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Not related to the article much - The 10X developer concept is a bit flawed. If only because computer scientists and students understand that a linear co-effic

by xigency 10y ago

Not related to the article much - The 10X developer concept is a bit flawed. If only because computer scientists and students understand that a linear co-efficient is borderline meaningless in measuring algorithmic performance, it seems to pander to the less-technically-literate side of the engineering pool. Another problem - the developer who accomplishes tenfold productivity of his peers in one environment might be absolutely uncompetitive in another. For example, what's the difference between tuning performance in a critical backend path and building a fully functioning UI? A developer who is ten-times better at one might be incapable of completing the other. Instead, especially with the whole full-stack movement, wouldn't it be better to look at qualifications, ability to learn, motivation, interest and attitude? Even looking for a "ninja developer" might be better if it means someone with an attitude to hack things together at any request. And looking for a seasoned developer might be better for maintaining and rebuilding one of those hacked-together platforms. What's the difference between a 10X and X^2/10 developer? It's time for hirers and SE bloggers to see X, log X, X log X, and X^2 developers, who are all out there.

collyw 10y ago
I am maybe 5 or 6X when using Django as I know it inside out. Probably about 0.5 - 1X using JavaScript, and 0.1X using Rust.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cel1ne 10y ago
I don't find the distinction very useful either. But I think that a 10x developer is one who knows all the ins and outs of the tools in his or her belt. Who will prefer a 10-year-old framework that served him well over an opportunity to procrastinate by means of reinventing the wheel. (I'm looking at you, JavaScript-land) And who doesn't fall into the "tower of babel"-trap, which is the believe that there's a universal language and a perfect way of writing a program or structuring a system.
- nine_k 10y ago
  To be fair, there are few, if any, 10-years-old JS frameworks that one can still be productive with. Well, there's jQuery, which is still fine for very small things (an animation here, an AJAX call there), but is totally inadequate if you need to build a rich UI of the kind commonly expected now. You'll spend less time learning something like React or Vue and implementing things in it than you'd spend fighting with the callback hell and manually crafted state machines.
  - cel1ne 10y ago
    I know and use React (and React-Native) daily, but, except the views which are in JSX/es6/7, I like to write everything in java or kotlin which I can run in the browser. There are a gazillion very useful Java-libraries out there. I just implemented a ListView with complex filtering, live text-matching and sorting for an Android/React-native-app which has no problem displaying 100.000 items or more using Java-libraries. React-Native's implementation on the other hand seems to be riddled with problems, judging from the bug-tracker and the confused API.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Every few years I feel there must be a universal language; every few years I spend a few weekends and nights writing one. A Lisp always comes out. So next craving I will try more Clojure to span both web and native mobile. Until then I use 10+ year old tech to get work done.
pjc50 10y ago
10X what though? KLOC never worked and we've not developed any good, transferable, objective metrics for developer productivity. We're left with highly subjective peer evaluation. Which is very vulnerable to bias. Most people will agree that "some people are a lot more effective than other people". But if you take the members of a team aside individually and ask them to rank the effectiveness of their colleagues, do you get compatible answers? Has anyone ever tried getting team A to look at the anonymised commits of team B for evaluation?
- user5994461 10y ago
  > But if you take the members of a team aside individually and ask them to rank the effectiveness of their colleagues, do you get compatible answers? Yes. As a general rule, everyone knows who's doing the work. Usually, even the manager knows. (Whether he cares and tries to keep the productive guys is another topic)
psyc 10y ago
This doesn't match my experience at all. What I have seen over and over, for 20 years, is more like this: The local guru is asked to help out with an area that's falling behind, even though everybody knows it's not their thing. They start out awkward, self-deprecating, asking a lot of questions. Yes, they suddenly seem like a newbie. A week or two later, they check in something brilliant that works perfectly and blows the "specialist's" work out of the water. This concept was never meant to be precise. It just expresses that some people's productivity is hard for others to understand and hard to duplicate.
jerf 10y ago
I think the problem lies in treating work units identically, because they very much are not. One developer can barely code a CRUD page. Another can write an OS. Another can write a compiler for a novel language. Another may not have any flashy skills but can work well enough in a team and can learn. It doesn't matter how many "barely can write a CRUD page" people you task to write your distributed cloud filesystem, it won't work. (Before someone complains, because I know you, Internet, these classifications aren't permanent. I was "barely capable of writing a CRUD page" at one point, too. But you have to work with the developers that you have today, not what they could be in 20 years.)
kosma 10y ago
10x seems to apply to a specific developer in a specific environment. I've seen corporate farms where hackers would suffer but idiots would thrive, and the exact opposite in startups. I've abandoned ship on gigs where the CTO would oppose migrating from SVN to git - but I have also saved sinking ships where the team was clueless but willing to change & learn. Reality is not a simple 1x/10x.

