The best programmer is N times more effective than the worst? Who Cares?
- by StevenWilkins
There is a latent belief in programming that the best programmer is N times more effective than the worst. Where N is usually between 10 and 100.
Here are some examples:
http://www.devtopics.com/programmer-productivity-the-tenfinity-factor/
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html
http://haacked.com/archive/2007/06/25/understanding-productivity-differences-between-developers.aspx
There is some debate as to whether or not it's been proven:
http://morendil.github.com/folklore.html
I'm confident in the accuracy of these statements:
The best salesmen in the world are probably 10-100 times better than the worst
The best drivers in the world are probably 10-100 times better than the worst
The best soccer players in the world are probably 10-100 times better than the worst
The best CEOs in the world are probably 10-100 times better than the worst
In some cases, I'm sure the difference is greater. In fact, you could probably say that
The best [insert any
skilled profession here] in the
world are probably 10-100 times
better than the worst
We don't know what N is for the rest of these professions, so why concern ourselves with what the actual number is for programming?
Can we not just say that the number is large enough so that it's very important to hire the best people and move on already?
