity that's the first result, because it's flat wrong. This article actually talks about the origin of the claim: https://www.ybrikman.com/writing/2013/09/29/the-10x-develope... I believe in 10x programmers, because I have known many programmers over the years, and I can think of many p…

While I agree, suddenly, there is a lot more 10x developers around me, and that doesn't feel right. I'll stick with my definition for my purposes, and thank you for telling me!

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

#28

Post by ljw1001 »

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.

I dumped the database of the bug-tracking and code review systems we used, and analyzed those, by developer, matching them up to the same kind of deep analysis of subversion commits i used to look at coding productivity. This was a 5 year project with something like 60 devs. So yeah, I can know that.

BTW, if you think I can know that, you also seem to think that it's ok to say someone is 10X better than someone else at something that can't be measured.

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

#29

Post by ljw1001 »

std_throwaway wrote: post #17
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?

Nearly all projects are just a lot of average difficulty work, by the definition of the word average.
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