5 ms·

Programming ability is of course not innate, but the ability to learn to be great at it does seem to be mostly innate. You can overcome a lack of innate ability

Programming ability is of course not innate, but the ability to learn to be great at it does seem to be mostly innate. You can overcome a lack of innate ability with hundreds of hours of hard work - but you'll never be able to catch up to someone with that ability who has also put in hundreds of hours of work. That aside, nothing you said actually provides any support for your criticisms. Your comment can be condensed down to the phrase "that's wrong" without losing any meaningful content. By nature, if you post an article stating the truth of the matter - that truly good people are extremely rare and that most people tend to be mediocre and some serviceable - most people will be outraged. Because they're the "most people" being called mediocre to serviceable.

pastProlog 10y ago
> most people tend to be mediocre As the article points out, most jobs are mediocre. Good work is not appreciated, a company can't form a team that works normal hours and uses tests and version control, autonomy and learning is low, the work is some dull obscure business problem, IT and the company is dysfunctional and pay for the skillset is below market average. Yet all these companies want great developers as well. Also, as he mentions in the article, sometimes a great developer does roll in but they get filtered out for some reason. In my experience it is usually due to age - a great developer who is 52 comes in, but management almost openly says they want someone in their 20s who they can push around more when they nix the person. So the mediocrity goes both ways. When Oculus got going they seemed to have little trouble getting some of the best graphics programmers (Abrash, Carmack) to join them. If you want a great programmer you need to be a great company with a great position.
- jghn 10y ago
  "most jobs are mediocre" Exactly. 95+% of all developer jobs are not particularly novel nor do they require the top 1% of developer talent. However it seems like 95+% of all developer jobs believe themselves to be novel and requiring the top developer talent.
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    They think that if their developers were just a little better, they'd be able to make the next project very quickly, very cheaply, and very well :p
    - AtheistOfFail 10y ago
      Choose 2: Quick, Cheap, Good.
      - user5994461 10y ago
        Strangely. Companies read the blog post about hardcore hiring but not the blog post about that.
        AtheistOfFail 10y ago
        There's no way that would apply to them. They're unique... and so is their product.
  - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
    People keep saying this, but I don't think it's as easy as you make it sound. What about the candidates that talk so much that it seems like they are stalling and therefore don't get a reasonable and reasonably complete solution on the whiteboard in the alloted time, despite repeated prompting? What about the guys who don't explain much and take way longer than expected on simple problems, and when asked about it reveal that they are just blowing all this time internally debating the perfect solution?
    - jghn 10y ago
      Sure, those people exist. My belief is that most of those people would perform adequately at the extreme majority of jobs.
      - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
Delmania 10y ago
> Programming ability is of course not innate, but the ability to learn to be great at it does seem to be mostly innate. It's no more innate than any skill. The only innate aspect to it is the desire to do well at it. > that truly good people are extremely rare and that most people tend to be mediocre and some serviceable The problem with this sentence is the word mediocre. The vast majority of developers are average, which is to be expected. The problem is that Silicon Valley is seen as the norm for development and not the exception. SV plays right into the personality culture we seemed to have built (thanks to social media), so people start thinking all development is like that, whereas most people just want to do their job and gohome to their family at night.
- user5994461 10y ago
  > It's no more innate than any skill. The only innate aspect to it is the desire to do well at it. ... and the autism to sit at a computer all days and week-ends to practise.
- jazzyk 10y ago
  I know plenty of excellent developers who go home at 5pm and quite a few lousy ones who "work really hard"

pastProlog 10y ago

> most people tend to be mediocre As the article points out, most jobs are mediocre. Good work is not appreciated, a company can't form a team that works normal hours and uses tests and version control, autonomy and learning is low, the work is some dull obscure business problem, IT and the company is dysfunctional and pay for the skillset is below market average. Yet all these companies want great developers as well. Also, as he mentions in the article, sometimes a great developer does roll in but they get filtered out for some reason. In my experience it is usually due to age - a great developer who is 52 comes in, but management almost openly says they want someone in their 20s who they can push around more when they nix the person. So the mediocrity goes both ways. When Oculus got going they seemed to have little trouble getting some of the best graphics programmers (Abrash, Carmack) to join them. If you want a great programmer you need to be a great company with a great position.

jghn 10y ago
"most jobs are mediocre" Exactly. 95+% of all developer jobs are not particularly novel nor do they require the top 1% of developer talent. However it seems like 95+% of all developer jobs believe themselves to be novel and requiring the top developer talent.
- Terr_ 10y ago
  They think that if their developers were just a little better, they'd be able to make the next project very quickly, very cheaply, and very well :p
  - AtheistOfFail 10y ago
    Choose 2: Quick, Cheap, Good.
    - user5994461 10y ago
      Strangely. Companies read the blog post about hardcore hiring but not the blog post about that.
      - AtheistOfFail 10y ago
        There's no way that would apply to them. They're unique... and so is their product.
- 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
  People keep saying this, but I don't think it's as easy as you make it sound. What about the candidates that talk so much that it seems like they are stalling and therefore don't get a reasonable and reasonably complete solution on the whiteboard in the alloted time, despite repeated prompting? What about the guys who don't explain much and take way longer than expected on simple problems, and when asked about it reveal that they are just blowing all this time internally debating the perfect solution?
  - jghn 10y ago
    Sure, those people exist. My belief is that most of those people would perform adequately at the extreme majority of jobs.
    - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago

Delmania 10y ago

> Programming ability is of course not innate, but the ability to learn to be great at it does seem to be mostly innate. It's no more innate than any skill. The only innate aspect to it is the desire to do well at it. > that truly good people are extremely rare and that most people tend to be mediocre and some serviceable The problem with this sentence is the word mediocre. The vast majority of developers are average, which is to be expected. The problem is that Silicon Valley is seen as the norm for development and not the exception. SV plays right into the personality culture we seemed to have built (thanks to social media), so people start thinking all development is like that, whereas most people just want to do their job and gohome to their family at night.

user5994461 10y ago
> It's no more innate than any skill. The only innate aspect to it is the desire to do well at it. ... and the autism to sit at a computer all days and week-ends to practise.
jazzyk 10y ago
I know plenty of excellent developers who go home at 5pm and quite a few lousy ones who "work really hard"