8 ms·

Looming demise of the 10x developer – an era of enthusiast programmers is ending

111 points by rrampage 3y ago

singularity2001 3y ago
On the other hand we see the rise of a few select 1000x developers: those who master the math behind neural networks. Also GPT rises some non developers to developers.
smcleod 3y ago
10x is/was a gross concept - https://1x.engineer/ https://1x.engineer/ ftw. *Edit - to clarify I meant what it represented, of course some people nX times more effective/efficient/higher output than others.
- Sterm 3y ago
  Anyone can be a 10x engineer, it's just that the majority prefer mediocrity. If you chose to be less than you can be that's on you not the people who improved themselves.
  - baby_souffle 3y ago
    So what if I choose to spend a decent amount of time and resources improving myself along other non software engineering facets?
    - dustedcodes 3y ago
      All the 10x engineers I have come across in my life often had the most non engineering hobbies and after work activities going on. They are like that kid in school who never needs to study to get an A and for whom things just click immediately.
    - Sterm 3y ago
      Then you're not a 10x engineer and will be filling out your hours in SAP and getting your tickets from Jira. Personally that sounds like a new circle of hell but I've had people ask me to bring back Jira for a project I was managing so there are truly all kinds.
    - 40yearoldman 3y ago
      Then you did not chose to be a 10x engineer. The same way you probably are only mediocre in your hobbies (unless you quit your job and focused on that only) Don’t be sad. It’s okay that other people do something better than you. Be happy you play disc golf, but the 10x engineer makes more PRs than you. Which do you want more. What I hear is you envy somebody else choices, and want to vilify them because you can’t compete with them because you made different life choices. It’s like you are mad that Serena Williams did so much better than you did, but you only played tennis on the weekends with your friend.
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
        10xer can play disk golf too. They might sleep 8 hours and shower too.
        40yearoldman 3y ago
        Yah for sure. But if you are not a 10x and want to be. Then you got to prioritize what you spend your time on.
        quickthrower2 3y ago
        True. Now this is where ymmv but time away from the screen and sleep, while slowing down productivity this week is better long term. Not because it is healthy (it is) but programming in a nonlinear endeavour. During downtime you can realize the thing you are even working on is not the best thing. Or reevaluate overall strategy.
    - I_am_uncreative 3y ago
      Everything you do in life should be focused on becoming better at computers. All hail computers.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    I think we can be honest that neither extreme is correct here. A lot of people choose to be mediocre developers, but likewise a lot of people try very hard to be good but simply don't have the cognitive capacity or organization to excel.
    - echelon 3y ago
      This rings so true. (Cognitive Ability) * (Engineering Ability) * (Problem Solving Ability) * (Attention to Correct Details) * (Eagerness to Labor and Work) There are real 10x engineers. And there are also 0.1x engineers. And plenty in between. And lots of things impact job performance. Burnout, life satisfaction, interesting problems, ...
    - smcleod 3y ago
      Yes! Absolutely. It is not all or nothing, it very rarely is and the internet is quick to forget that.
    - antupis 3y ago
      Also environment has lot to do, give that mystical 10x developer boring ops/feature-factory job and watch him become 0.1x developer.
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
        Give him rich parents and watch him start a company.
  - smcleod 3y ago
    I meant more the term 10x engineer and what it's come to stand for over the years. If we're just talking about the simple root premise some people are 10x more effective / efficient or simply deliver 10x the output at the same or better quality - sure yes I absolutely know those people and while I wouldn't consider myself one of them I certainly tend to get a lot more done than the average engineer I work with. However - I don't agree with you that _anyone_ can be 10x "better" than the average person as I regularly encounter people that do not have innate logic and troubleshooting skills nor the curiosity required. I do agree that plenty of folks are content with mediocrity - most of them have ended up in "enterprise" companies.
  - ramraj07 3y ago
    Your first statement is true. But the Ratatouille quote applies here; "Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere" The majority don't prefer mediocrity. That's all they really can do. We just don't know which of the majority actually has the mythical 10x ability that easily.
    - Sterm 3y ago
      No, the majority are not prepared for the absolute obliteration of their ego they will suffer to become a 10x engineer. The problem isn't one of time, ability or whatever ineffable quality, but one of character. Ironically enough I think that a boot camp with the emotional abuse the marines used to get in the 50s while going through Knuth's papers would produce a lot of 10x programmers.
      - ramraj07 3y ago
        None of the 10x engineers I know (maybe some are 5x) try that hard. They didn't need to be abused. They were just naturally good at coding. I don't believe you can abuse someone into 10x abilities.
- 40yearoldman 3y ago
  I think we just got it wrong. In my experience, the “10x” developers are just doing their job. Maybe we should focus on the dev/10 people, they just make people who are gitting stuff done look amazing. The reality is a subset of engineers are just better, quicker and faster. They known things and can do things faster. I have worked a verity of teams. However gross it is to you the person pulling in 30k of line of code in a complex system in 3 weeks is definitely something more than the average developer. I know I know. Everybody is going now pile on with some crazy assumptions about code quality shit. Let me stop you. You were not there, the code was amazing and the code ran rock solid. Also this was not a one off. Every project I worked with this person simply was the same way. 15 min sync, 3 days later amazing features, 90%+ unit test coverage, all while doing 9-5 and cooking dinner for her family after destroying that PR button. So whatever you want to call them, they exist, and they are likely better than you in every metric you can measure. Get over it do better.
  - jstanley 3y ago
    To write 30k lines of code in 3 weeks, you're averaging 2k lines/day. At 8 hour days, that's 250 lines/hour. 6 lines/minute. 1 line of code every 10 seconds, for 8 hours straight, for 3 weeks straight. It's definitely possible to type that fast, but I can't imagine what programming that way would feel like.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - kazinator 3y ago
      You don't have to type that fast if you have a multiplying gearbox: IDE autocomplete, and copy-paste.
  - travisgriggs 3y ago
    This 52yearoldman agrees much with what you say. The fact is, that for many young people, programming has been “realtor boom” for many years. I’ve been actively involved with my faith’s various youth group offerings over the years, and I have watched a lot of young people I have known grow up and head down various paths, only to pivot from all kinds of career aspirations to software development. They connect with me because I’m an old timer in the same industry as them now. But very few of them “get into it” the way I have for my career. It’s a well paying job that has relatively low entry cost (either degreed or boot camped) and allows them to support their youthful adventures or aspirations to start families.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  That description is not a 1x. Probably a 5x or more. (by the way 1x is the worst, 3x average and 10x best. The 10x is best vs. worst comparison)
- brigadier132 3y ago
