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I think you can group working programmers (as opposed to hobbyists and dilettantes) into three broad categories: - Newbies, still learning, don't know what the
by gregjor 4y ago
I think you can group working programmers (as opposed to hobbyists and dilettantes) into three broad categories:
- Newbies, still learning, don't know what they don't know.
- "Expert beginners," employable but lack curiosity, stuck at a mediocre skill level.
- Programmers you might call great, excellent, 10X. They have significant experience and domain expertise, constantly learn and expand their skills.
I don't have any numbers. Anecdotally in my (40+ years) experience most programmers fall into the "expert beginner" category. A few never seem to get out of the newbie phase -- five years in and can't write FizzBuzz or debug a simple program.
I got the "expert beginner" name from Eric Dietrich here:
https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...
- raydiatian 4y ago> stuck at a mediocre skill level Is it fair to call this “most enterprise software” engineers?
- gregjor 4y agoProbably not, I've worked in big enterprise shops with some great people. But in places with lots of programmers you work with more of the expert beginner variety.
- giantg2 4y agoI actually agree. Most at my company, including me, are stuck at mediocre levels. However, I will add that it's not all due to a lack of curiosity. In my case it's because the company isn't focused on efficiency or creating experts (they value redundancy and rotation). The people might be good, but they'll never be true experts if they're switching stacks every 2 years, and half that time is spent in meetings.