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Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

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Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#71

Post by mfisher87 »

trhway wrote: post #23
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

> It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement#History "The Stakhanovite movement was named after Aleksei Stakhanov, who had mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours (14 times his quota).[1] However, his record would soon be "broken" by his followers.[1] On February 1, 1936, it was reported that Nikita Izotov had mined 607 tons of coal in a singl…

Thank you for this link, here's a great quote from there:

> The Stakhanovites were responsible for organizing the two-hundreders movement (Russian: двухсотники, or dvukhsotniki; 200% or more of quota in a single shift) and one-thousanders movement (Russian: тысячники, or tysyachniki; 1000% of the norm in a shift)

The idea of "one-thousanders" movement is numerically identical and almost linguistically identical to the "10xer" movement.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#73

Post by Havoc »

encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

>he's coding 10x faster

Faster had nothing to do with it. If anything these guys code slower. 1 line of brilliant code will always beat 10 lines of mediocre code typed very fast though

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#74

Post by andyjdavis »

smegel wrote: post #59
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

> I have no idea if he's coding 10x faster It's a bad myth that "speed" has anything to do with the 10x or 100x programmer. The thing that sets great programmers apart is their ability to instinctively and intuitively design elegant and correct solutions to a given problem while introducing minimal bugs. A great programmer whose code will stand the test of time without needing a total rewrite 6 months later and witho…

>know how to minimize complexity

I don't think this gets nearly enough praise when assessing people. I've worked at a few different software companies with a raft of different programmers and among those who were deemed "superstars" there were certainly a few who I wouldn't want to work with (or inherit code from) given the choice due to the hideously complex nature of their output.

Despite their ability to produce major functionality with incredible speed, which is often what led to them being seen as superstars by management, code that is so complex that it is virtually unmaintainable is a huge ongoing burden. Its great that you rescued a late project when everyone said it could not be done but some poor sucker is going to have to maintain that mess.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#75

Post by marcus_holmes »

etherael wrote: post #68
trhway wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement#History "The Stakhanovite movement was named after Aleksei Stakhanov, who had mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours (14 times his quota).[1] However, his record would soon be "broken" by his followers.[1] On February 1, 1936, it was reported that Nikita Izotov had mined 607 tons of coal in a singl…

> Programmers as a blue colar job ?

Not blue-collar because we wear blue collars or perform physical labour, but because programmers are not professionals - we're not architects, we're bricklayers.

In the conventional business mindset programmers just implement a plan devised by someone else. Consequently we are fungible (easily replaced by cheaper alternatives), and a cost rather than an asset.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#76

Post by Fiahil »

hueving wrote: post #40
Fiahil wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you 22 years old, fresh out of school, you are going to be writing code all day. And that's how it should be, You need to cut-your-teeth. I'm 22 years old, fresh out of school and I'm as involved in design, recruiting and peer reviews as my older peers. And that's how it should be. Why? Because age has nothing to do with productivity, understanding or ability to come up with simple, elegant and maintainable desi…

So you have no experience and you are just as involved in design? I could see that maybe for UX, but not for engineering. Either your entire team is inexperienced or they are just patronizing you.

Or maybe I'm involved in design because I've proved I can handle complexity, know when an abstraction would be needed, and got good fitting ideas to work my way out of a problem.

If schools don't teach you that, what's their purpose? (genuine question, I'm from a "special" school in France, and I've definitively been trained with that goal in mind (ie: gathering real world experience))

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#77

Post by csours »

okasaki wrote: post #12

page 10 of the slides says: > kill yourself now That's totally inappropriate no matter how funny you think you are.

Probably a reference to this: 1,2

1) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/29/torvalds_tantrum_ope... 2) https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/1vyfmNCYpi5

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#79

Post by jnbiche »

WalterBright wrote: post #46
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

10x engineers do not work 10x harder or produce 10x code. What they do is write code that is 10x better, in that it has few problems, few design errors, does not have to be rewritten (at great cost), is more adaptable, maintainable, etc. They make the right decisions up front about the approach to make. For example, they can select the right approach to concurrency for a particular problem, rather than spending much…

As a software engineer, I agree with you 100%.

But you are likely aware that this type of 10x engineer is not who the vast majority of corporate managers and "non-technical" start-up founders are thinking of when they describe a 10x engineer. For them, a 10x engineer is simply one who produces code 10x as fast as the other engineers.

In fact, simply writing code 10x as fast as usual is not a difficult task for a competent developer to accomplish. With significant overtime, and reckless abandon, any skilled developer can churn out poorly thought-out code at a rate roughly 10x greater than the rate at which a skilled developer can write well-designed, tested, documented, refactored code.

This is why we have so many "10x" engineers, and so much technical debt.

Re: Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]

#80

Post by mattmcknight »

trhway wrote: post #23
encoderer wrote: post #7

He bashes the "myth of the 10x" engineer. Clearly the idea of the 10xer has too big a place in the mythology of our industry. It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. There are no doctors blogging about "10x doctors" for example. Anybody who has watched N0tch code on Twitch knows that there are certainly people who are far more productive coders than the average engineer. I have no idea if he's…

> It's oddly masochistic and as far as I know it's unique to us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement#History "The Stakhanovite movement was named after Aleksei Stakhanov, who had mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours (14 times his quota).[1] However, his record would soon be "broken" by his followers.[1] On February 1, 1936, it was reported that Nikita Izotov had mined 607 tons of coal in a singl…

"Basically all this 10x is just a way to make people produce 10x while paying still for 1x. "

Actually, I see it more frequently referenced as reason to pay people more than 1x based on productivity. There are some that deny 10x productivity exists, which is the controversy around it that I am most familiar with. If you are an order of magnitude more productive than your peers, but paid only marginally more, this becomes an incentive to start your own business, or join one where you significant equity, where you will be able to capture more of the value.

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