One of the things I like best about programming (not for a living) is that later on, I'll look at my old code, wonder what was I thinking, and rewrite to get the same thing done, more clearly, in half the lines. Quality takes time.
You're Not a 10x Programmer
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Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer
#42Programming is, in many ways like music - it's a multi-faceted skill with elements of math, pattern recognition, abstraction, and so on. (I've been doing both on and off for 35 years now). Personally, in my experience, I think a few things are true:
A) Way more people think they are 2x or 10x or whatever than they are. When you solve a hard problem, it makes you feel like a genius. As we never get to be in other people's brains, we don't realize they all get the same feelings.
B) There ARE geniuses out there. I have met musicians and heard of students (from professor friends) who are unarguably geniuses. People who can do shit like remember an entire Keith Jarrett concert and play it to their piano teacher afterwards. Or memorize a piano concerto from the score on an airplane and then go perform it. (I think that was Rubenstein? not sure.) They are out there. There are folks who were 10x better than I'll ever be by the time they were 16 because their brains just wired totally differently from regular people when they matured. They don't necessarily have stellar careers because they are frequently total oddballs in other areas. Talk to any professional music prof and they can tell you about some very odd geniuses. I have no doubt these people exist in comp sci too, they sure do in math. (Fun fact, piano genius Glenn Gould like to do giant number arithmetic in his head for fun!)
C) There are also a lot of professional programmers who just aren't good. It's so hard to evaluate that many folks who never really took to it can muddle through a degree and hold down a job, especially on a larger team. And heck, they are probably good contributors on these large teams by virtue of their other skills - someone needs to be good at reading requirements and talking to management.
So sure, I agree, the whole "I'm a 10x" or "Be a 10x" thing is usually balogna. But 2x or 3x? For sure. And there are geniuses out there who just smoke the rest of us without blinking.
Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer
#43Even after seeing some programmers like bellard and DJB achive 100x of that of a normal programmer, random web developers on hacker news and reddit continue doing mental gymnastics to prove all programmers are equal, maybe doing webshit in react is, after all, above science.
I think the case of Fabrice Bellard is one where working on building the tools instead of the product gives you a way bigger reach. For example, if you're doing webshit react in a company, if you spend time automating the testing infrastructure instead of producing yet another feature, you'll have a disproportionated impact compared to the person that worked on the feature. Of course Fabrice Bellard is still way bett…
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Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer
#44I'm not a 10x. Ok, I'll concede that point. I'll be average for this conversation. I know people who can just solve problems . If it takes me all day to solve something, I'll reach out to Ken and he'll say "oh, check this setting. It is probably X". Dennis has seen so many problems, he knows how I've tried to solve them and the solutions before I've finished describing what is going on. If these guys solve something…
I have been called a 10xer (aka magician/one-man-army/genius/R2D2/etc..) quite a few times in my programming career. Sometimes I have felt that to be true but most times I just feel like a 1x. Many years ago, one junior programmer asked me "How do you do it?". And I answered - "Trust your intuition". I realized later it was a "dumb" answer - but few years later I have realized the following (this may not be true for…
Thank you very much, you described my experience perfectly and I went on researching what the "alice going down a rabbit hole" is: hyperfocus.[1]
It is linked to ADHD (which can be both with or without hyperactivity, ADD being the old term for the inattentive ADHD type)[2] and for some additional info, ADHD is the most common coexisting condition to ASD (autism).[3]
You might want to check that out!
Thanks again for this fantastic comment, it is so relatable that I honestly could have written it myself!
[1] https://www.understood.org/articles/en/adhd-and-hyperfocus [2] https://www.verywellmind.com/add-and-attention-deficit-disor... [3] https://chadd.org/about-adhd/adhd-and-autism-spectrum-disord...
Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer
#45the "10x programmer" is just rugged American individualism repackaged to make a very profitable and skilled workforce feel insecure.
most successful tech projects are developed by teams with a diverse set of creative talents beyond coding including community building, design, documentation, education.
Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people are curious and constantly learning new things. Some people don't and just do the same stuff over and over again. So the fact some people are more experienced than the others even after spending the same number of years in the industry is actually on them, it's their achievement. I've seen a few situations where an "experienced" team of developers struggled to solve a problem for weeks and eventually an o…
> Some people are curious and constantly learning new things. the implication seems a bit disingenuous as if the curiosity and constant learning only counts if it is towards computer science.
Why? I thought their comment was clearly in context of one’s job as a programmer.
Re: You're Not a 10x Programmer
#47I'm not a 10x. Ok, I'll concede that point. I'll be average for this conversation. I know people who can just solve problems . If it takes me all day to solve something, I'll reach out to Ken and he'll say "oh, check this setting. It is probably X". Dennis has seen so many problems, he knows how I've tried to solve them and the solutions before I've finished describing what is going on. If these guys solve something…
> 'just solve problem' Exactly that. If one developer cannot solve a problem and the other does. Is that InfinityX programmer?
Depends on the value of the change. :) You can build software with people who cannot solve certain types of problems in their domain. The result just won’t be as useful or valuable. Measuring contribution to that increased value, less tech debt, can be challenging but some organizations have strong analytical abilities in that respect.