  A trend I've noticed is that people that use words like "gross" tend to use arguments driven by emotion rather than logic. The "argument" in that link is a complete strawman. If they are a "10x engineer" but actually make people less productive because their code sucks they aren't actually a "10x engineer".
  - smcleod 3y ago
    There's no need to be rude and make personal attacks on someone's use of language.
User23 3y ago
I like the guy bragging about 41 hour work weeks. Ah kids these days.
- eterm 3y ago
  Averaged over a whole year with no breaks, that's unhealthy.
ajhurliman 3y ago
I think folks’ general understanding of the 10x engineer is that “some people have it and some don’t”. I think it’s more like “I’m working on a bunch of stuff I already know, I have all the designs and business logic clearly identified, and my colleagues and I are all on the same page about how to work together so I’m really productive” vs “this codebase I just adopted is completely unreadable, the designs change every 3 days and the other teams I’m interacting with are adversarial”. People aren’t 10x engineers, situations are.
- thrashh 3y ago
  There are 10x people in every field. It’s not “everyone is average and there are 3 Einsteins”. It’s a bell curve and eventually you’ll meet someone on the farther ends of both sides. Chances are there’s always someone much better or much worse than you.
  - deeviant 3y ago
    But it really only happens when you compare the top to the bottom and the comparison particularly useful. When you get the top, differences are more perception and other factors over skill/knowledge/intelligence. See: The Olympics, do you often see an Olympic competitor 10x a competitor?
    - Semaphor 3y ago
      > See: The Olympics, do you often see an Olympic competitor 10x a competitor? Yes, the Olympics mostly consists of 10X athletes. It’s pretty much a competition made for them.
      - p-e-w 3y ago
        Olympic athletes don't outperform average athletes by 10x. I'm sorry, but that's just complete bullshit. The world record for 100 meters sprint is 9.58 seconds. High school athletes routinely break 11 seconds. There are one-legged people, 90-year-olds, and other highly handicapped individuals who have come within a factor of 2 of the world record set by elite professional athletes. 10x my ass.
spacemadness 3y ago
I’m not sure what I even read here. This discussion doesn’t even mention anything about the realities of being a developer now. It seems to assume the modern workplace gives plenty of space for actual programming when it’s anything but the sort. The author should feel lucky they apparently get to program 40 hours a week in the first place.
- itronitron 3y ago
  It seems more likely they spend 40 hours a week writing.
- brigadier132 3y ago
  It was a lot of rambling. I think the argument is that the next generation is only in it for the money and that you can't count on them all being self driven. My response is, being self driven is not enough to be a "10x" developer and the idea that all your hires would be self driven passionate programmers has never been true..
- kccqzy 3y ago
  I totally agree with you. But on the other hand I think the industry as a whole should rethink our management practices such that we should enable those individuals to actually contribute so much. Today the author might feel lucky they apparently get to program 40 hours a week; can we make it so that tomorrow everyone who wants to program 40 hours a week can actually do so?
xlii 3y ago
> I stumble on a problem like this one and I stay up late every night until I find the solution. I wake up early each morning with new ideas of things to try. I don’t take enough breaks, but when I do, they’re tactically-designed to exploit my brain’s asynchronous processor to generate solutions for whatever I’m currently stuck on. I irresponsibly defer responsibilities from other areas of my life. (…) That’s not enthusiasm. That’s workaholism.
Accujack 3y ago
Ending? Just that generation is moving on. There have been ardent programmers with each new generation that learns computers, I remember well people who could produce massive amounts of code quickly back in the 1980s. It was a different software environment then, but the enthusiasm was the same. It used to be that amateur programmers created a lot of new products and services that way, before corporations started stifling everything on the Internet. There wasn't always a way to monetize writing projects like that, but that was okay back then, when it wasn't just the size or ubiquity of something you made that caused it to be seen as a great thing. This article is just another case of someone not being able to see beyond their own world, who believes they are singular and unique. The truth is that there is nothing new under the sun.
phoenixstrike 3y ago
Is this satire? I find it difficult to believe this can be serious. If so, this is a sad example of the "i am very smart" culture that is rampant in tech these days.
- hifromLA 3y ago
  These days? I can’t remember a time in tech that didn’t have that culture.
solatic 3y ago
The supply of passionate, engaged, "craftsman" developers is not zero-sum. People can be inspired to take their relationship with their work to a higher level of emotional engagement. No, this does not require people to develop on side-projects, outside of work (something that is nigh impossible to request from people with other demands on their time, such as academic degrees or newborn children). Neither is such emotional engagement necessarily evidence of a "10x" engineer. The simple fact of the matter is that Product does not work with code, does not understand code, and will not appreciate the complexities of working with code unless •Engineering stands up for its own interests. You can* inspire Juniors to understand more about their interests, care more about their craft, and lead them on a path to being happier with their career choice more generally. That only happens if you decide to engage with them, mentor them, and give them time to self-develop.
haileys 3y ago
This all sounds a lot like ADHD: > I stumble on a problem like this one and I stay up late every night until I find the solution. I wake up early each morning with new ideas of things to try. I don’t take enough breaks, but when I do, they’re tactically-designed to exploit my brain’s asynchronous processor to generate solutions for whatever I’m currently stuck on. I irresponsibly defer responsibilities from other areas of my life. Eventually, I realize I’m only at the 20% mark and that a pattern is repeating where a month or more of my life is about to disappear from the calendar. Towards the end, I find myself rushing to find the maze’s exit because my desire to unlock the puzzle’s final secret starts to be overtaken by the shame of all the other balls I’m dropping. It’s excruciating as I approach that inflection point—as intense as an overbearing manager’s “do or die” deadlines ever were, except in this case the pressure I feel is entirely self-imposed. > I ruminate endlessly under stress, so I wrest back some control by manufacturing stress responses over things I’m building to trick my brain into ruminating on work that’s useful to me. > I’m a terrible listener and struggle with auditory processing, > Parsing others’ sentences often feels like I’m filling in the blanks to make sense of them, > I’m a really bad learner—disinterested, distractible, and disagreeable. I’ve never enjoyed learning and generally avoid it, especially learning for its own sake. At the slightest discomfort when struggling to understand something, I’ll grasp for any distraction that might offer me a momentary escape. I don't see any mention of ADHD in the post, so I think I should say: if the author happens to read this, please consider speaking to your doctor and seeking an assessment. Treatment can be massively beneficial to your quality of life.
- keyle 3y ago
  ADHD internet diagnoses have been up 8000% in the last 10 years.
  - Fordec 3y ago
    Literally saying seek a professional opinion, not diagnosing themselves.
    - haileys 3y ago
deeviant 3y ago
Author rambles about 10x programmers, while basically identifying as one. Not sure what the take away here is other than the author has a high opinion of himself.
