Hacker News Reader

Comment by hi_hi | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of an old joke about a policeman who pulls over a poor driver. The driver complain "But I haven't been in a single accident", the reply from the policeman, "Yes, but you've caused dozens".

Some people are just oblivious to the trail of destruction left in their wake.

View on HN

“Almost every software development organization has at least one developer who takes tactical programming to the extreme: a tactical tornado. The tactical tornado is a prolific programmer who pumps out code far faster than others but works in a totally tactical fashion. When it comes to implementing a quick feature, nobody gets it done faster than the tactical tornado. In some organizations, management treats tactical tornadoes as heroes. However, tactical tornadoes leave behind a wake of destruction. They are rarely considered heroes by the engineers who must work with their code in the future. Typically, other engineers must clean up the messes left behind by the tactical tornado, which makes it appear that those engineers (who are the real heroes) are making slower progress than the tactical tornado.” ― John Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design

Have had multiple roles running behind these guys cleaning up their messes. If I’m now ever in a position to just let them flail around (not always possible as these guys are often leads) I try to do so, if they are abusive about it, I’ll just quit. this is a major cause of burnout.

In other words, the "10x programmer".

Not really; as a 10x programmer, to some, improves outcomes by 10x regardless of the team members and project status, but LLM and agents built on it, may soon qualify.

The only thing more wild than thinking 10x devs is more than corporate speak is thinking that LLMs could be 10x devs.

LLM and agents may soon qualify as "tactical tornadoes".

> The only thing more wild

That's not my point, which was, to some a 10x dev != 10x code monkey.

I hear what you’re saying and was intentionally making a tangential joke about how “10x dev” is meaningless corporate speak and anyone who thinks otherwise is a little too lost in the sauce.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com