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Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

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Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#41

Post by LBarret »

crag wrote: post #19
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

I love to write code. And it's about 20% of my job. As an engineer, I spend most of my time in design (and meetings). The code is the fun, relaxing part. Many times, I don't even write code; I "review" code. We have "grunts" (younger programmers, usually) who pump out code all day. They're are involved in design too, of course. But in a very limited way. But you know, I think all of this comes with age. If you 22 yea…

mmm... your comment has a good solid sound/vibe to it. I am curious where are you working ?

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#42

Post by Ygg2 »

okasaki wrote: post #12

page 10 of the slides says: > kill yourself now That's totally inappropriate no matter how funny you think you are.

Bill Hicks video about marketing was unbelievably funny, while pretty much say exactly that to marketing people for ten solid minutes.

I get there is probably some deeper reason behind your views. But I respectfully disagree.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#43

Post by derekp7 »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #2

The slides for those who prefer to skim through them before deciding if watching a 1-hour conference or not: https://github.com/tef/emfcamp2012/raw/master/programming_is...

Thanks -- the slides in the video are kind of hard to read.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#44

Post by steven2012 »

encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

I've been in the industry for >20 years. I've met 2 engineers/programmers that some would call the mythical 10x engineer. These are engineers that you can literally build your entire company on their shoulders because they do everything and they do everything with very few mistakes. The problem with the term is that everyone thinks they are 10x engineers, when they aren't. As I've mentioned, there were only 2 people I've met in 20+ years, so they are basically like unicorns.

One of them was the VP of Engineering for the startup I was working at. He was and continues to be brilliant. He was online almost every hour of the week/day and he was always working. He singlehandedly kept our site up by himself, and when he left, it literally took 5 engineers to replace the work that he did. His leaving left such an impact that the Engineering team almost disintegrated because of how much work we had to take on, and the lack of any truly great engineers to mentor the other engineers.

The other was a friend of mine who was the most productive coder I'd ever met. He would also work as hard as I've ever seen anyone work, and the code that he produced did things I've never seen people do since then. Tragically, he committed suicide 2 months ago, and it's heartbreaking. Probably the intensity to which he coded reflected on the intensity that he pursued every other thing in his life, and when things didn't work out his way, like his marriage, it probably hit him much harder than it would a regular person, who would be rightfully devastated.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#45

Post by engendered »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #13
rch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" There are still 10x equivalents though. For instance, a PhD MD that chairs a department at a major hospital, publishes significant research, participates in NIH or similar organisations, and still sees patients is going to be a very different sort of professional than your local GP. It's the notion that 10x applies only to NCLOC production that needs rethinking, so…

but those 10x equivalents are specialized, and there's absolutely a place for your local GP. Whereas every company is falling over themselves to hire the 10x programmer. A local GP is what you want for tracking your longitudinal health and being a personal interaction with the health care system for you. Not someone chairing a department & publishing research

Whereas every company is falling over themselves to hire the 10x programmer.

Is this true? I've been involved in a number of hires over the years where we quite specifically did not want a "10x programmer". We knew the position didn't pay enough, and had enough tiresome, non-novel work (e.g. building data processes for client data. Not big enough or interesting enough to be big data or technically challenging) that we simply wanted, in effect, a marginally competent chair warmer.

From seeing hiring and employment practices, this seems to be absolutely common across the industry.

Similarly there is another comment that opines that every programmer thinks they're a 10x programmer. Now maybe it's because I have a work history in places like financial firms and banks and insurance and telecom, rather than pure software or Google-esque, but this is absolutely untrue. I found that the vast majority of developers were simply careerists.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#46

Post by WalterBright »

encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

10x engineers do not work 10x harder or produce 10x code. What they do is write code that is 10x better, in that it has few problems, few design errors, does not have to be rewritten (at great cost), is more adaptable, maintainable, etc. They make the right decisions up front about the approach to make.

For example, they can select the right approach to concurrency for a particular problem, rather than spending much time later chasing concurrency bugs.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#47

Post by jldugger »

steven2012 wrote: post #44
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

I've been in the industry for >20 years. I've met 2 engineers/programmers that some would call the mythical 10x engineer. These are engineers that you can literally build your entire company on their shoulders because they do everything and they do everything with very few mistakes. The problem with the term is that everyone thinks they are 10x engineers, when they aren't. As I've mentioned, there were only 2 people…

> He was online almost every hour of the week/day and he was always working.

It's a lot easier to be a "10x engineer" when you work 2x-3x the hours everyone else.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#48

Post by Dewie »

tormeh wrote: post #25
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

>There are no [profession] blogging about "10x [profession]" for example. ... He said and about the profession with surely the highest concentration of arrogant and self-satisfied know-it-alls.

I wouldn't be surprised if surgeons feel like 10X'ers compared to general practitioners, in a sense (of course, a surgeon "being 10X as productive as a GP" doesn't make literal sense).

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#49

Post by frozenport »

jldugger wrote: post #47
steven2012 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in the industry for >20 years. I've met 2 engineers/programmers that some would call the mythical 10x engineer. These are engineers that you can literally build your entire company on their shoulders because they do everything and they do everything with very few mistakes. The problem with the term is that everyone thinks they are 10x engineers, when they aren't. As I've mentioned, there were only 2 people…

> He was online almost every hour of the week/day and he was always working. It's a lot easier to be a "10x engineer" when you work 2x-3x the hours everyone else.

Not many people can do that.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#50

Post by bcook »

sp332 wrote: post #31
bcook wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from a link titled "Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted" I expected some humor that may not be Politically Correct. Strangely, your response bothers me more than the quote. Could you not find anything positive to say?

For an industry with a very high rate of depression, and disproportionately populated by demographics where suicide is the #2 leading cause of death, it's a very inappropriate joke. Source: Men http://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/2011/LCOD_menallages2011.pdf and women http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/2011/WomenAll_2011.pdf

I have suffered from chronic depression for almost 20 years now, so I am sympathetic to your perspective. Most humor is "inappropriate" in my experience. So, inappropriateness seems VERY appropriate when attempting to be humorous... Hehe, go watch some stand-up by Louis CK, Richard Pryor, or George Carlin for example.
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