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You're Not a 10x Programmer

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Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#31

Post by havegl »

chakkepolja wrote: post #30

Even after seeing some programmers like bellard and DJB achive 100x of that of a normal programmer, random web developers on hacker news and reddit continue doing mental gymnastics to prove all programmers are equal, maybe doing webshit in react is, after all, above science.

You are no longer allowed to be a 10x in public. In some OSS projects you have to repeatedly humiliate yourself so the gang of 0.5x programmers running the show don't stage a struggle session.

It is to some extent a product of the Maoist cultural revolution we are in.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#32

Post by furstenheim »

geoduck14 wrote: post #3

I'm not a 10x. Ok, I'll concede that point. I'll be average for this conversation. I know people who can just solve problems . If it takes me all day to solve something, I'll reach out to Ken and he'll say "oh, check this setting. It is probably X". Dennis has seen so many problems, he knows how I've tried to solve them and the solutions before I've finished describing what is going on. If these guys solve something…

> 'just solve problem'

Exactly that. If one developer cannot solve a problem and the other does. Is that InfinityX programmer?

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#33

Post by eurasiantiger »

peakaboo wrote: post #23
geoduck14 wrote: post #3

I'm not a 10x. Ok, I'll concede that point. I'll be average for this conversation. I know people who can just solve problems . If it takes me all day to solve something, I'll reach out to Ken and he'll say "oh, check this setting. It is probably X". Dennis has seen so many problems, he knows how I've tried to solve them and the solutions before I've finished describing what is going on. If these guys solve something…

I'm a 10x human being. I don't feel pressure to be anything from any outside person. Highly recommended to learn that and grow yourself as a human, not as a programmer. Nothing you build today will even remain a couple of years down the line. It doesn't matter if you are 10x or not. What we do is completely meaningless anyway. :)

> Nothing you build today will even remain a couple of years down the line

Speak for yourself.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#34

Post by BossingAround »

57844743385 wrote: post #17

I’ve know several programmers who I would consider to be 10X. You get an X multiplier when you have a lot of experience with the programming language. You get an X multiplier when you’ve built lots of similar things. You get an X multiplier when you understand related technologies in depth. You get an X multiplier when you really understand how the computer works. You get an X multiplier when you really understand th…

Comically, this comes to the total of 11X, which is about as helpful in describing a person as every one of the described points in isolation.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#35

Post by Zababa »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #28
hvasilev wrote: post #12

Don't tell me what I am and what I am not. People understand the "Olympics" in terms of sport, but they don't understand the exact same logic when applied to a craft. If you start early, if you focus on incrementally improving and you spend a very long time perfecting your craft, you can be a very, very productive programmer. I have no idea why, but I'm seeing more and more people doing these kind of articles. I susp…

To continue the olympic metaphor, those medals are handed out for very specific subsets of skills, not even just runner vs swimmer, but specific distances, specific techniques or variants. While 'olympic-level athlete' contains some level of meaning to me, I feel it is similarly vague enough that you wouldn't know whether a random athlete would be better than average at a random olympic sport. There's probably some c…

To continue on what you said, some people are going to be 10x programmers on a specific codebase, and go back to average programmer when they start a new job. Some will become a 10x in a year, some will still be average after 5 years.

One thing that I've observed is that productive programmers seem to more often "just do things". For example, when impelmenting a feature, instead of thinking about the feature and a potential refactor at the same time, experimenting a bit about how it could look, they'll just implement the feature, so they are done with their task, and then see from here if the refactor is needed.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#37

Post by Zababa »

smdz wrote: post #29
geoduck14 wrote: post #3

I'm not a 10x. Ok, I'll concede that point. I'll be average for this conversation. I know people who can just solve problems . If it takes me all day to solve something, I'll reach out to Ken and he'll say "oh, check this setting. It is probably X". Dennis has seen so many problems, he knows how I've tried to solve them and the solutions before I've finished describing what is going on. If these guys solve something…

I have been called a 10xer (aka magician/one-man-army/genius/R2D2/etc..) quite a few times in my programming career. Sometimes I have felt that to be true but most times I just feel like a 1x. Many years ago, one junior programmer asked me "How do you do it?". And I answered - "Trust your intuition". I realized later it was a "dumb" answer - but few years later I have realized the following (this may not be true for…

> If I find somebody solving a problem quickly when I am stuck (which in itself is a rare, because I tend seek help quite late), I typically ask questions on what they were thinking. May even dig into their mindset (to their discomfort) like a psychologist.

As someone new on a big codebase, with lots of collegues with lots of experience, this part is really important. I try to not ask questions too early, but when I do, I make sure to try to dig a bit deeper. I ask other questions, about how it relates to other things I've learned. All of that help me build my understanding of the codebase, of the business, of the company and the people inside it quickly.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#38

Post by Zababa »

chakkepolja wrote: post #30

Even after seeing some programmers like bellard and DJB achive 100x of that of a normal programmer, random web developers on hacker news and reddit continue doing mental gymnastics to prove all programmers are equal, maybe doing webshit in react is, after all, above science.

I think the case of Fabrice Bellard is one where working on building the tools instead of the product gives you a way bigger reach. For example, if you're doing webshit react in a company, if you spend time automating the testing infrastructure instead of producing yet another feature, you'll have a disproportionated impact compared to the person that worked on the feature. Of course Fabrice Bellard is still way better than the average developer, by a very large margin. But you can improve your "output" without getting better, just by picking the right problems.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#39

Post by panny »

I'm pretty sure 10x programmer was 10x the worst programmer, not 10x the average programmer. The average was something like 4x.

http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~weimerw/481/readings/productivity...

>3.2 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

>These studies revealed large individual differences between high and low performers, often by an order of magnitude.

They also detail how they measured it.

Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer

#40

Post by purplecats »

pkolaczk wrote: post #13
idiocrat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Ken has already had spent 80 hours on a similar problem-solving, so this is why he got a smell of your problem. For you it looks like magic, because you went no same paths. If you would spend 80 or 800 hours on some topic you will also become an expert "the Ken".

Some people are curious and constantly learning new things. Some people don't and just do the same stuff over and over again. So the fact some people are more experienced than the others even after spending the same number of years in the industry is actually on them, it's their achievement. I've seen a few situations where an "experienced" team of developers struggled to solve a problem for weeks and eventually an o…

> Some people are curious and constantly learning new things.

the implication seems a bit disingenuous as if the curiosity and constant learning only counts if it is towards computer science.

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