napierzaza 3y ago
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sdepablos 3y ago
What most people talking about 10x vs 1x engineers forget is that the last 10-12 years of VC-pumped software engineering has created an insane amount of 10x engineers not because they're better, faster or more intelligent, but just because they're people that care about their job, even if it's boring, and they deliver quality at a constant pace.
ldehaan 3y ago
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braza 3y ago
I had a similar experience as the OP (but I never was anything close to the 10x developer) but in my case, I recovered my passion for programming, but in different ways. Back in the day in 2005-2014 I got inspired by several folks around the world and looking back there are some characteristics of all those folks (i) they had a great sense of craftsmanship, (ii) they had a certain level of autonomy to build and they were "listened" in some of the engineering decisions, and (iii) most of those folks are shielded against meta-work (e.g. corporate bloat meetings, bureaucracy, low-value processes/corporate rituals, etc) because they were doing something special that talks with the customers/clients to understand them to build something meaningful. In my experience, unfortunately, the (ii) and (iii) are the norm and the end product is the vanishing of the (i). The software development profession changed with more tools accessible to more people, lots of people have access to the SOTA in code generation/assistance, and we had things unthinkable for our predecessors like version control systems, CI/CD, infrastructure as a code, containers and so on, but most of the corporate developers like me are constrained by the environment where not only we have that corporate iron ball on the foot, but we're every day more distant from the clients/customers. I used to be frustrated due to that, and I ended up fired twice because I naively fought against it, but at the end of the day I channel my craft into my hobby/pet projects or when I do something for my family (for instance, I was using a small script to automatic schedule Hemodialysis for a cousin that has a kidney problem).
marmakoide 3y ago
Sure, we don't have computers hooked to TVs and tape recorders anymore. But we have other entry points to programming, which are as addictive. More often than not, it's people who were exposed to programming at a young age, and found an endless source of comfort, joy, escape. Some teenagers get that early exposure, and some find it's a nice place for them. I give some of my time as The Grey Beard to help the local community robotics club at the local fablab : Arduino, BBC micro:bit, laser cutter, electronic components. The magic happened. One boy started to tinker to motorize his skateboard using scavenged parts and duct tape. An other boy got his own BBC micro:bit and went mad with Scratch, spending sleepless nights over it. Now he want to code with actual code and not Scratch blocks.
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
HN is just full of blogs by the absolute weirdest people on the planet.
saluki 3y ago
I think the 10x developer is about providing more value than just pure programming. There are lots of ways a developer can push the needle maybe producing 10x more code, maybe they develop new features 10x faster and if they are full stack with better UI/UX out of the box. Maybe they can build an entire MVP from scratch on their own. Maybe they can handle DevOps too Maybe they can contribute to product Maybe they implement security best practices and catch security issues of others etc It could be one item or a combination, but there are definitely developers that just provide 10x+ more value than a typical developer. Just having one on a team or at a startup especially early on can make a huge difference.
jcadam 3y ago
I don't know. I was born in 1980 and first got into programming as a young kid on an 8-bit Apple ][, and basically kept tinkering and coding through successive generations of computers as they became available. No stackoverflow or online tutorials - just books, magazines, and trial-and-error until the light bulb finally went off and you suddenly grokked pointers :) I started interacting with other like-minded nerds via local BBSes, and first experienced the internet through a dial-up UNIX shell account from a local ISP. Computers today are great - but you can do quite a bit of programming without understanding how anything really works. Will programmers who grew up with 64-bit machines, GUIs, always-on internet connections and very high-level programming languages be as good as the 80s kids? Who knows? Do they even need to be? Most technology companies don't seem to think so based on their hiring practices.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > Computers today are great - but you can do quite a bit of programming without understanding how anything really works. Did the "computer kids" of the 80s understand the quantum field effects that make transistors work, and how they are physically arranged to emulate logic gates, complete with all the subtle tricks needed to manage signal noise? If not, that comment is just ignorance dressed up in elitism. All of computing is based on abstraction, and understanding how it "really works" has been beyond the capability of any single individual for many decades.
rottc0dd 3y ago
I think the work flow that we have adapted is not something that encourages the long term general solutions. We all have feature to deliver every two weeks. We are being monitored every day in terms of tickets being moved and commits being done. (Thank you jellyfish) It seems like the actual value is measured wrong in corporate environment and it does not enable focused long term plans and solutions. I have a friend who negated 8 full Java classes with 50 lines of SQL. But, he did it without telling the management cause if did, then he would have to answer to them everyday. And he was learning his way and experimenting and changing all over the place. I don't thinking deeply about problems for creating better solutions is appreciated or even recognized. And it takes time to learn solving problems that way. Not attributing this to the corporate environment completely, but if you only care about features and its delivery ASAP, well... you will get them ASAP inspite of what horrors lurks under the hood.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  > I have a friend who negated 8 full Java classes with 50 lines of SQL I wouldn't brag about that. It's trading one headache for another.
  - rottc0dd 3y ago
    I think this is the right design for the scenario. It is for a dashboard and so many queries were fired for a read only operation. But, generally, I agree, it all depends on context.
strken 3y ago
The false dichotomy between "works on weekends for free" and "finds conversation about tools at lunch unbearable" is weird. If you work in a door-making factory, a job presumably very few people are passionate about, you're still going to complain that the number 3 planer is making a rattling noise even though it was just serviced last week.
quickthrower2 3y ago
I would think there are more young enthusiast programmers today than in say 2000. But supply will still be an issue, there are way more funded software ideas than talented people to work on them. Especially now anyone can start their own company for effectively a negative amount of money.
thom 3y ago
Every generation credits itself with some form of unattainable stoicism and yet progress marches on. I have no problem believing in 10x developers, but in my experience it’s always been down to hard won knowledge of the right architectures, libraries, data structures and algorithms. This helps to reduce suboptimal design and rework, allowing one to make constant, confident progress. It’s no wonder that older, more experienced devs often have this knowledge, but it’s not impossible, nor even very rare, for current and future generations to acquire it (even during their much-maligned Computer Science degrees).
wizzle 3y ago
