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This is in my opinion very wrong, you will end up just selecting for a sub population which might or might have the qualities you are looking for. You seem to

This is in my opinion very wrong, you will end up just selecting for a sub population which might or might have the qualities you are looking for. You seem to be confusing volume of work and passion for skill. Some of the best engineers i know will are very diligent about work life balance (i guess you call that clock in/sign out), do not have publicly visible git hub because in their spare time they are either with their families/communities or enjoying other non tech related hobbies. A good programmer (from an employer perspective) is first and foremost a professional, passion and loving doing stuff is good but can only get so so far. I know a lot of the passionate programmer who basically suck. > There are obvious clowns in the industry Agree, and the worst seem to be the one thinking they have this magical/predictive ability to discern talent based on their limited life experience.

andrewmcwatters 3y ago
People who do more will, by definition, have more experience than those who do less. The engineers who spend their time reading and working on problems because they want to, creating larger volumes of work than those who only work an 8-to-5 job will generally always have a larger breadth and depth of experience. Saying the inverse is true is highly unlikely over large populations of individuals across any field, not just software development. You're telling me that you think musicians who are "very diligent" and practice less can be "some of the best" you'll ever have exposure to compared to those who are working in music all the time, just because they like it? It's a delusional concept. If you want to be good at anything in life, you will end up spending more time than other cohorts in any given discipline. But for some reason in tech, people like to believe that's not true because "work life balance." Did it ever dawn on you that some people just like to write all the time? Or produce music all the time? Or paint? Or sing? Or act? "Very diligent" people doing less than "very diligent" people doing more will generally always have less experience and skill. There's nothing meaningful to argue here. Some people delude themselves into thinking it's sacrifice and that some people have to give up "work life balance": The reality is that there are populations of people across all sorts of discipline where giving up more time doing X, Y or Z isn't sacrifice, it's because people genuinely enjoy doing more than others, spending time becoming better than others, and producing more: And yet, that scares people, and people like to deny that it's true instead of acknowledging their own mediocrity.
- baby_souffle 3y ago
  > People who do more will, by definition, have more experience than those who do less. You're assuming skill rises meaningfully with just volume of experience. Who's a more skilled driver? The plumber that drives his van around to jobs all day and does about 1K miles/month or the guy that mostly rides his bike except for weekends when he's taking a defensive drivers course or going to a track day? I'd bet $$$ that the plumber spends a lot of time checked out / in zombie mode on the freeway between jobs and the motor-sports enthusiast is hyper diligent when driving. > Saying the inverse is true is highly unlikely over large populations of individuals across any field, not just software development. Perhaps, but this is - again - because you're missing the point; meaningful advancement in skill comes from experience gained while attempting something an individual is new to/uncertain/uncomfortable with and not the same thing that the individual has done a thousand times before. > You're telling me that you think musicians who are "very diligent" and practice less can be "some of the best" you'll ever have exposure to compared to those who are working in music all the time, just because they like it? Yes. A simple counterfactual: not all musicians that practice 18 hours a day become successful. There's a lot of work in being the best, absolutely. But some people have some fantastic genetics/general-upbringing/predisposition to leverage. Same thing with sports. There are comedians that you've never heard of that spend more time writing jokes than world-famous comedians do. > Did it ever dawn on you that some people just like to write all the time? Or produce music all the time? Or paint? Or sing? Or act? Absolutely, but the people that do $thing all the time _and get better at it_ are the people that are constantly looking to $difficulty++ on $thing. I love reading and I'm always getting better at it because I don't stick with the same language/length/difficulty level all the time :).
