Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

antirez.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 321 posts

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#121

Post by jamesmontalvo3 »

mattmanser wrote: post #109
latch wrote: post #63

I don't understand how anyone can say 10x programmers don't exist. There are programmers who DRAIN value from projects and companies. The most insidious I've dealt with are people who assure everyone their part is going to be done on time, but come the deadline, they have nothing. I am today, a 10x better programmer than I was where I started. In terms of quality, complexity, efficiency, readability, maintainability,…

A 10X programmer is supposed to be 10x the average, not 10x the people who drain value. I've watched Notch program, and while he knows of lots of game related algos that I don't, he's not a magical snowflake and it'd take me no time at all to find those algos and implement them. There are huge swathes of the code he writes that I'd be comfortable writing at about the same speed. From experience solving other complex…

+1 complexity ceiling

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#122

Post by whatever_dude »

I started the week as an 1x programmer.

The lead on my current project micro manages every point of the code's architecture. I have no freedom to make any calls, even on legacy parts of the code that could be refactored to better fit new requirements. None of the other developers "own" anything so no one can make any calls. Anything takes a week or more to be discussed. Arbitrary non-obvious decisions have been made in the code base and it's up to you to figure them out. I am left fixing simple bugs and building things very slowly, treading very carefully rather than making it right. I am now a 0.8x programmer.

I look at my week's schedule. I see that I have a lot of meetings and checkups that, while important, are unrelated to my current project and will only take a chunk of my time and energy. I am now a 0.6x programmer.

I work in an open space office where terrible music is played through its sound system the whole day. I have a hard time focusing and staying focused. I am now a 0.4x programmer.

--

While I enjoyed the article, I think it overlooks the fact that a developer's efficiency is also often a factor of their environment (not just physical, but the project itself too). I've been 5x, I've been 0.1x, and the biggest contributing factor from project to project has been my environment. My experience and knowledge is also a factor, but this changed slowly, over time, while environment changes can mean I'll go from being super productive to very unproductive in a month. More managers and leads need to be aware of that.

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#123

Post by jacquesm »

Productivity is all about the choices that you make.

It's the essentially the same as optimizing a computer program: you can't make it do more work faster, you can only make it do less work.

And if 'less work' means the problem is solved anyway then you are a 'faster' programmer, even if you produce fewer lines of code than your 'slower' counterpart.

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#124

Post by jkdufair »

sametmax wrote: post #67
struppi wrote: post #13

Everything from the original post sounds reasonable, you should absolutely read it. Just some random thoughts to add to it: * For most of my past clients, the skill / output of their programmers was not the bottleneck, even though they thought so. As long as something is not a bottleneck, there's not point in trying too hard to optimize it (since you can get better ROI somewhere else). * Software is a team effort. Im…

Come on, Antirez is a x10 programmer, he coded one of the most brillant software of the last decade. It's so well done I use it as an example in my trainings, making people compile it to stop being afraid of building from source because I know it never fails and it's so damn simple. And programmer reading anything on his blog, or anything on HN for that matter, is not an average programmer anyway. The simple fact you…

"But the website will be online, serving customers"

..., frustrating them, leaking their data, and wasting their time.

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#125

Post by chimprich »

latch wrote: post #63

I don't understand how anyone can say 10x programmers don't exist. There are programmers who DRAIN value from projects and companies. The most insidious I've dealt with are people who assure everyone their part is going to be done on time, but come the deadline, they have nothing. I am today, a 10x better programmer than I was where I started. In terms of quality, complexity, efficiency, readability, maintainability,…

> I am today, a 10x better programmer than I was where I started.

When discussing this, I think it's important to be aware of the strong psychological bias that skews our perception of how we have improved ourselves over time. I expect you are a better programmer but people tend to significantly overestimate the extent of improvement.

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#126

Post by jansan »

struppi wrote: post #41
Ensorceled wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have definitely been involved in teams where removing the "top programmer" made everybody more productive. Usually, these developers are "10x programmers", in the sense that they write 10x the lines of code as the rest of the team, it's just all bad.

Yes, I have seen that too, but that's not what I was talking about. I have heard about a case where really the best programmer left, and now everybody else had more responsibility, had to learn about parts of the code they did not know previously, had to fix harder problems. So, everybody else was getting better because the one person who could help with the hard stuff was not there anymore. But I honestly can't reme…

That reminds me of "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. The transformation of Gregor Samsa (who was the family's the primary breadwinner) into an insect turns out to have a few unexpected benefits for the family. The develop self-confidence, regain health and skill, all that was lost because of their dependance on Gregor.

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#128

Post by pawadu »

yawz wrote: post #110
alexandercrohde wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider the notion that everyone has equal potential to be absurd. And I consider the notion that managers have much influence over an engineer's productivity to be absurd as well, other than potential downward pressure by being over-involved, inappropriate, distracting with meetings.

We shouldn't underestimate the impact that happiness, motivation and sense of purpose have on our lives. In terms of potential, I believe we all have a much closer level than our outputs or outcomes would let us believe.

also, OP already hinted that people who were considered to be 0.1x showed significant improvement when moved to a different team, showing that the environment can have a huge effect on you.

Just think about your own carrier and people who helped you in the very beginning. Without them, would be the 10x guy you are today? What if your mentor was instead a -10x idiot?

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#129

Post by stephen_g »

curiousDog wrote: post #28
DoubleGlazing wrote: post #17

I've worked with people who could be classed as almost a 10x programmer. Their code worked, but it was also incomprehensible to everyone else on the team. I have found that high-speed programmers tend to develop a very personalised workflow style. They do things their way, they code their way and forget that other people may have to maintain that code.

I've worked with some too and they've always needed another 10 junior engineers to clean-up and thoroughly test their code later on. In some big corps, that might not be such a bad thing. If it weren't for them, most projects would be stuck in so called "design-meetings" forever.

Your comment, like the parent comment, makes it sound like neither of you read the article...

The kind of developer you describe literally almost the complete opposite of what antirez was talking about!

Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity

#130

Post by sheepmullet »

kasey_junk wrote: post #89
latch wrote: post #63

I don't understand how anyone can say 10x programmers don't exist. There are programmers who DRAIN value from projects and companies. The most insidious I've dealt with are people who assure everyone their part is going to be done on time, but come the deadline, they have nothing. I am today, a 10x better programmer than I was where I started. In terms of quality, complexity, efficiency, readability, maintainability,…

I don't doubt that 10x programmers exist. What I doubt is that anyone is a 10x programmer all the time. Whether or not someone is contributing 10x output to a project is such a complex number of things both attributable to the person, their environment, life factors, their coworkers etc. I've seen programmers that were dead weight, moved to a different team and begin to flourish. I've seen programmers that on paper w…

> So sure, there are developers who are better than others, maybe even in non-linear ways, but so what?

The fastest way to kill high levels of productivity is to not value high levels of productivity.

Edit: And I believe there is a strong correlation between people who value high levels of productivity and people who can build highly productive work environments.

Post reply on HN