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> But a few staff developers cannot physically handle the volume of work required to replace that many developers. You're assuming "volume of work" is a consta

by feoren 3y ago

> But a few staff developers cannot physically handle the volume of work required to replace that many developers. You're assuming "volume of work" is a constant. I'm saying: 90% of "volume of work" is something that a handful of good developers would make the compiler do instead of humans. It's actually more than 90% over time, because there's a fundamental difference in the "capability growth curve" -- this curve is super-linear with good developers and sub-linear with poor developers, so the ratio between them grows greater over time. > They are not good at writing 10x more LOC than other developers. Right, it's quite the opposite: they will write 10x less code than the other developers.

ZephyrBlu 3y ago
> I'm saying: 90% of "volume of work" is something that a handful of good developers would make the compiler do instead of humans I don't understand what you're saying here. I cannot hand off feature work, rollout planning, context gathering and investigation, etc to the compiler. > Right, it's quite the opposite: they will write 10x less code than the other developers At a growing company, that is not helpful... You will not be able to move fast enough. > It's actually more than 90% over time, because there's a fundamental difference in the "capability growth curve" -- this curve is super-linear with good developers and sub-linear with poor developers, so the ratio between them grows greater over time This is only true when you are working on complex problems. If I have a lot of tasks like "change the colour of this button" having a few staff developers vs a lot of average developers is far worse. At almost every single company, there are far more mundane and relatively simple problems than complex problems. Most companies would not get more value from having way less super senior devs. There are just not enough complex problems for them to solve.

by feoren 3y ago

ZephyrBlu 3y ago

> I'm saying: 90% of "volume of work" is something that a handful of good developers would make the compiler do instead of humans I don't understand what you're saying here. I cannot hand off feature work, rollout planning, context gathering and investigation, etc to the compiler. > Right, it's quite the opposite: they will write 10x less code than the other developers At a growing company, that is not helpful... You will not be able to move fast enough. > It's actually more than 90% over time, because there's a fundamental difference in the "capability growth curve" -- this curve is super-linear with good developers and sub-linear with poor developers, so the ratio between them grows greater over time This is only true when you are working on complex problems. If I have a lot of tasks like "change the colour of this button" having a few staff developers vs a lot of average developers is far worse. At almost every single company, there are far more mundane and relatively simple problems than complex problems. Most companies would not get more value from having way less super senior devs. There are just not enough complex problems for them to solve.