Second, there are very few programmers at the extremes. First, I found that most of the differences resulted from a few very low performances, rather than exceptional high performance. Our study concluded that the truth is more nuanced. Using data from a study we conducted at the SEI, I found evidence that challenges the idea that some programmers are inherently far more skilled or productive than others. In this blog post, I examine the veracity and relevance of the widely held notion of the x10 programmer. Similarly, astute software managers can benefit by challenging commonly accepted wisdom. In the field of baseball research ( sabermetrics), researchers who challenged widely held-but erroneous-notions were able to exploit market inefficiencies to their advantage, a development vividly described in Moneyball by Michael Lewis.

This topic is the subject of my recent column in IEEE Software, The End to the Myth of Individual Programmer Productivity.

A pervasive belief in the field of software engineering is that some programmers are much, much better than others (the times-10, or x10, programmer), and that the skills, abilities, and talents of these programmers exert an outsized influence on that organization's success or failure.