It's worth pointing out that the research found a 10x _spread_ between the least-productive and most-productive engineers - a '10xer' isn't someone who does ten times more than the average, so it becomes less mythical if you think about someone who does, e.g. 2x more than average in an organization with a few burned out engineers doing 20% of the average.
The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
31–40 of 227 posts
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#3210X programmers DO exist. They aren't just a myth, and they aren't just about knowing when to buy vs build, or when to use a particular framework or toolkit, or how to "mentor" other developers. Chris Sawyer wrote 99% of the code for RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language, with the remaining one percent written in C. RollerCoaster Tycoon was a beautiful game which still stands the test of time to this day. The…
I agree they exist. The article does too, at the end: ...highly productive developers (10x or otherwise) are problem-solving at a much higher level. Their productivity won’t be apparent from a narrow test, any more than the overall skill of a world-class football player would be apparent from (say) how fast they could run the 100m dash. The most productive developers are solving big problems, and are bringing judgmen…
I think you're missing the point of the comment you're replying to. Yes there are developers who are more productive by working at a meta-level above normal, but there are also people who are just 10x more efficient at actual coding. Those are distinct concepts that may or may not overlap.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#33I remember one programmer that I characterised with "He writes a lot of code". I ended up with one of his not small routines that I replaced with a one page assembler routine in MVS NIP rather than OPEN.
When reworking printing software to support multi color, I researched a commonly used subroutine though several layers of calls and replaced it with, yes, a single character constant.
I lost count of the many legacy applications where I tossed out great gobs of code produced by "productive" programmers.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#3410X programmers DO exist. They aren't just a myth, and they aren't just about knowing when to buy vs build, or when to use a particular framework or toolkit, or how to "mentor" other developers. Chris Sawyer wrote 99% of the code for RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language, with the remaining one percent written in C. RollerCoaster Tycoon was a beautiful game which still stands the test of time to this day. The…
Not to diminish the achievement, but worth noting I think that RollerCoaster Tycoon was based on his earlier Transport Tycoon engine, so at least he did get to split the work up between two projects. I have a personal theory the that the average 10x programmer is say 2.5x smarter than average, but also 4x more focused on work, netting a 2.5x4=10x total when you remove all the procrastination and general fumbling arou…
That 4x more focused means "it ain't me, coz right now I'm commenting on HN" ...
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I can understand the "10x programmer" back when fizzbuzz was still being asked of CS graduates. Not anymore.
To be honest, I didn't know that one... I just did basic double division the first time I saw it (into a float and compared it against an int casted back to a float). Someone in the interview room asked my if I remembered modulo and I was like 'oh yea, it gives you the remainder'
That operator's one I've used more on puzzles than in real life, where I've used it few enough times in 15ish years that I could count them on one hand. I think it only sticks in my mind because, for whatever reason, it was taught early and with some emphasis in a Perl book I read when I was starting out. If not for that I could well fail to come up with a reasonably "correct" solution to FizzBuzz.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#36The concept of the 10x programmer seems to have been drifted from its original meaning. It isn't that there's a coder that is 10x better than a good coder. It is that a lot of people are really bad at their jobs, and a coder that thinks and learns about problems can be far better than those people. It comes from terrible "corporate drone" software developers in the 80s and 90s - the ones that would takes weeks to dev…
It's pretty obvious that there are coders who can do the work of - all of the work of, and better than - a team of 50 talented programmers.
For example when Linus wrote git he singlehandedly outprogrammed every team of version control vendors. He was a 50x programmer. (If not more.)
This is a real literal example without exaggeration.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to diminish the achievement, but worth noting I think that RollerCoaster Tycoon was based on his earlier Transport Tycoon engine, so at least he did get to split the work up between two projects. I have a personal theory the that the average 10x programmer is say 2.5x smarter than average, but also 4x more focused on work, netting a 2.5x4=10x total when you remove all the procrastination and general fumbling arou…
That 4x more focused means "it ain't me, coz right now I'm commenting on HN" ...
Exactly!
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#3810X programmers DO exist. They aren't just a myth, and they aren't just about knowing when to buy vs build, or when to use a particular framework or toolkit, or how to "mentor" other developers. Chris Sawyer wrote 99% of the code for RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language, with the remaining one percent written in C. RollerCoaster Tycoon was a beautiful game which still stands the test of time to this day. The…
Not to diminish the achievement, but worth noting I think that RollerCoaster Tycoon was based on his earlier Transport Tycoon engine, so at least he did get to split the work up between two projects. I have a personal theory the that the average 10x programmer is say 2.5x smarter than average, but also 4x more focused on work, netting a 2.5x4=10x total when you remove all the procrastination and general fumbling arou…
Environment and control (true ownership) can easily turn 1x into 10x, I'd say. Not saying I could churn out Rollercoaster Tycoon but I bet I'd look, by every metric both reasonable and unreasonable, a hell of a lot more productive working on a game solo with 100% control of all decisions and not having to fret about having something to report in standup every day versus... normal work.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#39> highly productive developers (10x or otherwise) are problem-solving at a much higher level This is a very important point, but calling these highly productive developers "10x" doesn't really make sense. They are more like "infinity times" compared to the average when it comes to getting a difficult task done, since the average developer would just get stuck and never be able to invent good designs and solve the dif…
Yes, it's this simple. The important point is that some things are just beyond the ability of average programmers, let alone, bad programmers.
There are some things that only top programmers are able to actually finish before the end of the universe.
Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer
#40The concept of the 10x programmer seems to have been drifted from its original meaning. It isn't that there's a coder that is 10x better than a good coder. It is that a lot of people are really bad at their jobs, and a coder that thinks and learns about problems can be far better than those people. It comes from terrible "corporate drone" software developers in the 80s and 90s - the ones that would takes weeks to dev…
Agreed. I've never encountered someone that I think is genuinely a 10x programmer. I've worked with a few people that thought I was one, which I'm most certainly not, and I've explained that to them. I've encountered a lot of what I would call .2x programmers though. As you've said, there are a lot of people that are really bad at the job. It's not a slight either - there are a lot of people doing this job that reall…
If youve encountered a lot of 0.2x, then the 2x developer is the 10x developer you are looking for!