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I think it's hilarious that Fog Creek is devoting effort to debunking a large part of the core of Fog Creek; namely that there is such a thing as a 5x or 10x pr

I think it's hilarious that Fog Creek is devoting effort to debunking a large part of the core of Fog Creek; namely that there is such a thing as a 5x or 10x programmer. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html His theory is that salaries are distributed fairly normally so the top of the heap might only demand 2x the salary of an average, and only 4x the salary of the bottom. But they might be 10x as skilled or productive. That means that they're actually cheaper. 10x work divided by 4x cost = 2.5x productivity.

shawn-furyan 12y ago
Some points toward why this is not hilarious or even unexpected: * They aren't really devoting effort, not beyond setting up a skype recording and transcribing the result. The effort comes entirely from the author, Laurent Bossavit, they are interviewing. * The claim is against the existence of rigorous evidence that supports the idea that 10x programmers are around in sufficient quantity to be a practical consideration for people involved in the creation of software. Bossavit explicitly states that he's not saying that 10x programmers don't exist at all. He's not even saying that they aren't reasonably common. Just that there's not rigorous evidence that demonstrates the phenomenon, even though he's found many citations that misleadingly imply the existence of such evidence. * Joel's claims in the article are anecdotal, and don't appear to be meant as a rigorous proof, but as a feeling extrapolated from his personal experience. So there's really not a lot of disagreement between what Joel's claims and Bossavit's. * Even if there had been a direct disagreement, why should that preclude a Fog Creek blog from exploring ideas that are incompatible with one of the multitudes of ideas that their very opinionated founder has published? Fog Creek is very concerned with attracting developers as far to the right of the bell curve as they can manage. Forbidding the exploration of thoughts independent of those the founder has expressed is extremely counterproductive to that goal, since highly competent people tend to have their own ideas about how to do things. * Finally, even if we were to treat Fog Creek and Joel Spoelsky as the same entity, we should expect such thought leaders to entertain and grapple with thoughts that seem to be contradictory to their past opinions, especially when they come with a more thorough examination of the available evidence. Being a 'flip flopper' is only a disadvantage in politics. In reality humans have to make determinations under uncertainty, and therefore do not always get things right. It's a sign of intellectual maturity to be able to revise one's previously held/stated beliefs.

shawn-furyan 12y ago

Some points toward why this is not hilarious or even unexpected: * They aren't really devoting effort, not beyond setting up a skype recording and transcribing the result. The effort comes entirely from the author, Laurent Bossavit, they are interviewing. * The claim is against the existence of rigorous evidence that supports the idea that 10x programmers are around in sufficient quantity to be a practical consideration for people involved in the creation of software. Bossavit explicitly states that he's not saying that 10x programmers don't exist at all. He's not even saying that they aren't reasonably common. Just that there's not rigorous evidence that demonstrates the phenomenon, even though he's found many citations that misleadingly imply the existence of such evidence. * Joel's claims in the article are anecdotal, and don't appear to be meant as a rigorous proof, but as a feeling extrapolated from his personal experience. So there's really not a lot of disagreement between what Joel's claims and Bossavit's. * Even if there had been a direct disagreement, why should that preclude a Fog Creek blog from exploring ideas that are incompatible with one of the multitudes of ideas that their very opinionated founder has published? Fog Creek is very concerned with attracting developers as far to the right of the bell curve as they can manage. Forbidding the exploration of thoughts independent of those the founder has expressed is extremely counterproductive to that goal, since highly competent people tend to have their own ideas about how to do things. * Finally, even if we were to treat Fog Creek and Joel Spoelsky as the same entity, we should expect such thought leaders to entertain and grapple with thoughts that seem to be contradictory to their past opinions, especially when they come with a more thorough examination of the available evidence. Being a 'flip flopper' is only a disadvantage in politics. In reality humans have to make determinations under uncertainty, and therefore do not always get things right. It's a sign of intellectual maturity to be able to revise one's previously held/stated beliefs.