Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
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Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
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Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#2The whole 10X thing (which sounds like some superhero myth or whatever) is much simpler then we sometimes want to believe.
The work we do is not that unique. While often it will not be identical, but will share a lot in common. We learn what worked in the past in similar situation, and apply it successfully in the future.
That's it. Bottom line, experience matters a lot.
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#3There are 10X programmers.
I'll give an example. If you take an average programmer and "the best of the best" and ask them to build a relatively complex iOS app, of which neither has previous iOS experience, the best programmers WILL finish the task up to 10x faster than the average.
This is because the average programmer gets stuck on bugs, solving problems, complexity, and is slower at learning new things. The better programmer has a combination of skills that allows him/her to do the correct research and solve the problem at a much faster space. The rate of which grows as the complexity of the task increases. Thus reaching 10X.
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#4[deleted]
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#5Completely agree on this. I don't believe in innate talent. I believe we are all born with the same willpower to acquire knowledge. Some people will be ok with not mastering any specific skill as long as it does the job. Others who are "passionate" about certain fields or skills will try to learn as much as possible. So "passion" is a better word to define people's skills.
I'm in the latter category, many people ask me sometimes how do I know so much about so different skills: from networking, security and system programming to web development UIs and design. The truth is I just spend so much time reading and practicing stuff that would seem boring to most developers around me. I spend nights trying to learn this new framework which seemed interesting enough to dig into it, and once I learn to use it, I want to know "HOW". How does it work, which problem does it solve ... and I think only passionate people can do this.
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#6I fell into a role once that was unquely tailored to my experience. To paraphrase, I spent years studying and playing with parsing technologies, and parsing legacy languages for static analysis (these were my side projects). I took a job that required a lot of screen scraping (not really but close) at which I excelled. Blew everyone away when I turned around a project in two weeks. The same type of project took their devs three months on average. To them I imagine I seemed like a 10x'er. They didn't know I'd been writing parsers for fun, for years before that.
An example similar to this would be Brendan Eich writing Javascript in 10 days, when he'd been doing language implementations for fun.
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#7There are 10X programmers. I'll give an example. If you take an average programmer and "the best of the best" and ask them to build a relatively complex iOS app, of which neither has previous iOS experience, the best programmers WILL finish the task up to 10x faster than the average. This is because the average programmer gets stuck on bugs, solving problems, complexity, and is slower at learning new things. The bett…
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Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#8There are 10X programmers. I'll give an example. If you take an average programmer and "the best of the best" and ask them to build a relatively complex iOS app, of which neither has previous iOS experience, the best programmers WILL finish the task up to 10x faster than the average. This is because the average programmer gets stuck on bugs, solving problems, complexity, and is slower at learning new things. The bett…
The scientific evidence [0] compares to "worst" for 10X, not "average".
[0] http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_...
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#9Completely agree on this. I don't believe in innate talent. I believe we are all born with the same willpower to acquire knowledge. Some people will be ok with not mastering any specific skill as long as it does the job. Others who are "passionate" about certain fields or skills will try to learn as much as possible. So "passion" is a better word to define people's skills. I'm in the latter category, many people ask…
Over 12 years, if you study & practice an extra 2 hours per day you will have studied the equivalent of 365 days for 24 hours per day, or 1095 days at 8 hours per day. That's about a whole bachelors degree worth of study. That's not even including normal work study and practice.
Now, if you get 10 fresh out of school people who also did not study growing up VS someone who has been doing this for 12 years, and who was also a hacker in their youth I know who I'd bet on!
Re: Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers
#10There are 10X programmers. I'll give an example. If you take an average programmer and "the best of the best" and ask them to build a relatively complex iOS app, of which neither has previous iOS experience, the best programmers WILL finish the task up to 10x faster than the average. This is because the average programmer gets stuck on bugs, solving problems, complexity, and is slower at learning new things. The bett…
The scientific evidence [0] compares to "worst" for 10X, not "average". [0] http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_...
In that case, there are "InfiniteX" programmers. The worst programmers will get stuck on complex problems and may never complete the task without help. It all depends on the task.
And I say "average" programmer because average is fairly bad if you look at the workforce on a global scale.