I think the general thesis of the article is misplaced. The "enthusiast" archetype is not limited to profession and historical context. There will always be "enthusiasts" (intrinsically motivated people) in every profession at any point in time and it is highly unlikely that will change. Sure, we can describe a reality where programmers at a historical point in time had different traits but I'm not convinced the argument adds any value or the traits described in the article accurately describe the generational dynamics. Software is messy just like reality. Attitudes and ideas will change but there will always be people who are more interested in any topic. I think a more realistic description is "things have changed but some people are still obsessive about software and problem solving and that will never change".
Animats 3y ago
Another way to look at this is that programming as a job has been made manageable. That's in the sense of being controllable by management. "Agile" is all about that. Manufacturing went through this between about 1910 to 1980, replacing craftsmanship with mediocre workers under direct supervision. I sometimes deride "webcrap" on here. The point I'm making is that much of web-related programming today is bolting together off the shelf parts with a bit of custom glue. Programming has become wider but more shallow as a result. It's necessary to know about, or be able to look up, a huge array of parts. It's usually not necessary to understand how they work inside. Between Stack Overflow and Google, you can usually look it up. Who has a well-thumbed copy of Knuth immediately at hand any more? I once did, but those books are in the garage now.
lolinder 3y ago
It's not that the enthusiasts are disappearing—they're just harder to find now that the financial incentives for choosing software are so strong. The culture will not be defined by them nearly as much as before, but if anything I suspect that will just make the 10x effect even more apparent by contrast. It's hard to beat the depth of skill you develop when you have a single subject that's defined your life from the age of 10, and there are still plenty of budding developers out there who meet that description.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > they're just harder to find now that the financial incentives for choosing software are so strong Which has been the case since ye olde dotcom boom.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Like, I'm here for the money. I was good at hackery but don't love it
nologic01 3y ago
Reads like an attention seeking rant, anecdotal and full of personal biases. Useful as a data point of the state of mind of an technical person of some experience, a certain life journey etc. But what else to conclude? Software clearly has changed quite a bit in the past decades, but arguably quite a bit less than hardware and probably not measurably enough to require a different mental wiring from developers. What has changed massively is the economics of the tech industry. But that is a different story.
- xela79 3y ago
  exactly, as if "passionate" people haven't existed before, nor will exist in the future. If however you're working "for free" outside the hours you're paid for. You're the not the sharpest tool in the shed. If you're good at something, never do anything free. maybe he realizes people around him are creating an actual work/life balance and this is the end of the "10x engineer" whatever that is.
deafpolygon 3y ago
Says more about the OP than the reality of the situation.
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
every company that's hiring is looking for that 10x developer only /s
6510 3y ago
As a 0.01X developer I feel entitled to just ask the questions, I shouldn't attempt to answer them, that would be silly. Why is the software never finished? Why does stuff stop working after a while? Sounds like a lame thing to ask and I know enough of the answers to make it rhetorical.... but this isn't the only sector building things. We build a ton of stuff! The last few decades others are rushing out products too and they are as cheap as they are crappy but it wasn't always like that. Most things are actually good for a good while. If you boot up the museum quality computer from back in the days, insert the floppy... woah everything just works!? programming is just variables, if statements, for loops and function calls. Nothing new happened. The web browser was the last good idea. Hardware is insanely fast, but everything runs slow? What productivity did we gain if we have to endlessly rewrite everything? (think: Newspeak 11th edition) Project tool chain, project programming language and project package manager should have been finished by now? Imagine it to be a race against mr fusion[0] and the flying cars[1]. [0] - https://www.twitch.tv/ecatthenewfire https://www.twitch.tv/ecatthenewfire [1] - https://www.pal-v.com/en/explore-pal-v https://www.pal-v.com/en/explore-pal-v
dimgl 3y ago
Quite possibly one of the weirdest things I've ever read on Hacker News to be honest... hardly even touched on the topic.
topkai22 3y ago
I think the author is wrong about the demise of the 10x programmer, they are just going to look different. But the author identified many of the attributes they’ll still have- tenacity, tirelessness, and thoroughness. Also an insatiable curiosity. The best example of a 10x programmer I know went to art school. He’s a UX architect and can produce functional prototypes faster than you can describe what you want. He has all the attributes mentioned by the author, but I’m pretty sure he spent at least sometime being an enthusiast in things other than computers. Today though? He soaks up information about everything related to html, css, and JavaScript and turns it into beautiful interfaces. The author is right that cultural influences in the late 70s, 80s and 90s resulted fairly specific archetype being in prevalent in the industry. To be too interested in computers had social consequences. Being a “nerd” was a real label and sub group that ended up being both excluded and exclusive. It was hard to be casually into computers like you can be casually in to sports, except perhaps video gaming. There are plenty of people who have entered the profession now that’s been normalized that see everything as just a job, but there are also many that come in and get bit by the same bug that seized the kids who got into computers in the 80s and 90s- the magic of the machine, the beauty of code, the thrill of getting something to work. I’ve had the privilege of working with and even mentoring people like this- people who discovered programming relatively late from non-traditional backgrounds but none the less have become extremely competent coders. They look different, they approach some problems different, but they are just as tenacious, tireless, through, and curious as I am. And just as productive, too.
beej71 3y ago
I teach CS at a state university. Anecdotally, I still see the hardcore enthusiasts, maybe 5-10% of the class. Seems down from when I was in college, but my memory of the 90s is getting hazy. :)
- Tommstein 3y ago
  And wrote a sweet guide to network programming?
  - beej71 3y ago
    I make an honest effort. :)
    - Tommstein 3y ago
      It's how I first learned network programming. Thanks for writing it!
knighthack 3y ago
This is an article flopping its way around the central point - why is there a 10x demise? He doesn't answer the question. Instead, we have some nonsense about his past impulsive habits, quibbles about lack of diversity, gender imbalance, "Inter-generational conflict is brewing", 'privileged white man', and other drivel. What a waste of time as an article.
- me_again 3y ago
  He doesn't even provide any evidence beyond anecdote that there is a 10x demise.
analognoise 3y ago
I like how the author explicitly says that 10x programmers were a from a flimsy paper from the 1960's and in the original paper, a 10x programmer was only relative to "the worst programmers" - not to average programmers. I think this generational change will be healthy.
notcodingtoday 3y ago
Sorry for being off topic, but I really find the fluorescent green border obnoxious. Even if I scroll down, it remains at the top and bottom, which I find distracting.

