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Comment by scotty79 | Hacker News Reader

Your "programmer value quotient" is definitely not IQ. Knowledge and experience acts as IQ multiplier when tackling known class of problems.

I think there is a number of 1.2x programmers that you would prefer to hire instead of single 2.1x programmer. For all activities there's a number like that and it's pretty low.

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Depends on the task. There are some tasks any number of lesser programmers won't be able to complete. There are conceptual levels to programming that come into play on certain tasks. Huge numbers of programmers that don't understand those concepts won't be able to solve the problems.

Science does not rely on geniuses and programming also shouldn't. There is simply too much to do to wait for genius to do it. If your problem is too hard you should rephrase it, break it into easier parts, limit domain to what is necessary and give up some constraints. That's what people do in science and that's what worked for humanity so far.

I'm not sure that works when it comes to major breakthroughs. I'm hardly an expert, but I'm not sure Einstien's work, for instance, could be replicated by a 100 physicists 'breaking it into easier parts.

Not mention you're contradicting Heinlein, and we all know that's never good.

Ever heard of Lorentz transformation? As for SR Lorentz gathered all the pieces together. Einstein "just" looked at them from different angle and what he saw was shocking.

Apart from that Eintein was not the most intelligent man that ever lived. He was smart enough man at the right point in history. Genius, but not thanks to his capacity but to his achievements.

I'm not sure what you mean by "contradicting Heinlein". The Starship Troopers Heinlein? ;-)

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