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1x Programming

tim.mcnamara.nz

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Re: 1x Programming

#161

Post by munificent »

rtlfe wrote: post #152
munificent wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making an assumption here that menial or dirty jobs are always unrewarding, but that's not my experience. I've met many people doing the kind of jobs you describe who find it satisfying. They may love using their hands, making the world a little cleaner, helping others, or just like their coworkers. Some say they like the simplicity of a job where it's easy to tell when you did it well and you never ne…

There's a huge difference between "find it satisfying" and "love what you do."

I think there's a smooth continuum between "hate what you do" and "love what you do" and "find it satisfying" is closer to the love than hate end.

No one loves their job every moment of it and even the most rewarding job has challenges, stress, and drudgery.

Re: 1x Programming

#162

Post by gernb »

mirceal wrote: post #57
gernb wrote: post #41

Something that came up recenty for me. I took a job at FAANG company and my productivity from my POV sucks! I doubt I've written more than 2k lines of code in 9 months! I'm debugging hardware/driver issues in a giant code base (~250k files) that I don't know and APIs I've not used before. Conversely, in my own hobby code I wrote ~2k lines in the last 10 days. It makes me wonder how often 10x is about circumstance vs…

the number of lines you write is almost irrelevant. People need to put the equal sign between lines of code written and productivity. Some of the most awesome and productive people I've worked with actually removed more code than they wrote. Code is a liability. There is no code like no code. Focus on the problem not the number of lines of code

I suppose it was my bad for using lines-of-code as a metric. What meant to convey is I feel like I've done the same amount of work in 10 days on hobby projects as 9 months on work projects.

The difference to me is the hobby project is 100% my code and relatively small (25k lines total, 2k lines in last 10 days). Vs the work project which is 1000+ developers, no idea how many lines but at least 250k files.

So, my point is, is it possible that often (not always) 10x programmers are preceived to be 10x because they are in a situation that allows them to be productive (maybe a smaller code base, maybe a code base they are super familiar with, maybe a new project so new code meaning it's their code, no someone else's) etc...

Re: 1x Programming

#163

Post by bumby »

jjav wrote: post #116
angarg12 wrote: post #25

I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes. My principles for a 1x programmer: * Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself. * 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects…

> Some will argue that one could never be a good developer following those principles. I'll argue those people need a reality check based on how things work in every other profession. My dentist is a great dentist but she works 8am-3pm and most decidedly does not spend an additional 8 hours slogging through leettooth exercises on topics barely realated to the practice of dentistry. My friend is a respected surgeon, b…

>completely disconnecting is the mark of a professional.

Slight nitpick, but this is the mark of a person with a vocation. A "professional" answers to a higher ethical calling. The name derives from "professing" an oath; for example, for a doctor to "do no harm" or an engineer to work in the public good. This can occur within a 9-5 window, but I would expect that, if needed, a professional would put their oath above clock hours if it was in conflict.

Re: 1x Programming

#164

Post by chii »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #158
systemvoltage wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always raise a question (especially in a meeting where your entire team is present): “What’s driving the deadline?” And then let your boss fumble if they are making things up, aka arbitrary deadlines.

“because I say so” and now you are never getting promoted

which is just fine, it simply means you now have a very solid reason to look for a different place with a better boss that understands what it means to plan a project and deliver value.

Re: 1x Programming

#165

Post by mlady »

bumby wrote: post #163
jjav wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some will argue that one could never be a good developer following those principles. I'll argue those people need a reality check based on how things work in every other profession. My dentist is a great dentist but she works 8am-3pm and most decidedly does not spend an additional 8 hours slogging through leettooth exercises on topics barely realated to the practice of dentistry. My friend is a respected surgeon, b…

> completely disconnecting is the mark of a professional. Slight nitpick, but this is the mark of a person with a vocation. A "professional" answers to a higher ethical calling. The name derives from "professing" an oath; for example, for a doctor to "do no harm" or an engineer to work in the public good. This can occur within a 9-5 window, but I would expect that, if needed, a professional would put their oath above…

I would argue the other way around. A "professional" gets paid for a job, full stop. A "vocation" derives from "to call", or someone's "calling", as in someone's purpose in life.

Maybe our etymology is what sets us up for work-life imbalance :)

Re: 1x Programming

#166

Post by strken »

The link for "nobody is born a better programmer" sets off my bullshit radar.

> The most powerful evidence for this comes from Patitsas et al ... They examined grade distributions in introductory computing courses at a large university and found that only 5.8% were actually multimodal.[0]

So people may or may not be born better programmers, the link doesn't tell us whether they are, and the most evidence they can find to support their position is that grades in 5.8% of introductory classes are multimodal, which has nothing to do with whether people are born better or worse programmers.

[0] https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371%2F...

Re: 1x Programming

#167

Post by zmmmmm »

ravedave5 wrote: post #103
chrisweekly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: apparently contra DeMarco and Lister, I'd argue that "the worst" are often outright detrimental to a team or project. Which in turn makes me question the "math".

I'll never forget having a negatively productive programmer on my team. If he spent an hour on a PR it would take 1.5+ hours of work to get the PR into shape to merge by other people because it took so much explaining for this guy. It was usually better to just scrap his code and start over. If code of his did slip through reviews often times there would be production defects that would then take more time to solve (…

Just be thankful there is a process to get the PR's into shape.

My worst experience is someone who was highly prolific at creating enormous amounts of tech debt without the process in place to block it. We are still only about 50% through working off this giant stack of tech debt 2 years later.

Re: 1x Programming

#168

Post by astrange »

Aperocky wrote: post #78
cracrecry wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle behind being a 10x programmer is not working more, but working less and using tools that multiply you. The 10x dominates the tools ( and techniques and people and capital) that multiply her. If you have a car you can easily and consistently go 10x faster that walking pace. The same applies for your job. Working on a given company, with access to capital and people and tools can multiply you.

10x is a really bad term, it tries to quantify a difference without a baseline. The difference isn't in quantity, but imo rather in mentality. Relentlessly automating repeatable tasks can net 100x or 2x or 0.5x depending on context, but something that don't happen often enough.

10x implies there should be an opposite of a 10x, but it's unclear if that'd be a negative number or a 0.1x.

Re: 1x Programming

#169

Post by Xeronate »

vlunkr wrote: post #148
klipt wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend is a respected surgeon, but when he clocks out of the hospital he goes cycling and to the beach. But to become a surgeon, he probably had to put in ridiculous hours for years as a med student and then resident. Going through that gauntlet is what earned him the reasonable hours and good pay, by reducing his competition. Similarly the people doing leetcode are doing it to stand above the competition and ma…

> Basically the general rule is if you desire above average money, you have to put in above average effort at some point in your career. My (probably cynical) take is that most SV devs are also 1x. You make the big bucks not just by being a 10x dev, but by some combination of going to the right schools, making the right connections, learning how to negotiate and when to look for new jobs, learning to jump through the…

Jumping through big tech interview hoops is the most correct part of your statement and it invalidates the idea that you ned to go to the right school or have the right connections. And for what it's worth, the average FAANG developer I've worked with has been much better than my colleagues at prior companies.

Re: 1x Programming

#170

Post by mbrodersen »

drBonkers wrote: post #97
cracrecry wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle behind being a 10x programmer is not working more, but working less and using tools that multiply you. The 10x dominates the tools ( and techniques and people and capital) that multiply her. If you have a car you can easily and consistently go 10x faster that walking pace. The same applies for your job. Working on a given company, with access to capital and people and tools can multiply you.

What are the tools to multiply yourself in a software development setting?

Removing complexity and making the solution super simple can easily make you 10x or 100x more productive.
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