Hacker News Reader

Comment by SCdF | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only person who feels woefully inadequate whenever I read articles where phrases like "10 or 100 times as productive as the average engineer".

Sorry guys, I'm trying my best! :-(

View on HN

Such people do exist. Notch, creator of Minecraft, is a good example. The guy virtually developed it himself. I'm currently developing a game myself and I can tell you, it is a lot of work. At minimum I would say the guy is at least 10 times more productive than the average developer/engineer.

Oh, I'm not disputing they exist, more just pointing out that it's kind of momentarily depressing thinking that the devs who actually affect change and do noteworthy things are 100 times more awesome than you'll ever be.

Not 100 times more than you'll ever be; just 100 times more than you now. This could be a comforting (or at least natural) fact because it means that you too (if you believe that desire and work is the determining factor) can improve your skills many times over than where you are now.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of Notch's productivity is based on things he learned in previous projects. According to Wikipedia, he's been programming video games since 86. That's 26 years of experience.

If you use those 26 years wisely, you'll learn a lot of different things - and more importantly, you can draw on 26 years of mistakes that you now know to avoid.

I'm not saying he's not also a talented programmer - but all "superstars" I know are as good as they are because they have worked hard for a long time, and they keep working hard.

(She says while posting on HN... I probably should head back over to my code ;)

Does it help to know that you're not alone? I often hear that good programmers can be an order of magnitude more productive than the Average Joe, and I wonder if talent is required (as in 'it MUST be present') to reach this level or if I can make it with hard work alone. I think it's like being born rich or born poor. Success is based on talent, opportunity and hard work. Some people have got all of them in abundance, some people have got some, and some people lack all of them. The most successful ones are under the spotlight, and our perception of talent ends biased.

I believe productivity comes with experience and motivation.

I don't know who the so called average engineer is, but I would imagine with enough experience and drive he / she could outperform his / her previous self by a significant factor (10x perhaps?).

I assume the same rule applies to the crazy talented freaks (only with a big head start), but I can't be certain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com