- soulbadguy 3y ago
  You continue to equate volume and time with quality of work. But still... > People who do more will, by definition, have more experience than those who do less. Disagree. The quality of work, and the intensity is as important as the length of work. 100hr of focused work is better than 1000hr of distracted, unfocused work. It also depends on the type of work, i would argue that someone who does 50hr of Haskell and 50hr of c++ has more experience than someone who does 150hr of just c++; It also depends on the type of experience, sure maybe ( a strong maybe) your lone 1000 github star can produce more code, but being a professional programmer is more than just producing code. Communication, planning and general don't be a doucheness are also important. A parent who is doing 8-5, and spend the rest of the time managing a family would score higher on those metric. > The engineers who spend their time reading and working on problems because they want to, creating larger volumes of work than those who only work an 8-to-5 job will generally always have a larger breadth and depth of experience. Same remark here, depends on the focus and intensity of work. It's a well documented things that after 40hr a week, the quality of work and focus tends to degrade. But even more important, you are assuming that the time the "8-5 people" spend not working on computer related things somehow also doesn't count as experience, and can not somehow synergisticly enhanced one professional work. At the base level, you have the foundation health related thingy like good diet, proper rest etc...etc.. which does take time. But also well know thingies like ideas poping in when one get some distance to a given task. More important, cultivating other interest and stretch one's minds and have some interesting effect. > Saying the inverse is true is highly unlikely over large populations of individuals across any field, not just software development. Strawman, not really gonna touch this. > You're telling me that you think musicians who are "very diligent" and practice less can be "some of the best" you'll ever have exposure to compared to those who are working in music all the time, just because they like it? This is still a strawman. But at least it's more interesting. To answer the question : Yes... its called talent,training quality and genetic predispositions. If long hours of work was the only thing required, the profession of coach wouldn't exits. In sport, most of the top player are very motivated people, with ungodly work ethics and drive... They still invest in personal coaching because just "doing" is not enough, doing the right thing and the right way is also very important. > It's a delusional concept. If you want to be good at anything in life, you will end up spending more time than other cohorts in any given discipline. But for some reason in tech, people like to believe that's not true because "work life balance." > Did it ever dawn on you that some people just like to write all the time? Or produce music all the time? Or paint? Or sing? Or act? I see this as faulty logic at multiple level. Even if i give you the fact that hard work/passion etc... are strongly correlated with excellence. It doesn't follow that hard work/passion etc... are a good selection criteria when looking for excellence. A good analogy is height and basketball skills. It's pretty clear that being tall helps some might even say is required. But within the NBA (or any other organization of "professional basketball player), nobody is drafting people based solely on height. One might even say that the relationship between height and skills in the NBA is fuzzy at best.

