Top all-time · #2279
Construx
Company blog · construx.com/blogprogrammingcareer
Construx is the company blog at construx.com, writing about programming and career. Since 2010, 32 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Origins of 10X – How Valid Is the Underlying Research?”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Rarely recommended · 1 of 31 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Construx pages, largely by Steve McConnell, to clarify the 10x engineer claim. They cite the origin studies that compare best and worst productivity rather than best and average, plus the Cone of Uncertainty.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- One commenter says Steve McConnell 'makes some good points' about 10x productivity myths and compensation.1
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 31 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Construx Software provides training, resources, coaching, consulting, and more to help software teams and organizations become more effective.
Most-linked posts?
- Origins of 10X – How Valid Is the Underlying Research?8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2013-04-05
- /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-09-28
- /blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-is-the-underlying-research/3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-11-08
- /Thought_Leadership/Books/The_Cone_of_Uncertainty/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-07-23
What Hacker News says?
That was designed as a repeatable experiment, which seems entirely reasonable when you want to conduct a study. Why are you characterising that as “a programming contest”? That seems like an uncharitably distorted way of describing a study. That study also does not exist in isolation: https://www.construx.com/blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-i...
Comment linking /blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-is-the-underlying-research/
on “Is something bugging you?”Submitted Steve McConnell: #NoEstimates – Response to Ron Jeffries as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe first was 1968, but there have been more studies since. https://www.construx.com/blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-i...
Comment linking /blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-is-the-underlying-research/
on “Is something bugging you?”Submitted Construx Professional Development Ladder for Software Professionals as a story · 2 points
HN discussion10x sounds nice which is probably why it stuck, but it came from actual research which found the difference was larger than 10x - but also they were measuring between best and worst, not best and average as it's used nowadays. https://www.construx.com/blog/productivity-variations-among-...
Comment linking /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/
on “Things that helped me get out of the AI 10x engineer imposter syndrome”Submitted Code Complete Essentials taught by McConnell as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI appreciate the overall point of the article, but have a gripe. The author (and others) gets it wrong on the original meaning of 10x. A 10x engineer isn't someone who is 10x as productive as their peers, they are 10x as productive as their worst performing peer. The original study the author links to compares the difference of work between the fastest code and the slowest code. The fast debugger and the slow debugg…
Comment linking /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/
on ““Normal” engineers are the key to great teams”Submitted Origins of 10X – How Valid Is the Underlying Research? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIt is depressing that people are happy to just throw anecdotal evidence around without even defining what metric they multiply by 10x or 100x. There is some literature on it. For example, this blog post [0] contains some references. I have only read Peopleware. It says 10x is the difference from worst to best in terms of time and number of defects across a few hundred programmers. Also interesting: Within the same o…
Comment linking /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/
on “Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries”Submitted Building a Fort: Lessons in Software Estimation as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> How do you do this? I draw them the Cone of Uncertainty ( http://www.construx.com/Thought_Leadership/Books/The_Cone_of... ).
Comment linking /Thought_Leadership/Books/The_Cone_of_Uncertainty/
on “Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding”Submitted Origins of 10X – How Valid is the Underlying Research? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe original study was timing how fast developers could solve a given task. The slowest took 10x the time of the fastest. With this setup you can't really get negative results. And participants who didn't finish the task were excluded from the results. A summary of the research: https://www.construx.com/blog/productivity-variations-among-... I don't think there is anything wrong with the math, it is just that real-w…
Comment linking /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/
on “1x Programming”Putting aside all the ad-hominem and everything-is-terrible, I think I learned a lot from following the references Tef makes in this talk. Some references (sorry for the formatting, if this becomes a thing I'll do the wiki and the logo): Slides: https://github.com/tef/emfcamp2012/raw/master/programming_is... Blub Paradox: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox Perl and 9/11: http://www…
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/Productivity_Variations_Among_Software_Developers_and_Teams__The_Origin_of_10x/
on “Programming is terrible – Lessons learned from a life wasted (2013) [video]”Steve McConnell makes some good points regarding 10x SW engineers in "10x Productivity Myths: Where’s the 10x Difference in Compensation?" http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/10x_Product...
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/10x_Productivity_Myths__Where%E2%80%99s_the_10x_Difference_in_Compensation_/
on “10x Engineer”A 10x developer is not ten times more productive than the average developer, they're 10x more productive than the worst developer. Wish this myth would stop perpetuating, they're very clear in the original study. Here's some more details from the horses mouth, Steve McConnell who popularized the concept in Code Complete: http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_...
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_10X_%E2%80%93_How_Valid_is_the_Underlying_Research_/
on “Data science tips and tricks from the developer community”I prefer this Steve McConnel's Professional ladder: http://www.construx.com/uploadedFiles/Construx/Construx_Cont...
