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It is trivial to identify a 10x programmer. Take any project (or platform) that uses quirky and individualistic style, preferably written in an obscure languag

It is trivial to identify a 10x programmer. Take any project (or platform) that uses quirky and individualistic style, preferably written in an obscure language. Any programmer that has been working with such a project for a year or two, would be a 5x programmer. Any programmer that has actually started that project would be a 10x programmer. Why? Because an amount of effort that any developer, unfamiliar with an obscure approach has to spend is 50x.

geon 14y ago
So a 10x programmer is one who writes crappy code? I think you have your definition backwards.
- dchichkov 14y ago
  One who writes quirky and individualistic code. Not crappy. It could be well organized. And even good. And even solve the problem, at the time when it was written. But. If that code is approachable by any regular developer, when the original programmer would not be 10x. And management and peers wouldn't think about the original developer as 10x. But if, the code is quirky and individualistic... a funny thing happens. Suddenly whoever works (or can rise up and work with that code for whatever reason) is 10x. And peers and management would see them as 10x. I've seen that quite a number of times. Many times as 10x, as 1x and even a few as 0.1x.
  - geon 14y ago
    Good code is dead simple to read and understand. That is what makes it good, because sooner or later, someone will need to read it and maintain it. Getting to that point is difficult, and may require a 10x programmer. But the end result is simplicity.
    - klibertp 14y ago
      I think you misunderstand grand-parent. Once again I will use a quicksort example - we all know quicksort, even if not iterative, then surely recursive version, right? Ok, so here goes quicksort implementation that is dead simple and easy to read: quicksort=: (($:@(<#[), (=#[), $:@(>#[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1<#) It's in J. Someone who wrote this has much higher chance of being 10x than someone who implemented the same algorithm in Python. That's all I think grandparent wanted to say and if so then I agree completely.
      - dchichkov 14y ago
        Someone who wrote this has much higher chance of being called 10x by peers and management. And someone who has to support that code has much higher chance of being called 0.1x by pears and management.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >One who writes quirky and individualistic code. Not crappy. It could be well organized. And even good. And even solve the problem, at the time when it was written. But. If that code is approachable by any regular developer, when the original programmer would not be 10x. And management and peers wouldn't think about the original developer as 10x. Nope, still got it backwards. The characteristic of a 10X programmer is how FAST he can write GOOD code that solves a particular problem. Neither individualistic, nor quirky. He doesn't even have to read Ayn Rand. If it's not code that his 1x coworkers can understand, then he's not 10X, just show-offish and hackish. To give some examples: Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan. Linus Torvalds. Poul-Henning Kamp. Zed Shaw. Notch. John Carmack. All of those are/were very much 10X programmers. But no obscure languages and nothing quirky and particularly individualistic about their code. I think you have mixed the notion of the 10X programmer with the notion of the "cowboy coder" (with traces of crazy genius, e.g the autonomous, quirky, Lisp/Haskell/J/whatever yielding programmer who completes some huge project in his own peculiar way in a short amount of time).
  - dchichkov 14y ago
    The problem is, that the consensus about a particular developer in a particular project -- to call that developer "10x, 1x 0.1x" -- is a consensus of peers and management. And peers almost always lack the information to make the objective call. If they'd had that information, they wouldn't have called that developer a 10x. And that's one of the reasons, why you never see normal people calling themselves 10x, by the way.

geon 14y ago

So a 10x programmer is one who writes crappy code? I think you have your definition backwards.

dchichkov 14y ago
One who writes quirky and individualistic code. Not crappy. It could be well organized. And even good. And even solve the problem, at the time when it was written. But. If that code is approachable by any regular developer, when the original programmer would not be 10x. And management and peers wouldn't think about the original developer as 10x. But if, the code is quirky and individualistic... a funny thing happens. Suddenly whoever works (or can rise up and work with that code for whatever reason) is 10x. And peers and management would see them as 10x. I've seen that quite a number of times. Many times as 10x, as 1x and even a few as 0.1x.
- geon 14y ago
  Good code is dead simple to read and understand. That is what makes it good, because sooner or later, someone will need to read it and maintain it. Getting to that point is difficult, and may require a 10x programmer. But the end result is simplicity.
  - klibertp 14y ago
    I think you misunderstand grand-parent. Once again I will use a quicksort example - we all know quicksort, even if not iterative, then surely recursive version, right? Ok, so here goes quicksort implementation that is dead simple and easy to read: quicksort=: (($:@(<#[), (=#[), $:@(>#[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1<#) It's in J. Someone who wrote this has much higher chance of being 10x than someone who implemented the same algorithm in Python. That's all I think grandparent wanted to say and if so then I agree completely.
    - dchichkov 14y ago
      Someone who wrote this has much higher chance of being called 10x by peers and management. And someone who has to support that code has much higher chance of being called 0.1x by pears and management.
coldtea 14y ago
>One who writes quirky and individualistic code. Not crappy. It could be well organized. And even good. And even solve the problem, at the time when it was written. But. If that code is approachable by any regular developer, when the original programmer would not be 10x. And management and peers wouldn't think about the original developer as 10x. Nope, still got it backwards. The characteristic of a 10X programmer is how FAST he can write GOOD code that solves a particular problem. Neither individualistic, nor quirky. He doesn't even have to read Ayn Rand. If it's not code that his 1x coworkers can understand, then he's not 10X, just show-offish and hackish. To give some examples: Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan. Linus Torvalds. Poul-Henning Kamp. Zed Shaw. Notch. John Carmack. All of those are/were very much 10X programmers. But no obscure languages and nothing quirky and particularly individualistic about their code. I think you have mixed the notion of the 10X programmer with the notion of the "cowboy coder" (with traces of crazy genius, e.g the autonomous, quirky, Lisp/Haskell/J/whatever yielding programmer who completes some huge project in his own peculiar way in a short amount of time).
- dchichkov 14y ago
  The problem is, that the consensus about a particular developer in a particular project -- to call that developer "10x, 1x 0.1x" -- is a consensus of peers and management. And peers almost always lack the information to make the objective call. If they'd had that information, they wouldn't have called that developer a 10x. And that's one of the reasons, why you never see normal people calling themselves 10x, by the way.