Some programmers might code 10x faster, but lack the experience and wisdom to know they shouldn't be writing a piece of code at all. If your metric is lines of

Some programmers might code 10x faster, but lack the experience and wisdom to know they shouldn't be writing a piece of code at all. If your metric is lines of code, then the 10x programmer looks really impressive. They might truly be able to reinvent some wheel 10x faster than someone else. By another metric, someone with the experience and wisdom to solve the problem by integrating existing solutions and writing less code may hypothetically complete a task 10x faster than the former 10x programmer - effectively becoming a 100x programmer in comparison. But it's very likely some managers won't recognize what the "100x" programmer has accomplished. He just made the task look "easy", and now he's going to have to fill his time with more tasks, and at review time might look mediocre in comparison to the fast but naive 10x programmer.