simple code best code, the less opportunity you give people to shoot themselves in the foot the better
235 karma · joined April 16, 2015
simple code best code, the less opportunity you give people to shoot themselves in the foot the better
I'm not sure of a great solution and it's way outside my knowledge/expertise but ignoring the issue and basically just saying "should have got a STEM degree idiot" isn't good for society
Still I totally agree that getting paralyzed is a big problem, it's way better to program something "the wrong/inefficient/bad way" rather than to program nothing. A big part of my learning and growth as a programmer has come from coding something terribly, realizing "hey, this kinda sucks, I bet there is a better way to do this.." and googling a bit until I learn a new/better method of doing X.
Either way, sending positive thoughts your way and hope you can find someone helpful :(. Struggling with mental health can be a profoundly shitty time.
I just disagree with using a "10x" quantification without a clear way to measure individual productivity when you're working in a team. It's not like we can just point to something like.. hey, Person A has 10x as many line changes as Person B, therefore Person A is 10x as productive. And unless we have two individuals working on features completely alone, we can't say Person A shipped 10x as many widget features as Person B either.
I dunno. I honestly don't have a good answer for how to measure individual productivity on a clear, quantifiable basis, again not trying to play dumb here I'm admittedly not sure on it and was hoping to get some feedback from others about it.
"10x developer is absolutely a thing, in the easily observed phenomenon that some developers are 10x more productive than other developers. The "other developers" are earning good wages and doing good work; the 10x developer is usually found making 2x or 3x the norm. That said; I just can't believe that a team can perform 10x by the actions of one person. This claim is so outlandish I may just have to skim the article. It is often the case that having a 10x developer nearby can greatly improve the quality of a product, but that's not the same thing as improving the team."
I don't agree that some developers are "10x more productive" than others. I agree that some developers are more/less productive than others but I agree with the article's premise that teamwork is a much more important metric than individual talent. I understand the spirit of "10x developer" in that some individuals are more productive than others.. but the quantification of 10x seems very unrealistic, and IMO is overshadowed by potential productivity gains by having a well-functioning team. Again just my opinion here so feel free to disagree with me on this.
The relevant paragraph in the article is this:
"Software engineering today is a team sport; like water polo, you can’t build incredible software systems alone. So when I first heard the concept of the 10x engineer, I was confused. How could someone be so talented that it overshadows the power of teamwork? In my experience, individual excellence is necessary, but not sufficient, for greatness. Focusing purely on individual achievement misses the larger picture that teams are required to build great software. So I decided to change the definition of a 10x engineer to this: "
It doesn't give a very clear definition of what a "10x engineer" is. Again I agree with them here that the "10x" number and lack of a clear objective "individual productivity" metric makes the term hard to clearly define. Since most work is not done on an individual basis, but rather in teams.
Features/story points (velocity)? well.. this is a productivity metric of the team rather than individual.
Without a doubt some people can be more "productive" individuals than others, but I -do- think in the real world, it makes more sense to look at productivity on the team level rather than individual. Ex: someone is very productive at making lots of commits but obnoxious to work with or has shoddy tests/documentation that end up sucking time away from the "less productive" developers that have to clean up their mess...
I'm guessing you disagree with the author's definition of a "10x developer". I don't really think there is a clear accepted definition for it.. so how would you define the term?
edit: By the way I didn't realize you were in Mexico at first. I only have experience with getting a job in the USA but hopefully what I wrote is at least slightly helpful.