111 points by rrampage 3y ago

singularity2001 3y ago

On the other hand we see the rise of a few select 1000x developers: those who master the math behind neural networks. Also GPT rises some non developers to developers.

smcleod 3y ago

10x is/was a gross concept - https://1x.engineer/ https://1x.engineer/ ftw. *Edit - to clarify I meant what it represented, of course some people nX times more effective/efficient/higher output than others.

Sterm 3y ago
Anyone can be a 10x engineer, it's just that the majority prefer mediocrity. If you chose to be less than you can be that's on you not the people who improved themselves.
- baby_souffle 3y ago
  So what if I choose to spend a decent amount of time and resources improving myself along other non software engineering facets?
  - dustedcodes 3y ago
    All the 10x engineers I have come across in my life often had the most non engineering hobbies and after work activities going on. They are like that kid in school who never needs to study to get an A and for whom things just click immediately.
  - Sterm 3y ago
    Then you're not a 10x engineer and will be filling out your hours in SAP and getting your tickets from Jira. Personally that sounds like a new circle of hell but I've had people ask me to bring back Jira for a project I was managing so there are truly all kinds.
  - 40yearoldman 3y ago
    Then you did not chose to be a 10x engineer. The same way you probably are only mediocre in your hobbies (unless you quit your job and focused on that only) Don’t be sad. It’s okay that other people do something better than you. Be happy you play disc golf, but the 10x engineer makes more PRs than you. Which do you want more. What I hear is you envy somebody else choices, and want to vilify them because you can’t compete with them because you made different life choices. It’s like you are mad that Serena Williams did so much better than you did, but you only played tennis on the weekends with your friend.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      10xer can play disk golf too. They might sleep 8 hours and shower too.
      - 40yearoldman 3y ago
        Yah for sure. But if you are not a 10x and want to be. Then you got to prioritize what you spend your time on.
        quickthrower2 3y ago
        True. Now this is where ymmv but time away from the screen and sleep, while slowing down productivity this week is better long term. Not because it is healthy (it is) but programming in a nonlinear endeavour. During downtime you can realize the thing you are even working on is not the best thing. Or reevaluate overall strategy.
  - I_am_uncreative 3y ago
    Everything you do in life should be focused on becoming better at computers. All hail computers.
- justrealist 3y ago
  I think we can be honest that neither extreme is correct here. A lot of people choose to be mediocre developers, but likewise a lot of people try very hard to be good but simply don't have the cognitive capacity or organization to excel.
  - echelon 3y ago
    This rings so true. (Cognitive Ability) * (Engineering Ability) * (Problem Solving Ability) * (Attention to Correct Details) * (Eagerness to Labor and Work) There are real 10x engineers. And there are also 0.1x engineers. And plenty in between. And lots of things impact job performance. Burnout, life satisfaction, interesting problems, ...
  - smcleod 3y ago
    Yes! Absolutely. It is not all or nothing, it very rarely is and the internet is quick to forget that.
  - antupis 3y ago
    Also environment has lot to do, give that mystical 10x developer boring ops/feature-factory job and watch him become 0.1x developer.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      Give him rich parents and watch him start a company.
- smcleod 3y ago
  I meant more the term 10x engineer and what it's come to stand for over the years. If we're just talking about the simple root premise some people are 10x more effective / efficient or simply deliver 10x the output at the same or better quality - sure yes I absolutely know those people and while I wouldn't consider myself one of them I certainly tend to get a lot more done than the average engineer I work with. However - I don't agree with you that _anyone_ can be 10x "better" than the average person as I regularly encounter people that do not have innate logic and troubleshooting skills nor the curiosity required. I do agree that plenty of folks are content with mediocrity - most of them have ended up in "enterprise" companies.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  Your first statement is true. But the Ratatouille quote applies here; "Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere" The majority don't prefer mediocrity. That's all they really can do. We just don't know which of the majority actually has the mythical 10x ability that easily.
  - Sterm 3y ago
    No, the majority are not prepared for the absolute obliteration of their ego they will suffer to become a 10x engineer. The problem isn't one of time, ability or whatever ineffable quality, but one of character. Ironically enough I think that a boot camp with the emotional abuse the marines used to get in the 50s while going through Knuth's papers would produce a lot of 10x programmers.
    - ramraj07 3y ago
      None of the 10x engineers I know (maybe some are 5x) try that hard. They didn't need to be abused. They were just naturally good at coding. I don't believe you can abuse someone into 10x abilities.
40yearoldman 3y ago
I think we just got it wrong. In my experience, the “10x” developers are just doing their job. Maybe we should focus on the dev/10 people, they just make people who are gitting stuff done look amazing. The reality is a subset of engineers are just better, quicker and faster. They known things and can do things faster. I have worked a verity of teams. However gross it is to you the person pulling in 30k of line of code in a complex system in 3 weeks is definitely something more than the average developer. I know I know. Everybody is going now pile on with some crazy assumptions about code quality shit. Let me stop you. You were not there, the code was amazing and the code ran rock solid. Also this was not a one off. Every project I worked with this person simply was the same way. 15 min sync, 3 days later amazing features, 90%+ unit test coverage, all while doing 9-5 and cooking dinner for her family after destroying that PR button. So whatever you want to call them, they exist, and they are likely better than you in every metric you can measure. Get over it do better.
- jstanley 3y ago
  To write 30k lines of code in 3 weeks, you're averaging 2k lines/day. At 8 hour days, that's 250 lines/hour. 6 lines/minute. 1 line of code every 10 seconds, for 8 hours straight, for 3 weeks straight. It's definitely possible to type that fast, but I can't imagine what programming that way would feel like.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kazinator 3y ago
    You don't have to type that fast if you have a multiplying gearbox: IDE autocomplete, and copy-paste.
- travisgriggs 3y ago
  This 52yearoldman agrees much with what you say. The fact is, that for many young people, programming has been “realtor boom” for many years. I’ve been actively involved with my faith’s various youth group offerings over the years, and I have watched a lot of young people I have known grow up and head down various paths, only to pivot from all kinds of career aspirations to software development. They connect with me because I’m an old timer in the same industry as them now. But very few of them “get into it” the way I have for my career. It’s a well paying job that has relatively low entry cost (either degreed or boot camped) and allows them to support their youthful adventures or aspirations to start families.
quickthrower2 3y ago
That description is not a 1x. Probably a 5x or more. (by the way 1x is the worst, 3x average and 10x best. The 10x is best vs. worst comparison)
brigadier132 3y ago
A trend I've noticed is that people that use words like "gross" tend to use arguments driven by emotion rather than logic. The "argument" in that link is a complete strawman. If they are a "10x engineer" but actually make people less productive because their code sucks they aren't actually a "10x engineer".
- smcleod 3y ago
  There's no need to be rude and make personal attacks on someone's use of language.

