
Being the Averagest - luu
https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/being-the-averagest
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JacobHarrington
Fascinating read, and it touches upon a problem that seems to exist in every
programming organization: you can't say why, but you just _know_ who the best
developers are. Sure, that statement is somewhat trivial when experience and
ability vary wildly, but when the skill levels begin to converge there is a
lot more self-organization among the developers such that they somewhat rank
themselves.

To me the problem comes when looking for new developers to add to the
organization. In the thirst to determine what a "good" developer is we've
instead settled on choosing those who seem to have studied the hardest while
learning how to program. The fact that this knowledge is rarely directly
applied in most tech orgs (how many basic CRUD apps are hurt by poor algorithm
choices, after all?), but is still the only thing approaching a reliable
barometer of basic competence is a pain point for any programmer hunting for a
job.

Programming is a creative endeavor in many ways, which means subjectivity is
involved in the selection of "best" and "worst". Figuring out how to codify
that into an objective ranking is something that, when solved, will take the
computing job market by storm. Or then again, that could just be wishful
thinking on my part.

