6 ms·

I agree. I'm assuming there are many 10X programmers; unfortunately, there are not many 10X problems (or at least, not commercially viable ones - for example, I

by tomp 12y ago

I agree. I'm assuming there are many 10X programmers; unfortunately, there are not many 10X problems (or at least, not commercially viable ones - for example, I'm developing a programming language, but I don't see any chance of it being a commercial success, so I only do it in my free time).

TeMPOraL 12y ago
In my case I doubt it's just about the type of a problem. I feel it's as much about the context. I apologize for the vagueness, those are all results of years of introspection of my work performance. Let's bring up recent web projects I've been doing. I'm working on an API-first system in PHP. Quite a chore, and most of the time I feel like running on 0.1X. Recently I had an opportunity to do a similar, smaller project in anything I liked - so I went with Common Lisp for like 5X productivity. Compare it with 10X I get when working on silly stuff of similar complexity (say, IRC bot that pretends to be a human). I'm not sure how this works. Sometimes I deeply care (like in that 5X project, I cared because I want to carve out a space at my work where I can do Lisp instead of PHP). Sometimes I don't. The more of an obligation something is, the less I can get myself to care about doing it. There are times when I write more code for that IRC bot in an hour on a bus than in 5 days of work.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  I wonder if a thoughtful manager can work with that... somehow structure your workplace to not trigger the ugh-obligation phenomenon. (Or at least creep back up to 1X-5X.)
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Maybe. I'd love to think that. I'm bit afraid to share that directly with my boss (though I hinted it at times). Both for obvious reasons, and because I don't feel I have quite figured out what's going on with my productivity.
    - calibraxis 12y ago
      Yeah, I hate other managers. :( A sensible manager should frankly find it interesting, not to mention an opportunity to help improve the team. But no, we can't have nice things, we must waste people's potentials...
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        No, my manager is awesome, though non-technical, so it's hard to explain some things (and yes, right now I'm the only strictly dev person in the company). He's a very reasonable person, and the recent ability to do a project totally my way was a way of accommodating my needs. I'm hoping we'll be able to build on that. BTW. call me lucky, but throughout all my jobs, I never had a bad boss/manager. While their technical skills varied, they were all very honest, thoughtful and nice people.
- marrs 12y ago
  When I've been in this situation in the past it's because I've been in the wrong job. When you stop improving (your product, work environment, skill set, whatever), you stop caring. Have you changed jobs much, is this a recurring problem? I've worked with a lot of devs who haven't been able to settle because they're never satisfied with the status quo of the environment they land in. 6 months and they're onto the next thing. A lot of devs find their way into contracting that way. I don't think this is an uncommon problem. A lot of (most?) devs suffer from the problem of not being challenged enough, and come up with elaborate ways to complicate projects by many orders of magnitude in order to get some excitement back. For example, when you here a programmer say We need to rewrite this app because it's crap. He means, I want to have a go at writing an app from scratch because the first 20% is always way more fun and creative than the last 80%. We'll do it in node and angular. It will be isomorphic and restful and awesome. I'm bored of PHP and jQuery. I want to play with a new toy. We need to use Riak and EC2 I want to feel like I'm doing big data.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > Have you changed jobs much, is this a recurring problem? It's my third job so far, and it always is the same story. I quickly lose productivity and get frustrated by it, in a self-perpetuating cycle. I also subcontracted once at another company, four weeks of fixing spaghetti PHP and JavaScript for a company that bought their system for cheap - and this was a very productive (5X+) and refreshing moment. I'm not sure what to attribute it to - the only thing that comes to my mind is clearly-defined and short (few hours tops) tickets to close, and zero personal responsibility for the project (i.e. of course I felt responsible, but it was my personal decision to care). I shouldn't have trouble in changing jobs (I'm an experienced programmer after all), I usually worry only if I won't get fired in the first two weeks after the 0.1X mode kicks in. Anyway, while employed, low output keeps me in not good enough financial position to risk jumping (family to care about). I agree with your sentiment about inventing challenges; I often feel that myself, and whenever I can I use the opportunity to learn something new while doing work tasks.
CmonDev 12y ago
I don't think that Ruby/Python authors were expecting a commercial success either ;-).
pjc50 12y ago
Anything to do with crypto is a "10x problem", or at least a "careful specialists only" problem.

