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> I find it amusing that we recognize grand masters in chess and elite performs in other fields, but don't wish to acknowledge that such people exist in our fie
by majos 7y ago
> I find it amusing that we recognize grand masters in chess and elite performs in other fields, but don't wish to acknowledge that such people exist in our fields.
It’s easy to rank people playing a zero-sum game where the only thing that varies is opponent, use ELO and call it a day. Software development is more complicated because the problems and quality of solutions aren’t even clear. So to me it makes sense that we don’t have software development grandmasters outside of things like IOI.
- segmondy 7y agoI personal believe problems and quality are pretty clear. The challenge is in understanding what the problem is, which is not a "programming" activity, but rather a communication activity. You could have 2 customers who want a solution that clash and conflict, if you make one happy, you make the other sad. No matter how you tackle it, you lose. e.g. You build something for sales that makes customer service unhappy or vice versa. You build something and keep it backwards compatible and that makes your prior users happy but puts off new users who were willing to adopt or vice versa. At this point, it's no longer about programming. Doesn't diminish that those activities are just important. We could also argue that there are 10x user interface and interaction designers, 10x project managers, 10x product managers, etc. The confluence of such folks is a beautiful thing to experience, however it's not needed, just 1 or 2 of those with a bunch of "average" folks can ship and release a really good product.