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This was good, but… Hermione (I'm sure that's her) rates her C++ knowledge at 4-5, and Stroustrup himself at 7!? Bullshit. Either they are poorly calibrated,

This was good, but… Hermione (I'm sure that's her) rates her C++ knowledge at 4-5, and Stroustrup himself at 7!? Bullshit. Either they are poorly calibrated, or they are displaying false modesty. Sure, they probably still have plenty to learn about C++, but come on, Hermione is already at the top 97% in terms of language lawyering. Wanting to be stronger is good. Not realizing you're already quite strong is not so good.

banachtarski 13y ago
It's all relative. I would consider a 10 somebody who could write the C++ compiler without guidance for example. And probably give myself a 4 as a result.
- Negitivefrags 13y ago
  Would you only consider someone's knowledge of Python a 10 if they could write a Python interpreter without guidance?
  - smnrchrds 13y ago
    I will give the creators of PonyORM a 10 as well. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16115713/how-pony-orm-does-its-tricks http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16115713/how-pony-orm-doe...
    - Romoku 13y ago
      It's really quite interesting that they build the queries from the AST. To contrast C# generates the Sql for Linq to Sql by building up an expression tree using the IQueryable interface. This simplifies step one of the Pony ORM author's answer.
  - banachtarski 13y ago
    My point is the scale is absolute. Somebody who rates themselves a 9 on C++ knowledge probably doesn't realize how much there truly is to know. Sort of a corollary to the dunning-krueger effect.
ambrop7 13y ago
I think the author is just taking into account the Dunning–Kruger effect.
svantana 13y ago
It's real, it's called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I've seen it plenty of times with real superstar-experts rate themselves as "slightly above average"... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
- RogerL 13y ago
  I think it is more than that. I had a boss that basically would not hire somebody if they said they were at the top of any measure. In one sense, she was correct. No one can know everything about C++. OTOH, if you are in the 9x percentile, why should you not rate yourself at 9-10 out of ten? At some point it gets silly when you are arguing about how you should properly distribute yourself in bins so long as you understand the scope of the problem.
  - loup-vaillant 13y ago
    I think there are actually 2 questions: Among professional programmers, at what percentile are you, in terms of C++ knowledge? Of all there is to know about C++, how much (in%) do you know? Your answer will depend a great deal on which question you believe this is about.
  - okamiueru 13y ago
    The only problem with that is that you have no way of knowing what kind of scale adjustments they are using. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.no/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.no/2010/02/boyfriend-doesn...
raverbashing 13y ago
Yeah, I'd say 10 years ago I though I rated around 8 After some time, 7, then 5 But then I got back to 6. The more you know, the less you know!
wasamasa 13y ago
What I still wonder about is where that 7/10 rating for Stroustrup comes from. I've seen it mentioned in some other posts on hackernews, but just with the remark "Stroustrup rated himself as 7/10 in an interview". I'd like to see the entire interview (or what other source it comes from), just to be sure it's not an out of context quote.

banachtarski 13y ago

It's all relative. I would consider a 10 somebody who could write the C++ compiler without guidance for example. And probably give myself a 4 as a result.

Negitivefrags 13y ago
Would you only consider someone's knowledge of Python a 10 if they could write a Python interpreter without guidance?
- smnrchrds 13y ago
  I will give the creators of PonyORM a 10 as well. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16115713/how-pony-orm-does-its-tricks http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16115713/how-pony-orm-doe...
  - Romoku 13y ago
    It's really quite interesting that they build the queries from the AST. To contrast C# generates the Sql for Linq to Sql by building up an expression tree using the IQueryable interface. This simplifies step one of the Pony ORM author's answer.
- banachtarski 13y ago
  My point is the scale is absolute. Somebody who rates themselves a 9 on C++ knowledge probably doesn't realize how much there truly is to know. Sort of a corollary to the dunning-krueger effect.

ambrop7 13y ago

I think the author is just taking into account the Dunning–Kruger effect.

svantana 13y ago

It's real, it's called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I've seen it plenty of times with real superstar-experts rate themselves as "slightly above average"... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

RogerL 13y ago
I think it is more than that. I had a boss that basically would not hire somebody if they said they were at the top of any measure. In one sense, she was correct. No one can know everything about C++. OTOH, if you are in the 9x percentile, why should you not rate yourself at 9-10 out of ten? At some point it gets silly when you are arguing about how you should properly distribute yourself in bins so long as you understand the scope of the problem.
- loup-vaillant 13y ago
  I think there are actually 2 questions: Among professional programmers, at what percentile are you, in terms of C++ knowledge? Of all there is to know about C++, how much (in%) do you know? Your answer will depend a great deal on which question you believe this is about.
- okamiueru 13y ago
  The only problem with that is that you have no way of knowing what kind of scale adjustments they are using. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.no/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.no/2010/02/boyfriend-doesn...

raverbashing 13y ago

Yeah, I'd say 10 years ago I though I rated around 8 After some time, 7, then 5 But then I got back to 6. The more you know, the less you know!

wasamasa 13y ago

What I still wonder about is where that 7/10 rating for Stroustrup comes from. I've seen it mentioned in some other posts on hackernews, but just with the remark "Stroustrup rated himself as 7/10 in an interview". I'd like to see the entire interview (or what other source it comes from), just to be sure it's not an out of context quote.