I am a bit disappoint this talk was not an effort to address the old cliche that some programmers are ten times as productive as other programmers and similar things.
I already hate kind of thinking but I would like to have hard figures to use in arguments against the kind of people who believe this bolox. I agree with statements like "lose the ego" but I don't think that would fly in arguments with my manager.
It may be an "old cliche", but also happens to be true. Maybe you can quibble over whether it's a 10X, 100X, or merely a 5X difference, but some programmers are clearly much more productive than others.
It's also true that some programmers are more productive collaborators than others. (In fact, some are effectively anti-collaborators -- less work gets done when they pitch into a project.) If you are in a collaborative enterprise, this might be something to consider.
Minus four used to be for trolls but now it seems it for disagreement? Even if you think I'm wrong here, does this post merit this treatment? (I moderate base on opinion for posts in the positive range but negative has, uh, negative connotations).
I would say that I've have been in a number of situations where one team member was indeed more far more productive than another. But as far as I can tell, this was a product, itself, of the breakdown of team-process. Either the productive programmer wouldn't tell the unproductive programmer how they did their magic or alternatively, the unproductive programmer wasn't interested in finding out.
One way to see team organization is as a way to prevent one person from always being "on the critical path". The most effective way is give skills to those who don't have them.
There might indeed be no simple metrics that will support my view but I suspect this is because it is complex than such metrics can describe.
There have been some studies lately showing that, in general, few people gain their abilities through "raw talent" rather than hard work see http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-... . I guess these are what I'd fall back on for any proof. Whether person is willing to learn a given skills is whole other problem but I think these studies show that if a person is willing to learn, they are able.
I am a bit disappoint this talk was not an effort to address the old cliche that some programmers are ten times as productive as other programmers and similar things.
I already hate kind of thinking but I would like to have hard figures to use in arguments against the kind of people who believe this bolox. I agree with statements like "lose the ego" but I don't think that would fly in arguments with my manager.