That may seem a bit hypothetical but it can easily happen if you have a company that systematically underpays, which I'm sure many of us don't need to think hard to imagine, in which case they will systematically hire poor developers (because those are the only ones that ever applied).
It used to be that the poor performers (dangerous hip-shootin' code commitin' cowpokes) were limited in the amount of code that they could produce per time unit, leaving enough time for others to correct course. Now the cowpokes are producing ridiculous amount of code that you just can't keep up with.
My job hasn't significantly changed with AI, as AI generated code still has to pass all the hurdles I've set up while setting up this project.
But average construction worker is also average and average doctor as well.
World cannot be running on „best of the best” - just wrap your head around the fact whole economy and human activities are run by average people doing average stuff.
A lot of times that is boring meetings to discuss the simplification.
I can extend the same analogy to all the gen ai bs that’s floating around right now as well.
That’s not to say talent is unimportant, however, I’d need to see some real examples of high talent, no process, teams compared to low talent, high process, teams, then some mixture of the groups to make a fair statement. Even then, how do you measure talent? I think I’m talented but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn others think I’m an imbecile who only knows Python!
What I've been saying is methodology is mostly irrelevant, not that waterfall is specifically better than agile. Talent wins over the process but I can see how this idea is controversial.
I’d need to see some real examples of high talent, no process, teams compared to low talent, high process, teams, then some mixture of the groups to make a fair statement. Even then, how do you measure talent?
Yep, even if I made it my life's mission to run a formal study on programmer productivity (which I clearly won't) that wouldn't save the argument from nitpicking.
That’s a horrible take. There is no amount of reviews, guidelines and documentation that can compensate for low quality devs. You can’t throw garbage into the pipeline and then somehow process it to gold.
I'd say this includes all of us all the time; a good developer never trusts their own work blindly, and spends more time gathering requirements and verifying their and others' work than writing code.