User23 3y ago

I like the guy bragging about 41 hour work weeks. Ah kids these days.

eterm 3y ago
Averaged over a whole year with no breaks, that's unhealthy.

ajhurliman 3y ago

I think folks’ general understanding of the 10x engineer is that “some people have it and some don’t”. I think it’s more like “I’m working on a bunch of stuff I already know, I have all the designs and business logic clearly identified, and my colleagues and I are all on the same page about how to work together so I’m really productive” vs “this codebase I just adopted is completely unreadable, the designs change every 3 days and the other teams I’m interacting with are adversarial”. People aren’t 10x engineers, situations are.

thrashh 3y ago
There are 10x people in every field. It’s not “everyone is average and there are 3 Einsteins”. It’s a bell curve and eventually you’ll meet someone on the farther ends of both sides. Chances are there’s always someone much better or much worse than you.
- deeviant 3y ago
  But it really only happens when you compare the top to the bottom and the comparison particularly useful. When you get the top, differences are more perception and other factors over skill/knowledge/intelligence. See: The Olympics, do you often see an Olympic competitor 10x a competitor?
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    > See: The Olympics, do you often see an Olympic competitor 10x a competitor? Yes, the Olympics mostly consists of 10X athletes. It’s pretty much a competition made for them.
    - p-e-w 3y ago
      Olympic athletes don't outperform average athletes by 10x. I'm sorry, but that's just complete bullshit. The world record for 100 meters sprint is 9.58 seconds. High school athletes routinely break 11 seconds. There are one-legged people, 90-year-olds, and other highly handicapped individuals who have come within a factor of 2 of the world record set by elite professional athletes. 10x my ass.

spacemadness 3y ago

I’m not sure what I even read here. This discussion doesn’t even mention anything about the realities of being a developer now. It seems to assume the modern workplace gives plenty of space for actual programming when it’s anything but the sort. The author should feel lucky they apparently get to program 40 hours a week in the first place.

itronitron 3y ago
It seems more likely they spend 40 hours a week writing.
brigadier132 3y ago
It was a lot of rambling. I think the argument is that the next generation is only in it for the money and that you can't count on them all being self driven. My response is, being self driven is not enough to be a "10x" developer and the idea that all your hires would be self driven passionate programmers has never been true..
kccqzy 3y ago
I totally agree with you. But on the other hand I think the industry as a whole should rethink our management practices such that we should enable those individuals to actually contribute so much. Today the author might feel lucky they apparently get to program 40 hours a week; can we make it so that tomorrow everyone who wants to program 40 hours a week can actually do so?

xlii 3y ago

> I stumble on a problem like this one and I stay up late every night until I find the solution. I wake up early each morning with new ideas of things to try. I don’t take enough breaks, but when I do, they’re tactically-designed to exploit my brain’s asynchronous processor to generate solutions for whatever I’m currently stuck on. I irresponsibly defer responsibilities from other areas of my life. (…) That’s not enthusiasm. That’s workaholism.

Accujack 3y ago

Ending? Just that generation is moving on. There have been ardent programmers with each new generation that learns computers, I remember well people who could produce massive amounts of code quickly back in the 1980s. It was a different software environment then, but the enthusiasm was the same. It used to be that amateur programmers created a lot of new products and services that way, before corporations started stifling everything on the Internet. There wasn't always a way to monetize writing projects like that, but that was okay back then, when it wasn't just the size or ubiquity of something you made that caused it to be seen as a great thing. This article is just another case of someone not being able to see beyond their own world, who believes they are singular and unique. The truth is that there is nothing new under the sun.

phoenixstrike 3y ago

Is this satire? I find it difficult to believe this can be serious. If so, this is a sad example of the "i am very smart" culture that is rampant in tech these days.

hifromLA 3y ago
These days? I can’t remember a time in tech that didn’t have that culture.

solatic 3y ago

The supply of passionate, engaged, "craftsman" developers is not zero-sum. People can be inspired to take their relationship with their work to a higher level of emotional engagement. No, this does not require people to develop on side-projects, outside of work (something that is nigh impossible to request from people with other demands on their time, such as academic degrees or newborn children). Neither is such emotional engagement necessarily evidence of a "10x" engineer. The simple fact of the matter is that Product does not work with code, does not understand code, and will not appreciate the complexities of working with code unless •Engineering stands up for its own interests. You can* inspire Juniors to understand more about their interests, care more about their craft, and lead them on a path to being happier with their career choice more generally. That only happens if you decide to engage with them, mentor them, and give them time to self-develop.

haileys 3y ago

This all sounds a lot like ADHD: > I stumble on a problem like this one and I stay up late every night until I find the solution. I wake up early each morning with new ideas of things to try. I don’t take enough breaks, but when I do, they’re tactically-designed to exploit my brain’s asynchronous processor to generate solutions for whatever I’m currently stuck on. I irresponsibly defer responsibilities from other areas of my life. Eventually, I realize I’m only at the 20% mark and that a pattern is repeating where a month or more of my life is about to disappear from the calendar. Towards the end, I find myself rushing to find the maze’s exit because my desire to unlock the puzzle’s final secret starts to be overtaken by the shame of all the other balls I’m dropping. It’s excruciating as I approach that inflection point—as intense as an overbearing manager’s “do or die” deadlines ever were, except in this case the pressure I feel is entirely self-imposed. > I ruminate endlessly under stress, so I wrest back some control by manufacturing stress responses over things I’m building to trick my brain into ruminating on work that’s useful to me. > I’m a terrible listener and struggle with auditory processing, > Parsing others’ sentences often feels like I’m filling in the blanks to make sense of them, > I’m a really bad learner—disinterested, distractible, and disagreeable. I’ve never enjoyed learning and generally avoid it, especially learning for its own sake. At the slightest discomfort when struggling to understand something, I’ll grasp for any distraction that might offer me a momentary escape. I don't see any mention of ADHD in the post, so I think I should say: if the author happens to read this, please consider speaking to your doctor and seeking an assessment. Treatment can be massively beneficial to your quality of life.

