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Comment by gbersac | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to be a 10x developer if you don't write tests, no documentation and don't design anything, don't do any code review...

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I disagree, I think that there are a lot of developers that produce a constant stream of mediocre designs, mediocre implementations, mediocre testing and mediocre documentation.

And when a (let's call it 10x) developer steps in and produces just a very good design or implementation, it still adds a lot of value, to the project or to the team's productivity, even without tests or documentation.

(In that sense, the 10x label is a misnomer: exceptional developers aren't faster at typing, they produce something that the others wouldn't produce in any amount of time, and that something often increases everybody else's productivity).

And a lot of it is experience knowing what to build in or what hooks to set up so that when the obviously missed requirement gets added right at the end its trivial to add.

Thats what I think when I hear rockstar developer. They truly are rockstars. They come in, give all and accomplish great things, but you have to clean up the venue the next day

So like most companies then? They say they do or plan to do but when you go and check there is nothing. Most projects I encounter when doing integration have nothing (well, perhaps some minimal docs for the integration) while they process millions-billions $ via these systems.

My latest encounter was an insurer who spend a lot of money on building a system by a hip team who started with node/mongo/react and a few months ago insisted on switching the frontend to Svelte because ‘React is not current tech’ (I am not joking here). No tests, bare minimal docs, bad design (every change takes forever and some changes are deemed impossible) but it works, makes money, client is happy. It took however over 2 years (not cheap guys either; Dutch, 120+euro/hr people) to finish while my beer napkin estimate is 6 months and that would include tests and docs. Easier because there already is a system so that is not fair but the idea that companies are living in some HN nirvana where they pay programmers to implement non business stuff (tests, docs etc) is just not realistic. And the people who do it are not ‘10x’ even then.

If I would say 6 months to rewrite (if that was on the table) inc tests and docs, the client will say; how much without those then?

Then you answer ‘9 months without’ because that is undoubtedly going to happen if you have no quality control and a client that want to skimp on it from the start.

>> inc tests and docs

Why should the client have to worry about tests or developer documentation? I would not be trying to get it as a line item on the invoice.

Keeping the code base in a state that makes it fast and cheap to add future features is just a professional duty. Decide how to best achieve that on a project by project basis and bake it into your estimates.

Some projects the client just wants the absolute cheapest implementation though and i am completely fine ripping out the need for continual re-factoring or keeping the test suites in good shape IF i've explained the down side to the client first.

You are right, my point is that this is the HN echo chamber; I see almost no-one and no company doing this in real life. At least not in the countries and companies I have ever worked with and that's quite diverse. Naming and shaming makes no sense here, but I know many Silicon Valley, Berlin, London, HK, Shanghai, Barcelona startups saying that they 'will' do these things (and some of them shouting on Reddit & HN it's bad if you do not) but not doing them at all and many fortune 1000 companies not doing it either. Not even the basic stuff.

So yes, it's my professional duty, but my 'competition' doesn't do it and is therefor cheaper. I don't do much of that work anymore as I now do a lot more own products with my company where I can do it, but if I 'bake it into the estimates' we will come out most expensive. So for us it's line items, and if you, after we explain everything, do not want that, we will remove or not take the contract (depending on the terms).

I worked with a developer and he wrote the best tests and coverage. He encouraged me to also write tests that covered everything as he would often re-implement something somewhere else and it would break my code, but there wasn't a test that showed it being broken. I wrote tests to protect my contributions!

If those things are required for his role and he's not doing it, then he's not a 10x developer. There's some issues with your management.

Also, just because someone has good performance doesn't mean he's an insufferable idiot. In fact, those kinds of snarky replies about 10x devs here are way more toxic than anything claimed by them.

And yet there are just people out there that do ALL of that, play well with others AND have high productivity.

The question is how do us 1xers avoid getting compared to them ;-)

Well, they might as well fire their in-house devs, outsource those jobs to some third-world developers for half the cost.

Same result: no tests, no docs, no design, no code review

There is also such a thing as a team which validates its performance only on test coverage, documentation coverage, endless pedantic code review and adherence to strict architectural standards, but manages to produce little to no real-world value.

They must be building for either an enterprise or a startup!

That will make you a 10x developer today but a 0.01x developer when shit hits the fan.

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