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I think it depends on perspective. I don't think there's a 10x programmer, but I've worked with plenty of 0.1x programmers. If your organisation is not doing a

I think it depends on perspective. I don't think there's a 10x programmer, but I've worked with plenty of 0.1x programmers. If your organisation is not doing a good job of managing your developer team you may have a very skewed view of what 1x really looks like.

justaman 9y ago
What makes a programmer a 1x? Can you give examples?
le-mark 9y ago
I've been 100x or 1000x in certain situations. Two examples: a solution required a recursive descent parser which no one recognized or knew how to implement, and another time a team fought a bug in some Java code for weeks, but none of them understood thread safety. So in these two instances, I've done things other simply couldn't. Not because I'm special in anyway, just because I had some experience these others lacked. Otherwise, I am a thoroughly mediocre performer. I'm a minimum effort Loser[1] all the way. [1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
Deestan 9y ago
That's my impression too. It's not that good programmers are immensely more productive than decent programmers, it's that bad programmers are very bad. Not only can they just not do certain things, but they leave messes that others have to spend time fixing. I've had days where I've ended up doing literally nothing, but still objectively outperform some colleagues because they rammed some shitty unstable undocumented race-condition hack into the codebase.
pklausler 9y ago
If everybody around them is a 0.1x programmer, the 1x programmer is effectively a 10x.
Aaargh20318 9y ago
> I've worked with plenty of 0.1x programmers I think the -1x programmer is even more common, the ones that have negative productivity and actually create more work for other programmers. I've encountered many of these types over the years. They are usually the very hard working type too. The kind who when encountering a problem always solves it by piling on more code, never refactoring, never taking a step back and thinking about the problem. You don't want to be seen idling at your desk, better keep typing.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  I've worked with this type. In this case very outgoing too and favoured by management. Man that code though! That code!

justaman 9y ago

What makes a programmer a 1x? Can you give examples?

le-mark 9y ago

I've been 100x or 1000x in certain situations. Two examples: a solution required a recursive descent parser which no one recognized or knew how to implement, and another time a team fought a bug in some Java code for weeks, but none of them understood thread safety. So in these two instances, I've done things other simply couldn't. Not because I'm special in anyway, just because I had some experience these others lacked. Otherwise, I am a thoroughly mediocre performer. I'm a minimum effort Loser[1] all the way. [1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Deestan 9y ago

That's my impression too. It's not that good programmers are immensely more productive than decent programmers, it's that bad programmers are very bad. Not only can they just not do certain things, but they leave messes that others have to spend time fixing. I've had days where I've ended up doing literally nothing, but still objectively outperform some colleagues because they rammed some shitty unstable undocumented race-condition hack into the codebase.

pklausler 9y ago

If everybody around them is a 0.1x programmer, the 1x programmer is effectively a 10x.

Aaargh20318 9y ago

> I've worked with plenty of 0.1x programmers I think the -1x programmer is even more common, the ones that have negative productivity and actually create more work for other programmers. I've encountered many of these types over the years. They are usually the very hard working type too. The kind who when encountering a problem always solves it by piling on more code, never refactoring, never taking a step back and thinking about the problem. You don't want to be seen idling at your desk, better keep typing.

quickthrower2 9y ago
I've worked with this type. In this case very outgoing too and favoured by management. Man that code though! That code!