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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Here's why this essay struck a nerve with me.

There are certain things that 10% of the hackers I ever met could do in x amount of time that the other 90% could never do. In any amount of time.

The longer I work in this field, the truer that seems.

And managers have never understood that. They look at us as "person hours" to be mixed and matched to achieve their goals. I've never seen that work well.

How many times have you given an estimate like this:

For me: 1 day. For me and Joe together: 2 days. If you give it to Joe first and then give it to me: 1 week.

Idea guys understand this about as well as managers. And often they need someone from the top 10% whether they know it or not. Not just for programming, but also for analysis, design, testing, scaling, and deployment.

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But what if it doesn't matter if it takes a day or a week? And how is the business person to know? Just because Joe asks for a lot of money, are they supposed to believe that he is good?

I think you are confusing your personal experiences and situations with the situation of some business guy. They are not out to start a software company, where they will manage programmers. They just want product x build.

It is an exchangeable skill, in the same way as there are thousands of mechanics who could fix your car, or thousands of window-makers who could create a window for your house, or thousands of carpenters who can create a cupboard to your specifications.

If you drive your car into some mechanics garage, you are not expecting to manage that mechanic. You just want your car fixed.

Joe has a problem with his car, it makes a terribly annoying sound. He goes to Mechanic A who decides to replace his engine. Problem solved, cost 10000$. John has exactly the same problem (with the same cause), he goes to mechanic B who finds out that a small part of the engine needs replacement. Problem fixed, cost 65$.

Btw, software, unlike buildings or chairs, is extensible and the (technical) desing decisions of the programmer are very important in how extensible it is or if it is extensible at all.

Those examples are just outliers. You can always be unlucky. But the majority of mechanics can fix your car. And the problem remains: how are you supposed to know beforehand which mechanic is good?

Extensible software: maybe it doesn't matter so much for a prototype. If the concept proves itself, you could also start writing it again.

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