by xigency 10y ago

collyw 10y ago

I am maybe 5 or 6X when using Django as I know it inside out. Probably about 0.5 - 1X using JavaScript, and 0.1X using Rust.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cel1ne 10y ago

I don't find the distinction very useful either. But I think that a 10x developer is one who knows all the ins and outs of the tools in his or her belt. Who will prefer a 10-year-old framework that served him well over an opportunity to procrastinate by means of reinventing the wheel. (I'm looking at you, JavaScript-land) And who doesn't fall into the "tower of babel"-trap, which is the believe that there's a universal language and a perfect way of writing a program or structuring a system.

nine_k 10y ago
To be fair, there are few, if any, 10-years-old JS frameworks that one can still be productive with. Well, there's jQuery, which is still fine for very small things (an animation here, an AJAX call there), but is totally inadequate if you need to build a rich UI of the kind commonly expected now. You'll spend less time learning something like React or Vue and implementing things in it than you'd spend fighting with the callback hell and manually crafted state machines.
- cel1ne 10y ago
  I know and use React (and React-Native) daily, but, except the views which are in JSX/es6/7, I like to write everything in java or kotlin which I can run in the browser. There are a gazillion very useful Java-libraries out there. I just implemented a ListView with complex filtering, live text-matching and sorting for an Android/React-native-app which has no problem displaying 100.000 items or more using Java-libraries. React-Native's implementation on the other hand seems to be riddled with problems, judging from the bug-tracker and the confused API.
tluyben2 10y ago
Every few years I feel there must be a universal language; every few years I spend a few weekends and nights writing one. A Lisp always comes out. So next craving I will try more Clojure to span both web and native mobile. Until then I use 10+ year old tech to get work done.

pjc50 10y ago

10X what though? KLOC never worked and we've not developed any good, transferable, objective metrics for developer productivity. We're left with highly subjective peer evaluation. Which is very vulnerable to bias. Most people will agree that "some people are a lot more effective than other people". But if you take the members of a team aside individually and ask them to rank the effectiveness of their colleagues, do you get compatible answers? Has anyone ever tried getting team A to look at the anonymised commits of team B for evaluation?

user5994461 10y ago
> But if you take the members of a team aside individually and ask them to rank the effectiveness of their colleagues, do you get compatible answers? Yes. As a general rule, everyone knows who's doing the work. Usually, even the manager knows. (Whether he cares and tries to keep the productive guys is another topic)

psyc 10y ago

This doesn't match my experience at all. What I have seen over and over, for 20 years, is more like this: The local guru is asked to help out with an area that's falling behind, even though everybody knows it's not their thing. They start out awkward, self-deprecating, asking a lot of questions. Yes, they suddenly seem like a newbie. A week or two later, they check in something brilliant that works perfectly and blows the "specialist's" work out of the water. This concept was never meant to be precise. It just expresses that some people's productivity is hard for others to understand and hard to duplicate.

jerf 10y ago

I think the problem lies in treating work units identically, because they very much are not. One developer can barely code a CRUD page. Another can write an OS. Another can write a compiler for a novel language. Another may not have any flashy skills but can work well enough in a team and can learn. It doesn't matter how many "barely can write a CRUD page" people you task to write your distributed cloud filesystem, it won't work. (Before someone complains, because I know you, Internet, these classifications aren't permanent. I was "barely capable of writing a CRUD page" at one point, too. But you have to work with the developers that you have today, not what they could be in 20 years.)

kosma 10y ago

10x seems to apply to a specific developer in a specific environment. I've seen corporate farms where hackers would suffer but idiots would thrive, and the exact opposite in startups. I've abandoned ship on gigs where the CTO would oppose migrating from SVN to git - but I have also saved sinking ships where the team was clueless but willing to change & learn. Reality is not a simple 1x/10x.