I praise 1x programmers, but for reasons that might go against the grain in HN. I'm from Spain so our working ethic is different from the Anglo-Saxon world. "Work to live, don't live to work" as the saying goes.
My principles for a 1x programmer:
* Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself.
* 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects personal and time off.
* Prefers to spend time with their family or hobbies (e.g. train for that marathon) rather than working on a side project in Github.
* Strives to do a "good enough" job rather than absolute excellence.
* Keeps their skills at a reasonable level to do the job, but doesn't necessarily work on continuously improving.
* Most companies don't really need 10x engineers, and would do just fine with 1x ones.
Some people might cringe at this list. Some will argue that one could never be a good developer following those principles. I'm ok with that. I think we should acknowledge for many people programming is just a paycheck and they don't share the passion of the HN crowd. We should broaden our horizon of what success looks like in the development job. Me, for one, feel like some of my friends that fit the description are winning at life more than I do.
My principles for a 1x programmer:
* Work is a means to an end. A job should support the lifestyle you want to achieve, not be an end on itself.
* 9-to-5 is a perfectly reasonable schedule. Fiercely protects personal and time off.
* Prefers to spend time with their family or hobbies (e.g. train for that marathon) rather than working on a side project in Github.
* Strives to do a "good enough" job rather than absolute excellence.
* Keeps their skills at a reasonable level to do the job, but doesn't necessarily work on continuously improving.
* Most companies don't really need 10x engineers, and would do just fine with 1x ones.
Some people might cringe at this list. Some will argue that one could never be a good developer following those principles. I'm ok with that. I think we should acknowledge for many people programming is just a paycheck and they don't share the passion of the HN crowd. We should broaden our horizon of what success looks like in the development job. Me, for one, feel like some of my friends that fit the description are winning at life more than I do.