>For all program aspects investigated, the performance variability due to different programmers (as described by the bad/good ratios) is on average about as lar

>For all program aspects investigated, the performance variability due to different programmers (as described by the bad/good ratios) is on average about as large or even larger than the variability due to different languages. Yes, but that doesn't mean the language doesn't matter. If programmer productivity is variable by 10x, and this study shows that the language affects their productivity by less than the difference between programmers, that's still a huge difference. Using the wrong language can drop the performance of a rockstar programmer down a weight class.