The programming talent myth

I won't argue against that but I have a problem with biz guys who try to evaluate what kind of a developer someone is.

I'll not judge that you don't have knowledge about the field or about code, so don't take this personally, but in my experience I've seen far too often some biz guys praise developers who are sloppy, developers who code unmaintainable stuff and which biz guys loves because they're always delivering, much of the time ahead of the schedule.

But when you tried to bring a team around what they built it was almost always code that was not able to be maintained by a team. When the original developer was long gone you had a team of 5 pretty good developers trying to figure what the hell is happening with that code, and biz guys demanding to change the team because the 50x developer had done so much in less time.

As I said, I'm not saying this personally as I don't know your background but if we are throwing anecdotes that's one I have from the top of my head, some praised hyper-productive coders are that way because they take shortcuts and some don't even know they've done it. I just think that the occurrence of really good and smart and productive developers is so low that I've yet to remember more than one that I've worked with in the last 10 years, I've worked with great people but I can remember only one who I can put in the bucket with a "great soft and hard skills, hyper productive and smart" label.

I guess the ability to overcome the urge to seize up is, itself, something one needs to acquire. There is little in my life that I'm afraid to attempt. Investigate a problem and break it down into its component parts, repeat ad nauseam. I know too many folks who just throw their hands up and don't even tackle it.

Now you also need to recognize when you're in over your head (in terms of knowledge, in terms of capital, etc). I could attempt many car repairs myself, but the time and capital required is typically prohibitive. Of course one would have to first make an attempt on the problem to make the analysis.

I think the main frustration is that the required minimum level for developing software in a team really is comparable with the skills required for working in a studio orchestra - not only at google but actually for working on any system above a certain size. Maybe not world class, but certainly rather good. In both cases, some "intrinsic" talent is probably required, and it helps to have a rock star or two to really get the team/orchestra to deliver.

One other factor is that most systems and programs of a certain size are actually quite hard to work with - the "average" may not be enough, driving costs and unnecessary complexity until the system spirals into it's own collapse and eventual replacement.

One problem is that while anyone can tell if someone is any good at playing the piano, it will probably take 6 month or more to discover who is 30x more productive at developing and maintaining software, or who will in fact destroy more value than they contribute in the long run.

It's safe to say that developing software requires more than the average level of "talent" that is available in the population, and possibly also among the profession.

I agree with most of what you said, except that perhaps the distribution is a little more complex than bimodal.

Perhaps it's multi-modal, with various discernible leaps in performance. (There's a big gap between "Green", "Good" and "Rock Star", so I think that there's at least 3)

>But that would mean that programming skill is somehow distributed on a U-shaped curve. Most people are at one end or the other, which doesn't make much sense.

But this is exactly the case! It's why Fizz Buzz exists: to determine if you're on the left leg or the right of the U-curve. (Or similar curve wherein people "suck at programming" or that they "rock at programming", without leaving any room for those in between. Everyone is either an amazing programmer or "a worthless use of a seat" [in a programming job]).

Why can't we accept that this is the nature of progrmaming?

Jobs wasn't a coder, and was on the left side of the U. Wozniak was and was on the right side.

Brian Chesky (airbnb co-founder) can't code, is on the left side of the U. Nathan Blecharczyk (another airbnb co-founder) can.

There is nothing exceptional about this distribution. You can have a ton of vision and product input, design input (as Brian did) without being on the right side of the U as a coder yourself.

On the other hand, perhaps all coders on the right side of the U are all awesome, which is why they command six figure salaries sooner out of college than other professions take to get a terminal degree in their field.