A 2nd edition of Peopleware summarises it; the 10x programmer is not a myth, but it's comparing the best to the worst; NOT best to median. It's also not about programming specifically; it's simply a common distribution in many metrics of performance.
The rule of thumb Peopleware states is that you can rely on the best outperforming the worst by a factor of 10, and you can rely on the best outperforming the median by a factor of 2.5. This of course indicates that a median developer, middle of the pack, is a 4x developer. Obviously, this is a statistical rule, and if you've got a tiny sample size or some kind of singular outlier or other such; well, we're all adults and we understand how statistics and distributions work.
Peopleware uses Boehn (1981), Sackman (1968), Augustine (1979) and Lawrence (1981) as its sources. [ "Peopleware", DeMarco and Lister, 1987, p45 ]
I feel like the article is trying to imply that other "levels" of engineers might lack these qualities.
10x engineers, who are supposed to be 10x more impactful than 1x engineers, are expected to have many of attributes of that list to a higher degree even than 1x engineers.
This is a nice list, but smells a bit of resentment.
I have a friend I am mentoring and am definitely going to put this on the reading list. I don't care if it is called a 1x engineer or not, it is a solid list!
