Programmer Skill Levels
The cluster debates the vast differences in programming abilities, what defines a good or 10x programmer versus average or bad ones, and whether coding skill correlates with intelligence, people skills, or other factors.
Activity Over Time
Top Contributors
Keywords
Sample Comments
May explain why some people are great programmers but average coders . . .
It just needs to be better than the average person, not the average programmer
Just because you're a good programmer doesn't mean you're smart.
Programming is a craft, not an art. If programmer a satisfies the requirements 10 times faster than programmer b, and does so repeatedly, then programmer a is a 10x compared to b
Being better than the average human at coding is as easy as being better than the average human at surgery. Until it's better than actual skilled programmers, the people who are programming for a living are still responsible for learning to do the job well.
This sounds like 'competence vs proficiency'.https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-traits-of-a-proficient-pro...
It is hard because "programming" is a small part of what you are doing, with communication, politics, interpersonal skills, design, user experience, self management etc. that goes with the job. All this needs to be taken into consideration when scoring.Also a 10 programmer at a startup may suck (or even get fired!) in a traditional corp and vice versa.Then even just focusing on programming a C++ guru may struggle with Haskell. Just as a football star may not win a 100m sprint aga
Seems the distinction between Average and Bad programmers is that, while both lack talent, the Average programmer understands that he lacks talent and the Bad programmer does not.
Exactly.http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/09/skill-disparities-i...
Actual coding skills are not what makes a good developer. Being a good developer is about applying the right knowledge in the right way. I'm great at that. But I wouldn't bet on being able to out-program other competent programmers.