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The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

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Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#61

Post by ellius »

logicallee wrote: post #36
gilbetron wrote: post #10

The 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.

It really isn't that surprising either. People want to write off the notion that some people are massively better than others at solving problems, but it's completely obvious that's the case. Of course there are insane outliers like Claude Shannon or John von Neumann, but those were real people that existed, and it stands to reason there are people at smaller multipliers who are still much better than average.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#62

Post by khrbrt »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #30
starpilot wrote: post #19

Earlier 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's honestly more impressive for creativity sake!

FizzBuzz is just an example of the general problem of "given a set of things, do something to a subset of those things" which comes up often in real world settings. If you knew enough to set up a loop and apply some conditional inside of it, then you passed better than some of the programmers I've worked with.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#63

Post by [deleted] »

mjw1007 wrote: post #60
jimbokun wrote: post #42

Here is your 10x programmer: https://norvig.com/sudoku.html "In this essay I tackle the problem of solving every Sudoku puzzle. It turns out to be quite easy (about one page of code for the main idea and two pages for embellishments) using two ideas: constraint propagation and search." If you gave this task to an "average" developer, how long would it take for them to implement? How many lines of code would it be? Wo…

I'm sure Norvig is very good, but I think the sudoku webpage is presenting a finished program in an idealised way, not recording the process he used to write it, false starts and all. (It seems likely to me that there were some false starts, because eliminate() returns either `values` or False, when both of its callers would be just as happy if it returned True or False.)

[deleted]

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#64

Post by emmelaich »

paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #13

Can we stop the self hate already? There definitely are 10x musicians, 10x painters, sportsmen and 10x programmers. You know what never exists in 10x form? Burocrats and middle managers who write articles like this one. I suggest to flag this as fake news and all future articles intended to devalue young talented programmers who yet are to discover their true market value.

Please read the article again. Or even just the title!

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#66

Post by JackFr »

logicallee wrote: post #36
gilbetron wrote: post #10

The 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.

I think a good portion of the story there was thorough knowledge of prior art, the ability to identify what was essential and what was incidental and the fact that he built on a singular vision.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#67

Post by JackFr »

Nition wrote: post #29
remmargorp64 wrote: post #3

10X 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…

> worth noting I think that RollerCoaster Tycoon was based on his earlier Transport Tycoon engine,

The 10x productivity comes in large part from the code they DON'T write.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#68

Post by m0zg »

saagarjha wrote: post #56
headmelted wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I've never encountered someone that I think is genuinely a 10x programmer. I have. (Interestingly, some of these people knew this and had a surprising lack of modesty about it as well…) Usually I think it boils down to being able to have the experience to consistently guess right on things, come up with new ideas, and not get tangled in the weeds: most of them are smart, but not so smart that you’re just lost when…

>> not so smart that you’re just lost when talking to them

That, BTW, is a sure sign that someone is trying to appear smarter than they really are. Having worked at 2 research labs over the course of my career I know more than my fair share of genius-level people. Without fail, they are humble about it, and can explain complex concepts in a way the rest of us can understand. This is something that just blows my mind pretty consistently actually, and IMO it is a sign of true, deep understanding of a complex subject. The person didn't just memorize formulas (although many of them excel at that as well), they understand why things are the way they are, the real meaning behind it all.

It could be that this is selection bias though, and I only got to know geniuses who aren't also assholes.

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#69

Post by [deleted] »

gilbetron wrote: post #10

The 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…

[deleted]

Re: The Myth of the Myth of the 10x Programmer

#70

Post by starpilot »

WJW wrote: post #50
shepardrtc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It comes from terrible "corporate drone" software developers in the 80s and 90s - the ones that would takes weeks to developer simple routines They still very much exist. My previous job was at a bank and these people filled it.

Can confirm. Last week a PM was gushing to me it "only" took a week to implement a feature that was not much more than an extra if statement. This is not in a regulated industry either, just run of the mill web stuff.

I do tech at a non-tech company. Colleague has been doing Python for about 6 months. He can't do for-loops. His brain just doesn't get the concept (among others), I've never seen anything like it. Other guys make general computing mistakes like trying to type into a command prompt while another window is in focus, then messaging me saying "there was an error."
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