Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
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Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#210x programmer = very good programmer. End of discussion.
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#3All programmers have different output. How is it even a debate? Some people are more productive than others. Just like one novelist takes 10 years to finish his novel another writes 2 every year.
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#4I thought the research that produced the legend of the 10x programmer showed that he was 10x better than the worst programmers who were still good enough to be employed, and only ~2.5x better than the "average" programmer.
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#5I thought the research that produced the legend of the 10x programmer showed that he was 10x better than the worst programmers who were still good enough to be employed, and only ~2.5x better than the "average" programmer.
Correct.
In Peopleware, DeMarco and Lister write:
Count on the best people outperforming the worst by about 10:1.
Count on the best performer being about 2.5 times better than the median performer.
Count on the half that are better-than-median performers outdoing the other half by more than 2:1.
The best people outperform the average by 10x.Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#6When considering the implementation of a new system, sometimes considering the relative value of the path is a better and more profound action than than taking it. Similarly, implementation of a system does not necessarily imply deep comprehension, correct or intuitive forward-looking design, composability, repurposability, security, or any other property.
In short, as the saying goes: Decisiveness is overrated.[0]
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#710x what, though? No 10x engineer would accept a unitless quantity from uncalibrated measurements of terrible accuracy.
Yes, it's obvious that some people are getting a lot more done, but it's very hard to quantify and vulnerable to social engineering. It can be hard to spot quieter people working effectively, and it's really hard to quantify those who spend their time helping others or improving team effectiveness or business communication.
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#8The quantity and quality of grammatical errors in the piece were finely calibrated to keep me reading it to the end. A curious effect.
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#910x what, though? No 10x engineer would accept a unitless quantity from uncalibrated measurements of terrible accuracy. Yes, it's obvious that some people are getting a lot more done, but it's very hard to quantify and vulnerable to social engineering. It can be hard to spot quieter people working effectively, and it's really hard to quantify those who spend their time helping others or improving team effectiveness o…
It's even harder when you factor in people who seem to get a lot done quickly, but at the cost of huge technical debt that will slow the project down to a crawl in the long run.
Or the other extreme, people who overengineer everything in anticipation of a future that will never come.
Re: Qualities that I believe make the most difference in programmers’ productivity
#10The quantity and quality of grammatical errors in the piece were finely calibrated to keep me reading it to the end. A curious effect.
The writer is a non-native English speaker.