by tomp 12y ago

TeMPOraL 12y ago

In my case I doubt it's just about the type of a problem. I feel it's as much about the context. I apologize for the vagueness, those are all results of years of introspection of my work performance. Let's bring up recent web projects I've been doing. I'm working on an API-first system in PHP. Quite a chore, and most of the time I feel like running on 0.1X. Recently I had an opportunity to do a similar, smaller project in anything I liked - so I went with Common Lisp for like 5X productivity. Compare it with 10X I get when working on silly stuff of similar complexity (say, IRC bot that pretends to be a human). I'm not sure how this works. Sometimes I deeply care (like in that 5X project, I cared because I want to carve out a space at my work where I can do Lisp instead of PHP). Sometimes I don't. The more of an obligation something is, the less I can get myself to care about doing it. There are times when I write more code for that IRC bot in an hour on a bus than in 5 days of work.

calibraxis 12y ago
I wonder if a thoughtful manager can work with that... somehow structure your workplace to not trigger the ugh-obligation phenomenon. (Or at least creep back up to 1X-5X.)
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Maybe. I'd love to think that. I'm bit afraid to share that directly with my boss (though I hinted it at times). Both for obvious reasons, and because I don't feel I have quite figured out what's going on with my productivity.
  - calibraxis 12y ago
    Yeah, I hate other managers. :( A sensible manager should frankly find it interesting, not to mention an opportunity to help improve the team. But no, we can't have nice things, we must waste people's potentials...
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      No, my manager is awesome, though non-technical, so it's hard to explain some things (and yes, right now I'm the only strictly dev person in the company). He's a very reasonable person, and the recent ability to do a project totally my way was a way of accommodating my needs. I'm hoping we'll be able to build on that. BTW. call me lucky, but throughout all my jobs, I never had a bad boss/manager. While their technical skills varied, they were all very honest, thoughtful and nice people.
marrs 12y ago
When I've been in this situation in the past it's because I've been in the wrong job. When you stop improving (your product, work environment, skill set, whatever), you stop caring. Have you changed jobs much, is this a recurring problem? I've worked with a lot of devs who haven't been able to settle because they're never satisfied with the status quo of the environment they land in. 6 months and they're onto the next thing. A lot of devs find their way into contracting that way. I don't think this is an uncommon problem. A lot of (most?) devs suffer from the problem of not being challenged enough, and come up with elaborate ways to complicate projects by many orders of magnitude in order to get some excitement back. For example, when you here a programmer say We need to rewrite this app because it's crap. He means, I want to have a go at writing an app from scratch because the first 20% is always way more fun and creative than the last 80%. We'll do it in node and angular. It will be isomorphic and restful and awesome. I'm bored of PHP and jQuery. I want to play with a new toy. We need to use Riak and EC2 I want to feel like I'm doing big data.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > Have you changed jobs much, is this a recurring problem? It's my third job so far, and it always is the same story. I quickly lose productivity and get frustrated by it, in a self-perpetuating cycle. I also subcontracted once at another company, four weeks of fixing spaghetti PHP and JavaScript for a company that bought their system for cheap - and this was a very productive (5X+) and refreshing moment. I'm not sure what to attribute it to - the only thing that comes to my mind is clearly-defined and short (few hours tops) tickets to close, and zero personal responsibility for the project (i.e. of course I felt responsible, but it was my personal decision to care). I shouldn't have trouble in changing jobs (I'm an experienced programmer after all), I usually worry only if I won't get fired in the first two weeks after the 0.1X mode kicks in. Anyway, while employed, low output keeps me in not good enough financial position to risk jumping (family to care about). I agree with your sentiment about inventing challenges; I often feel that myself, and whenever I can I use the opportunity to learn something new while doing work tasks.

CmonDev 12y ago

I don't think that Ruby/Python authors were expecting a commercial success either ;-).

pjc50 12y ago

Anything to do with crypto is a "10x problem", or at least a "careful specialists only" problem.