keyle 3y ago
ADHD internet diagnoses have been up 8000% in the last 10 years.
- Fordec 3y ago
  Literally saying seek a professional opinion, not diagnosing themselves.
  - haileys 3y ago

deeviant 3y ago

Author rambles about 10x programmers, while basically identifying as one. Not sure what the take away here is other than the author has a high opinion of himself.

napierzaza 3y ago

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sdepablos 3y ago

What most people talking about 10x vs 1x engineers forget is that the last 10-12 years of VC-pumped software engineering has created an insane amount of 10x engineers not because they're better, faster or more intelligent, but just because they're people that care about their job, even if it's boring, and they deliver quality at a constant pace.

ldehaan 3y ago

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braza 3y ago

I had a similar experience as the OP (but I never was anything close to the 10x developer) but in my case, I recovered my passion for programming, but in different ways. Back in the day in 2005-2014 I got inspired by several folks around the world and looking back there are some characteristics of all those folks (i) they had a great sense of craftsmanship, (ii) they had a certain level of autonomy to build and they were "listened" in some of the engineering decisions, and (iii) most of those folks are shielded against meta-work (e.g. corporate bloat meetings, bureaucracy, low-value processes/corporate rituals, etc) because they were doing something special that talks with the customers/clients to understand them to build something meaningful. In my experience, unfortunately, the (ii) and (iii) are the norm and the end product is the vanishing of the (i). The software development profession changed with more tools accessible to more people, lots of people have access to the SOTA in code generation/assistance, and we had things unthinkable for our predecessors like version control systems, CI/CD, infrastructure as a code, containers and so on, but most of the corporate developers like me are constrained by the environment where not only we have that corporate iron ball on the foot, but we're every day more distant from the clients/customers. I used to be frustrated due to that, and I ended up fired twice because I naively fought against it, but at the end of the day I channel my craft into my hobby/pet projects or when I do something for my family (for instance, I was using a small script to automatic schedule Hemodialysis for a cousin that has a kidney problem).

marmakoide 3y ago

Sure, we don't have computers hooked to TVs and tape recorders anymore. But we have other entry points to programming, which are as addictive. More often than not, it's people who were exposed to programming at a young age, and found an endless source of comfort, joy, escape. Some teenagers get that early exposure, and some find it's a nice place for them. I give some of my time as The Grey Beard to help the local community robotics club at the local fablab : Arduino, BBC micro:bit, laser cutter, electronic components. The magic happened. One boy started to tinker to motorize his skateboard using scavenged parts and duct tape. An other boy got his own BBC micro:bit and went mad with Scratch, spending sleepless nights over it. Now he want to code with actual code and not Scratch blocks.

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

HN is just full of blogs by the absolute weirdest people on the planet.

saluki 3y ago

I think the 10x developer is about providing more value than just pure programming. There are lots of ways a developer can push the needle maybe producing 10x more code, maybe they develop new features 10x faster and if they are full stack with better UI/UX out of the box. Maybe they can build an entire MVP from scratch on their own. Maybe they can handle DevOps too Maybe they can contribute to product Maybe they implement security best practices and catch security issues of others etc It could be one item or a combination, but there are definitely developers that just provide 10x+ more value than a typical developer. Just having one on a team or at a startup especially early on can make a huge difference.

jcadam 3y ago

I don't know. I was born in 1980 and first got into programming as a young kid on an 8-bit Apple ][, and basically kept tinkering and coding through successive generations of computers as they became available. No stackoverflow or online tutorials - just books, magazines, and trial-and-error until the light bulb finally went off and you suddenly grokked pointers :) I started interacting with other like-minded nerds via local BBSes, and first experienced the internet through a dial-up UNIX shell account from a local ISP. Computers today are great - but you can do quite a bit of programming without understanding how anything really works. Will programmers who grew up with 64-bit machines, GUIs, always-on internet connections and very high-level programming languages be as good as the 80s kids? Who knows? Do they even need to be? Most technology companies don't seem to think so based on their hiring practices.

p-e-w 3y ago
> Computers today are great - but you can do quite a bit of programming without understanding how anything really works. Did the "computer kids" of the 80s understand the quantum field effects that make transistors work, and how they are physically arranged to emulate logic gates, complete with all the subtle tricks needed to manage signal noise? If not, that comment is just ignorance dressed up in elitism. All of computing is based on abstraction, and understanding how it "really works" has been beyond the capability of any single individual for many decades.

rottc0dd 3y ago

I think the work flow that we have adapted is not something that encourages the long term general solutions. We all have feature to deliver every two weeks. We are being monitored every day in terms of tickets being moved and commits being done. (Thank you jellyfish) It seems like the actual value is measured wrong in corporate environment and it does not enable focused long term plans and solutions. I have a friend who negated 8 full Java classes with 50 lines of SQL. But, he did it without telling the management cause if did, then he would have to answer to them everyday. And he was learning his way and experimenting and changing all over the place. I don't thinking deeply about problems for creating better solutions is appreciated or even recognized. And it takes time to learn solving problems that way. Not attributing this to the corporate environment completely, but if you only care about features and its delivery ASAP, well... you will get them ASAP inspite of what horrors lurks under the hood.

dehrmann 3y ago
> I have a friend who negated 8 full Java classes with 50 lines of SQL I wouldn't brag about that. It's trading one headache for another.
- rottc0dd 3y ago
  I think this is the right design for the scenario. It is for a dashboard and so many queries were fired for a read only operation. But, generally, I agree, it all depends on context.

strken 3y ago

The false dichotomy between "works on weekends for free" and "finds conversation about tools at lunch unbearable" is weird. If you work in a door-making factory, a job presumably very few people are passionate about, you're still going to complain that the number 3 planer is making a rattling noise even though it was just serviced last week.

quickthrower2 3y ago

I would think there are more young enthusiast programmers today than in say 2000. But supply will still be an issue, there are way more funded software ideas than talented people to work on them. Especially now anyone can start their own company for effectively a negative amount of money.

thom 3y ago

Every generation credits itself with some form of unattainable stoicism and yet progress marches on. I have no problem believing in 10x developers, but in my experience it’s always been down to hard won knowledge of the right architectures, libraries, data structures and algorithms. This helps to reduce suboptimal design and rework, allowing one to make constant, confident progress. It’s no wonder that older, more experienced devs often have this knowledge, but it’s not impossible, nor even very rare, for current and future generations to acquire it (even during their much-maligned Computer Science degrees).

wizzle 3y ago

I think the general thesis of the article is misplaced. The "enthusiast" archetype is not limited to profession and historical context. There will always be "enthusiasts" (intrinsically motivated people) in every profession at any point in time and it is highly unlikely that will change. Sure, we can describe a reality where programmers at a historical point in time had different traits but I'm not convinced the argument adds any value or the traits described in the article accurately describe the generational dynamics. Software is messy just like reality. Attitudes and ideas will change but there will always be people who are more interested in any topic. I think a more realistic description is "things have changed but some people are still obsessive about software and problem solving and that will never change".