andrewmcwatters 3y ago

People who do more will, by definition, have more experience than those who do less. The engineers who spend their time reading and working on problems because they want to, creating larger volumes of work than those who only work an 8-to-5 job will generally always have a larger breadth and depth of experience. Saying the inverse is true is highly unlikely over large populations of individuals across any field, not just software development. You're telling me that you think musicians who are "very diligent" and practice less can be "some of the best" you'll ever have exposure to compared to those who are working in music all the time, just because they like it? It's a delusional concept. If you want to be good at anything in life, you will end up spending more time than other cohorts in any given discipline. But for some reason in tech, people like to believe that's not true because "work life balance." Did it ever dawn on you that some people just like to write all the time? Or produce music all the time? Or paint? Or sing? Or act? "Very diligent" people doing less than "very diligent" people doing more will generally always have less experience and skill. There's nothing meaningful to argue here. Some people delude themselves into thinking it's sacrifice and that some people have to give up "work life balance": The reality is that there are populations of people across all sorts of discipline where giving up more time doing X, Y or Z isn't sacrifice, it's because people genuinely enjoy doing more than others, spending time becoming better than others, and producing more: And yet, that scares people, and people like to deny that it's true instead of acknowledging their own mediocrity.

baby_souffle 3y ago
> People who do more will, by definition, have more experience than those who do less. You're assuming skill rises meaningfully with just volume of experience. Who's a more skilled driver? The plumber that drives his van around to jobs all day and does about 1K miles/month or the guy that mostly rides his bike except for weekends when he's taking a defensive drivers course or going to a track day? I'd bet $$$ that the plumber spends a lot of time checked out / in zombie mode on the freeway between jobs and the motor-sports enthusiast is hyper diligent when driving. > Saying the inverse is true is highly unlikely over large populations of individuals across any field, not just software development. Perhaps, but this is - again - because you're missing the point; meaningful advancement in skill comes from experience gained while attempting something an individual is new to/uncertain/uncomfortable with and not the same thing that the individual has done a thousand times before. > You're telling me that you think musicians who are "very diligent" and practice less can be "some of the best" you'll ever have exposure to compared to those who are working in music all the time, just because they like it? Yes. A simple counterfactual: not all musicians that practice 18 hours a day become successful. There's a lot of work in being the best, absolutely. But some people have some fantastic genetics/general-upbringing/predisposition to leverage. Same thing with sports. There are comedians that you've never heard of that spend more time writing jokes than world-famous comedians do. > Did it ever dawn on you that some people just like to write all the time? Or produce music all the time? Or paint? Or sing? Or act? Absolutely, but the people that do $thing all the time _and get better at it_ are the people that are constantly looking to $difficulty++ on $thing. I love reading and I'm always getting better at it because I don't stick with the same language/length/difficulty level all the time :).
soulbadguy 3y ago
You continue to equate volume and time with quality of work. But still... > People who do more will, by definition, have more experience than those who do less. Disagree. The quality of work, and the intensity is as important as the length of work. 100hr of focused work is better than 1000hr of distracted, unfocused work. It also depends on the type of work, i would argue that someone who does 50hr of Haskell and 50hr of c++ has more experience than someone who does 150hr of just c++; It also depends on the type of experience, sure maybe ( a strong maybe) your lone 1000 github star can produce more code, but being a professional programmer is more than just producing code. Communication, planning and general don't be a doucheness are also important. A parent who is doing 8-5, and spend the rest of the time managing a family would score higher on those metric. > The engineers who spend their time reading and working on problems because they want to, creating larger volumes of work than those who only work an 8-to-5 job will generally always have a larger breadth and depth of experience. Same remark here, depends on the focus and intensity of work. It's a well documented things that after 40hr a week, the quality of work and focus tends to degrade. But even more important, you are assuming that the time the "8-5 people" spend not working on computer related things somehow also doesn't count as experience, and can not somehow synergisticly enhanced one professional work. At the base level, you have the foundation health related thingy like good diet, proper rest etc...etc.. which does take time. But also well know thingies like ideas poping in when one get some distance to a given task. More important, cultivating other interest and stretch one's minds and have some interesting effect. > Saying the inverse is true is highly unlikely over large populations of individuals across any field, not just software development. Strawman, not really gonna touch this. > You're telling me that you think musicians who are "very diligent" and practice less can be "some of the best" you'll ever have exposure to compared to those who are working in music all the time, just because they like it? This is still a strawman. But at least it's more interesting. To answer the question : Yes... its called talent,training quality and genetic predispositions. If long hours of work was the only thing required, the profession of coach wouldn't exits. In sport, most of the top player are very motivated people, with ungodly work ethics and drive... They still invest in personal coaching because just "doing" is not enough, doing the right thing and the right way is also very important. > It's a delusional concept. If you want to be good at anything in life, you will end up spending more time than other cohorts in any given discipline. But for some reason in tech, people like to believe that's not true because "work life balance." > Did it ever dawn on you that some people just like to write all the time? Or produce music all the time? Or paint? Or sing? Or act? I see this as faulty logic at multiple level. Even if i give you the fact that hard work/passion etc... are strongly correlated with excellence. It doesn't follow that hard work/passion etc... are a good selection criteria when looking for excellence. A good analogy is height and basketball skills. It's pretty clear that being tall helps some might even say is required. But within the NBA (or any other organization of "professional basketball player), nobody is drafting people based solely on height. One might even say that the relationship between height and skills in the NBA is fuzzy at best.