Busting the 10x software engineer myth • Hacker News Board

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#321

Post by kragen » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #291

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your case of Carmack is illustrative. To achieve 100x, consider what he was doing: - writing a first person shooter (Castle Wolfenstein 3d) - writing a first person shooter (Doom) - writing a first person shooter (Quake) ... you get the idea. Now, there was enormous leaps in maximal utilitilization of hardware, but do you notice a pattern? The requirements are basically fixed. Most 10x I've achieved in a short fashio…

Commander Keen was the first side scrolling platformer for PC (side scrolling was hardware accelerated on consoles, so PC games didn't have it before this) and released 1991. Wolfenstein 3d was the first fps and released 1992. Both of those were revolutionary and combined is more than enough to put him way above most other game programmers at the time. And you know, at the time he didn't have any experience! That was…

Mazewar was the first FPS, but Wolf3D was a totally different class of game, and every FPS since then has been an imitation of Wolf3D. Agreed about CKeen.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#322

Post by deltree7 » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 12:13 AM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #280

deltree7 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude Shannon, Dennis Ritchie, Vitalik Buterin, Jeff Dean are all 10x programmers. Let's not pretend they dont exist

10x what? As far as I'm aware, Shannon wasn't even a programmer. I'm sure Ritchie was pretty good at coding in the language he invented; AIUI, that language is pretty similar to the assembly language of the machine he designed it for. I don't know anything about Buterin and Dean. I'm sure these people all had brilliant ideas and insights, that I couldn't begin to match. But given an arbitrary dev task, I doubt they'd…

'dev task', 'shannon wasn't a programmer', 'don't know about buterin, dean' -- There in lies your problem, seriously

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#323

Post by nborwankar » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 12:38 AM UTC

The unit of software delivery agency is a team not an individual any more. That was in the days of Norton Disk Doctor where a single programmer held the whole problem in their head.

The question that is lost in the noise about 10x is “Does a team with a 10x programmer deliver software better faster cheaper than a team without one. More formally is a team with a power law distribution of talent more productive than a team with a normal distribution of talent.”

That is IMHO the question that really matters in terms of modern software delivery. Any thoughts on this question?

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#324

Post by BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

In many cases, I had to step into an Augean stable of code, i.e. a 10x dev had to deep dive into code produced by 10 1x dev. Coming out the other end, functionality went up by 50% with 40% less code.

Prior to being downsized at a multinational, I was asked to explain my database update scripts to a lady who had never seen SQL. Some of the queries took most of a page. That system slowly sank into the sunset. It's hard to do customer support when the database doesn't know about their new machines.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#325

Post by mikepurvis » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #294

Jensson wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commander Keen was the first side scrolling platformer for PC (side scrolling was hardware accelerated on consoles, so PC games didn't have it before this) and released 1991. Wolfenstein 3d was the first fps and released 1992. Both of those were revolutionary and combined is more than enough to put him way above most other game programmers at the time. And you know, at the time he didn't have any experience! That was…

Side scrollers have existed since the Apple II on "PCs". I highly doubt that 1991 was the first side scroller on ibm pc. Wolfenstein was not the first 3d fps on ibmpc, and certainly not in "PC" land. Skyfox existed on the Apple II, and battlezone likely was ported at some point. Carmack was fantastic, but again his "requirements" are static and he is a dev team of one.

A lot of early jump & run games worked on a screen-by-screen basis (Prince of Persia, Lode Runner, etc) rather than actually having smooth, NES-style scrolling.

In any case, this Wikipedia article [1] backs up that the only real predecessors of Keen on PC were early-80s console ports that were extremely limited in other ways, like having boxy, low color count graphics.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-scrolling_video_game#IBM_...

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#326

Post by mbrodersen » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

I have worked with 10x developers. And I have worked with -1x developers (stopping them from working made everybody else productive). Without the 10x developers things wouldn’t get done. Your demo/prototype wouldn’t be ready in time to secure the contract. Your production problems wouldn’t be solved fast. I suspect that certain (average) developers are jealous of the attention 10x developers (rightly) get. That’s understandable. But pretending that 10x developers doesn’t exist is silly. It’s like pretending that world class musicians/engineers/artists/… doesn’t exist.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#327

Post by mbrodersen » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #97

This article is pure clickbait written to sell in this stupid Swarmia startup. :) 10x developers exist just like 10x musicians, 10x marathon runners, or 10x chess players exist. It may take a world-class musician a week to write a masterful symphony but it would take me way longer. Perhaps I'd never produce anything great so that musician would be infinitely better at it than me. Great chess players beat amateurs at…

This is so obviously true that I laugh whenever I read the “10x software developers doesn’t exist” articles. Typically written by average developers with an axe to grind.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#328

Post by timando » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 3:24 AM UTC

afpx wrote: post #317

jjav wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may take a world-class musician a week to write a masterful symphony but it would take me way longer. But are you a world-class musician yourself? Yeah it would probably take me a week to run a marathon, but I've never run anything so it's not a meaningul comparison. In all your examples you're comparing amateurs or even non-participants vs. the top professionals. Of course there is a huge multiplier, up to some…

I've worked with hundreds of average (professional) developers over the years, and I've only met 1 person who was a 3x developer. I've met several 2x developers and lots of 1.5x developers. I assume a 5x developer exists, but I doubt a 10x does.

When your baseline is 0.1x developers, a normal developer can be a 10x developer.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#329

Post by fuzzfactor » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #85

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that 10x performers exist, or that 0.4x performers are abundant so 2x performers look like 10x performers? I guess what I'm asking is if there is any actual data on this so we can look at actual statistics or if it is all just a meaningless blogspam topic.

> Is it really that 10x performers exist, or that 0.4x performers are abundant so 2x performers look like 10x performers? Performance is relative, so if the norm is 0.4x, that's the actual "1x" base to just 10x programmers by, even if it's below what a 0.4x programmer could potentially achieve if they really tried. In other words, if most devs are underperforming due to complacency, lack of motivation, etc., that sho…

The norm can still be 1x and the number of 0.4x can apparently also be too abundant for comfort.

>There is also a significant variation in how the same person performs across multiple tasks.

Not only that, sometimes one individual can engineer things 10X better than at other times.

>Do these two engineers have the same experience with the technology at hand?

No, one has 10x the experience.

>How familiar are they with the system they're working on?

Very, one is just 10X more familiar.

>Do they have the same ability to make decisions on the go?

No, one is a 10X better decision maker.

>How easily can they get help?

Both easily, but one of the two only needs help 10X less often.

Re: Busting the 10x software engineer myth

#330

Post by afpx » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

timando wrote: post #328

afpx wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with hundreds of average (professional) developers over the years, and I've only met 1 person who was a 3x developer. I've met several 2x developers and lots of 1.5x developers. I assume a 5x developer exists, but I doubt a 10x does.

When your baseline is 0.1x developers, a normal developer can be a 10x developer.

My baseline is the average.