Animats 3y ago

Another way to look at this is that programming as a job has been made manageable. That's in the sense of being controllable by management. "Agile" is all about that. Manufacturing went through this between about 1910 to 1980, replacing craftsmanship with mediocre workers under direct supervision. I sometimes deride "webcrap" on here. The point I'm making is that much of web-related programming today is bolting together off the shelf parts with a bit of custom glue. Programming has become wider but more shallow as a result. It's necessary to know about, or be able to look up, a huge array of parts. It's usually not necessary to understand how they work inside. Between Stack Overflow and Google, you can usually look it up. Who has a well-thumbed copy of Knuth immediately at hand any more? I once did, but those books are in the garage now.

lolinder 3y ago

It's not that the enthusiasts are disappearing—they're just harder to find now that the financial incentives for choosing software are so strong. The culture will not be defined by them nearly as much as before, but if anything I suspect that will just make the 10x effect even more apparent by contrast. It's hard to beat the depth of skill you develop when you have a single subject that's defined your life from the age of 10, and there are still plenty of budding developers out there who meet that description.

drewcoo 3y ago
> they're just harder to find now that the financial incentives for choosing software are so strong Which has been the case since ye olde dotcom boom.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
Like, I'm here for the money. I was good at hackery but don't love it

nologic01 3y ago

Reads like an attention seeking rant, anecdotal and full of personal biases. Useful as a data point of the state of mind of an technical person of some experience, a certain life journey etc. But what else to conclude? Software clearly has changed quite a bit in the past decades, but arguably quite a bit less than hardware and probably not measurably enough to require a different mental wiring from developers. What has changed massively is the economics of the tech industry. But that is a different story.

xela79 3y ago
exactly, as if "passionate" people haven't existed before, nor will exist in the future. If however you're working "for free" outside the hours you're paid for. You're the not the sharpest tool in the shed. If you're good at something, never do anything free. maybe he realizes people around him are creating an actual work/life balance and this is the end of the "10x engineer" whatever that is.

deafpolygon 3y ago

Says more about the OP than the reality of the situation.

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

every company that's hiring is looking for that 10x developer only /s

6510 3y ago

As a 0.01X developer I feel entitled to just ask the questions, I shouldn't attempt to answer them, that would be silly. Why is the software never finished? Why does stuff stop working after a while? Sounds like a lame thing to ask and I know enough of the answers to make it rhetorical.... but this isn't the only sector building things. We build a ton of stuff! The last few decades others are rushing out products too and they are as cheap as they are crappy but it wasn't always like that. Most things are actually good for a good while. If you boot up the museum quality computer from back in the days, insert the floppy... woah everything just works!? programming is just variables, if statements, for loops and function calls. Nothing new happened. The web browser was the last good idea. Hardware is insanely fast, but everything runs slow? What productivity did we gain if we have to endlessly rewrite everything? (think: Newspeak 11th edition) Project tool chain, project programming language and project package manager should have been finished by now? Imagine it to be a race against mr fusion[0] and the flying cars[1]. [0] - https://www.twitch.tv/ecatthenewfire https://www.twitch.tv/ecatthenewfire [1] - https://www.pal-v.com/en/explore-pal-v https://www.pal-v.com/en/explore-pal-v

dimgl 3y ago

Quite possibly one of the weirdest things I've ever read on Hacker News to be honest... hardly even touched on the topic.

topkai22 3y ago

I think the author is wrong about the demise of the 10x programmer, they are just going to look different. But the author identified many of the attributes they’ll still have- tenacity, tirelessness, and thoroughness. Also an insatiable curiosity. The best example of a 10x programmer I know went to art school. He’s a UX architect and can produce functional prototypes faster than you can describe what you want. He has all the attributes mentioned by the author, but I’m pretty sure he spent at least sometime being an enthusiast in things other than computers. Today though? He soaks up information about everything related to html, css, and JavaScript and turns it into beautiful interfaces. The author is right that cultural influences in the late 70s, 80s and 90s resulted fairly specific archetype being in prevalent in the industry. To be too interested in computers had social consequences. Being a “nerd” was a real label and sub group that ended up being both excluded and exclusive. It was hard to be casually into computers like you can be casually in to sports, except perhaps video gaming. There are plenty of people who have entered the profession now that’s been normalized that see everything as just a job, but there are also many that come in and get bit by the same bug that seized the kids who got into computers in the 80s and 90s- the magic of the machine, the beauty of code, the thrill of getting something to work. I’ve had the privilege of working with and even mentoring people like this- people who discovered programming relatively late from non-traditional backgrounds but none the less have become extremely competent coders. They look different, they approach some problems different, but they are just as tenacious, tireless, through, and curious as I am. And just as productive, too.

beej71 3y ago

I teach CS at a state university. Anecdotally, I still see the hardcore enthusiasts, maybe 5-10% of the class. Seems down from when I was in college, but my memory of the 90s is getting hazy. :)

Tommstein 3y ago
And wrote a sweet guide to network programming?
- beej71 3y ago
  I make an honest effort. :)
  - Tommstein 3y ago
    It's how I first learned network programming. Thanks for writing it!

knighthack 3y ago

This is an article flopping its way around the central point - why is there a 10x demise? He doesn't answer the question. Instead, we have some nonsense about his past impulsive habits, quibbles about lack of diversity, gender imbalance, "Inter-generational conflict is brewing", 'privileged white man', and other drivel. What a waste of time as an article.

me_again 3y ago
He doesn't even provide any evidence beyond anecdote that there is a 10x demise.

analognoise 3y ago

I like how the author explicitly says that 10x programmers were a from a flimsy paper from the 1960's and in the original paper, a 10x programmer was only relative to "the worst programmers" - not to average programmers. I think this generational change will be healthy.

notcodingtoday 3y ago

Sorry for being off topic, but I really find the fluorescent green border obnoxious. Even if I scroll down, it remains at the top and bottom, which I find distracting.