Comment by bnb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bnb | Hacker News Reader

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Something to note on thinking everybody is a super-brilliant "10x" programmer: You're not seeing the same people post deep, insightful things here on HN. There are people who know a lot about this one thing, and can write very accurately and intelligently about it, but don't know anything about HTML or desktop programming (C, C++, others), server-side logic, etc.

The same goes for each of those fields, and every other field--there are certain people who know a lot about them, and when the topic comes up they talk about them. The reason it seems like there are a bunch of super-brilliant "10x" programmers is that there are many, many of these specialized people on HN and around the web, and at least a few of them always have something to say about a topic. It doesn't mean they're all super-brilliant "10x" programmers.

"10x" is one of the more destructive memes going around. It's a subtle shift in the discussion from talking about technique and actual work, to talking about something which is being used as a proxy for "your worth as a human being".

The only work which matters is the work which gets done. You can accomplish a lot by simply doing the things that need doing. Bad code gets written and all that.

10x isn't just a meme going around ... It's even referenced in "The Mythical Man month". If you're a "productive programmer" you should never have a problem finding employment but what "productive means depends on the context. Does NASA want code quickly or do they want well thought-out and thoroughly tested code? With Etsy's DevOps infrastructure, they're pretty confident deploying several times a day.

True. In fact it's quite likely when you read a comment about some Foo technology, that Foo's creator or someone on the original Foo development team was its author. I'd say it's unlikely that four years of programming Python will make you as much of an expert as this guy http://stackoverflow.com/users/818274/guido-van-rossum?tab=a... Yes, I should hope Guido Von Rossum's answers to Python questions make him seem like a 10x guy!

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