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> highly productive developers (10x or otherwise) are problem-solving at a much higher level This is a very important point, but calling these highly productiv

> highly productive developers (10x or otherwise) are problem-solving at a much higher level This is a very important point, but calling these highly productive developers "10x" doesn't really make sense. They are more like "infinity times" compared to the average when it comes to getting a difficult task done, since the average developer would just get stuck and never be able to invent good designs and solve the difficult problems. Even worse, some programmers are in the negative on many tasks, adding additional complexity and overhead while making little to no positive contributions, especially when you give them a problem beyond their capabilities.

wpasc 7y ago
Joel Spolsky's "Hitting the high notes" always comes to mind for me when this debate arises.
- teddyh 7y ago
  Link: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/07/25/hitting-the-high-notes/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/07/25/hitting-the-high-n...
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  Spolsky is a 10x blogger. Neither he nor any of his employees were ever 10x programmers. There was nothing algorithmically clever about FogBugz or CityDesk or whatever.
  - lolc 7y ago
    Did you miss how they cross-compiled Vbscript to PHP? I'd say for a lot of programmers this would have been quite the challenge, algorithmically speaking. And I would classify it as clever. With both the positive and negative connotations of the word.
SKILNER 7y ago
Yes, it's this simple. The important point is that some things are just beyond the ability of average programmers, let alone, bad programmers. There are some things that only top programmers are able to actually finish before the end of the universe.
wvenable 7y ago
Oh no, these other programmers get the task done but they use 10x the amount of code to do it and nobody can figure it out. It mostly works too, except on Tuesday's when it's raining.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > these other programmers get the task done And it only works on the test cases :-)
  - terminaljunkid 7y ago
    Apparently they edit tests.

wpasc 7y ago

Joel Spolsky's "Hitting the high notes" always comes to mind for me when this debate arises.

teddyh 7y ago
Link: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/07/25/hitting-the-high-notes/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/07/25/hitting-the-high-n...
goatinaboat 7y ago
Spolsky is a 10x blogger. Neither he nor any of his employees were ever 10x programmers. There was nothing algorithmically clever about FogBugz or CityDesk or whatever.
- lolc 7y ago
  Did you miss how they cross-compiled Vbscript to PHP? I'd say for a lot of programmers this would have been quite the challenge, algorithmically speaking. And I would classify it as clever. With both the positive and negative connotations of the word.

SKILNER 7y ago

Yes, it's this simple. The important point is that some things are just beyond the ability of average programmers, let alone, bad programmers. There are some things that only top programmers are able to actually finish before the end of the universe.

wvenable 7y ago

Oh no, these other programmers get the task done but they use 10x the amount of code to do it and nobody can figure it out. It mostly works too, except on Tuesday's when it's raining.

WalterBright 7y ago
> these other programmers get the task done And it only works on the test cases :-)
- terminaljunkid 7y ago
  Apparently they edit tests.