Comment linking /uploadedFiles/Construx/Construx_Content/Resources/White_Papers/Construx%20Professional%20Dev%20Ladder.pdf
on “Programmer Competency Matrix (2016)”Actually, it means a lot. It tells us how much we understand the project's timeline. Many projects get estimated way to early in the process, and the true level of uncertainty at that point is massive. If the low confidence level means the estimate has an upper end that isn't feasible, there are things we can do to increase confidence. Proof of Concepts/Spikes are explicitly for the purpose of taken an unknown featu…
Comment linking /Thought_Leadership/Books/The_Cone_of_Uncertainty/
on “Project delays: why good software estimates are impossible”It creates a great path for employees to follow as well. You know exactly what you need to demonstrate to make it to the next level. Steve McConnell (or more accurately, I suppose, Construx) with the Professional Development Ladder ( http://construx.com/Page.aspx?nid=244 ) was an early advocate for this idea, and Spolsky has discussed it a couple of times as well. Cash has limited motivational power, but it's akin t…
Comment linking /Page.aspx?nid=244
on “Cult Creation”Steve McConnell himself doesn't dispute Bossavit's claims about the earlier studies (for the most part), he just disagrees about the significance of those claims. See McConnell's rebuttal in which he acknowledges the methodological weaknesses of the citations: http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_... .
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_10X_%E2%80%93_How_Valid_is_the_Underlying_Research_/
on “There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones”Well, if the author kindof hasn't seen it, I guess I should ignore this stuff: Boehm, Barry W., and Philip N. Papaccio. 1988. "Understanding and Controlling Software Costs." IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering SE-14, no. 10 (October): 1462-77. Boehm, Barry, 1981. Software Engineering Economics, Boston, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1981. Boehm, Barry, et al, 2000. Software Cost Estimation with Cocomo II, Boston, Mass…
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_10X_%E2%80%93_How_Valid_is_the_Underlying_Research_/
on “There are no 10x developers, but there are 1/10 ones”> It might not have been a rigorous study and may largely be a myth, but the myth is about engineers who are 10 times as productive, even accounting for quality. There were several studies, and it’s about being 10× as productive as the worst not the average. https://www.construx.com/blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-i...
Comment linking /blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-is-the-underlying-research/
on “On Good Software Engineers”The scientific evidence [0] compares to "worst" for 10X, not "average". [0] http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_...
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_10X_%E2%80%93_How_Valid_is_the_Underlying_Research_/
on “Another Theory to Explain 10X Programmers”> Can I replace 10 of my average engineers with this one person? The answer is never "yes". That’s because the “10x” is an order of magnitude difference between the best and the worst , not the average. https://www.construx.com/blog/productivity-variations-among-...
Comment linking /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/
on “High Performance Individuals and Teams”> Whether or not "10x programmers" exist, I can say for sure that 1/10th programmers exist. Not in this context. The term “10x programmer” comes from an observation that there is a factor of ten variation between the best and the worst programmers. So the worst programmers in this context are 1x, and 1/10th is meaningless. People hear “10x” and assume it’s ten times the average , but that’s not the case. More inform…
Comment linking /blog/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-10x/
on “High Performance Individuals and Teams”Tom DeMarco, of Peopleware fame, wrote a book called "Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation". He has, in some ways, rejected his ideas in that book. In this article, "Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?" http://www2.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homep... he states: "My early metrics book, Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and…
Comment linking /File.ashx?cid=1649
on “Why Programmers Are Bad at Estimating Time”For some additional context on why the new list has fewer items. From the parent link: > Here are my nominations for software’s top 12 classic mistakes. Additionally: > To make the list of classic mistakes even more useful, in 2007 Construx consultants update the list of Classic Mistakes based on Construx’s work with hundreds of clients since 1996. The following mistakes were added: - Confusing estimates with target…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2020/04/CxWhitePaper_ClassicMistakes.pdf
on “Classic SE Mistakes (1996)”The question reminds me of this classic chart from "Rapid Development," https://www.construx.com/uploadedImages/Construx/Construx_Co... It's a great reference for project management, but not very math heavy. More math-oriented I'd say: - "How to Measure Anything," although not specific to project management - "The Principles of Product Development Flow." Think of "product" in this context as anything you want made t…
Comment linking /uploadedImages/Construx/Construx_Content/Resources/Books/Cone01.jpg
on “The Math Behind Project Scheduling, Bug Tracking, and Triage [video]”Yes, they do: http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_... Eric's article is a prime example of what's wrong with software development writing: lots of opinion with a few anecdotes and analogies tossed in for good measure, but absolutely no reference to any scientific study to justify any of it. I'm not trying to pick on Eric, but it really bothers me the extent to which we listen to, discuss and…
Comment linking /10x_Software_Development/Origins_of_10X_%E2%80%93_How_Valid_is_the_Underlying_Research_/
on “Do elite software developers exist?”Good article. Before beginning the Estimation process, it's best to talk with the prospective customer about Cone of Uncertainty first; it helps to set a proper context for later execution of the project: http://www.construx.com/Page.aspx?cid=1648
Comment linking /Page.aspx?cid=1648
on “Algorithmically Estimating Developer Time”
