OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd [LWN.net]

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 18:51 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
In reply to: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd by tialaramex
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

The purely resource-based argument might not go how you'd expect. Spolsky is right - one or two superstar programmers can get you a lot more work done than dozens of merely competent ones.

You are absolutely right. But I can only assume that somewhere in the large numbers of people (men and women) who decide not to participate in FOSS are some superstars. The more people you attract, the more likely you'll stumble across a superstar.

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OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 2:24 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (3 responses)

I would assert that *if they don't dive in and start doing, and -- if necessary ignore the idiots until they cannot be ignored*, *then they are by definition not superstars*.

Problem solved.

FOSS is a meritocracy, even if not everyone agrees on which merit is important.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 1:40 UTC (Thu) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link] (2 responses)

If a superstar is defined as a person who gets a great deal more done in a particular domain than most of their colleages, then by only considering people who get a great deal more done in environments which require diving in and ignoring a high level of idiotic confrontation, you are dismissing other people who, by their nature and abilities, would get a great deal more done than most of their colleages in a _different_ environment.

By that definition, the latter class of people are superstars in less confrontational environments, and when we fail to make those environments, we are losing access to their potential.

Do you mean that a true superstar would transcend their environment and get on with what needs doing in _any_ environment? Certainly there's a type of person who does that.

But I suspect that many of the programmers we call superstars because they are outstandingly productive in competitive, harsh environments would fare quite badly in less confrontational, more polite environments - at least, until they'd had time to adjust their personality to suit.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 1:51 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

+1, Insightful

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 13:50 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

I don't think super-star-coderness aligns with thriving-on-confrontation (which implies they have a somewhat confrontational personality themselves).

The super-star coder I've dealt with was, if anything, the reverse. They not only could get through tricky bugs quicker than others and get beautiful code written faster than others, but they also spent a lot of time on mentoring others. In short, they enhanced the productivity of the other coders around them.