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0 pointskitsune_6y ago0 comments

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that there is variability in developer productivity. However, quantifying the most productive engineers by throwing around a specific random factor such as "10x" is rather idiotic.

You have entire blog posts by Steve McConnell of Code Complete fame devoted to defending the 10x claim by citing 20 to 50 year old research that shows 5x to 20x differences across certain dimensions and then him falling back to the 10x thing. Not one single sentence where he is being self aware enough to spell out the most likely reason for "10x" being so prominent: 10 is the base of the decimal system and as such psychologically attractive to use.

> Both Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have said that the best engineers are at least 10 times more productive than an average engineer.

I know I'm venturing into ad hominem territory with this, but first of all: Steve Jobs wasn't a programmer. Mark Zuckerberg, well does he even qualify as a programmer nowadays? How well can he quantify programmer productivity? His decision to use PHP led Facebook to create HHVM and Hack. Is this the 10x developer way?

Anyways, the question to me is: Is it possible for average software engineers to write good software?

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mrfredward6y ago

Perhaps "10X engineer" is just an easier thing to say than "5 to 20X engineer as described by this paper." Perfect numerical accuracy is not needed to make the point that there is a lot more variance in the productivity of engineers than there is with most jobs.

If someone suggests you focus on the 20% of customers who make 80% of your revenue, and you run the numbers and find a 75-25 distribution, should you call the person making the suggestion an idiot?

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