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This is confusing lack of experience with a specific discipline with productivity. If you have the specialized knowledge, you’ll know that “writing a driver” i

• raggi 2y ago
  Yup, scanned through the video, I don’t think the guy authored a single function, just grabbed skel and parts from other code bases, deleted stuff he didn’t want and fixed a little glue and build code
• Rinzler89 2y ago
  Exactly. Plus, the author is not totally new to this. According to his resume he's been writing drivers since the late 90's so this probably isn't his first rodeo. He makes it look easy.
• stavros 2y ago
  No it isn't. Most programmers just don't have the experience, and don't much care to get it. I've long thought 10x programmers were a myth, until I saw how much faster some of our developers are compared to others. It's pretty close to 10x, some people will do something in a week, someone else in half a day. The person who did it in a week wrote a thousand lines of terrible code, the second person replaced it with fifty lines.
  • bboygravity 2y ago
    If you ask me to code something that I worked on during my last project/client, I'll probably do it more than 10x faster. My point: one person can be his own 10x coder depending on (recent) experience and niche knowledge being applicable to a project. To any manager I will look more than 10x faster than my peers. But I would definitely not be 10x "better" than my peers at our job in general.
    • stavros 2y ago
      So you're saying that the people who've been with us for years that do things 10x faster than their peers did the same things last month?
    • khazhoux 2y ago
      Yes, experience should (in theory) make one move faster. But that's not the full answer. In company after company, I've seen (and been amazed by) engineers who even at a young age (as in, first job out of college) somehow leapfrog the others and deliver a ton of awesome code, constantly. They simply don't struggle with it. And meanwhile, most of their peers (even older, more experienced ones) hit roadblocks at every turn.
      • fl0ki 2y ago
        Exactly. That's why it's hard to watch so many people claim it's a myth. What I'm coming to realize is even worse is that many people do see how much more productive and capable other engineers can be, but make no effort to learn from them how they do what they do. I have no doubt that natural talent is a big factor, but many specific behaviors can be learned, and they're probably worth trying when they're going to affect every day of a multi-decade long career. Some people understand this and become the best they can be within their natural talents, while most people just keep doing whatever they're doing while watching junior engineers zip right past them.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• khazhoux 2y ago
  Yes, I totally grant that this was someone experienced in this specific discipline, who was not starting from blank slate. Perhaps one reason that there are so many low-productivity developers is because there's not as much opportunity to specialize and hone one's skills?
  • 8372049 2y ago
    Depends how you define opportunity. Getting really good at something is 90 % putting in a lot of hours and 10 % talent. Putting in a lot that don't pay isn't for everyone, while the really great devs will do a lot of tech work outside the job as well. (The numbers are not meant to be taken literally)