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by ajdegol 2397 days ago
If you haven't seen this talk; watching it will make you a 10x better programmer. This is what I take for my definition of complex and it applies broadly in a very practical manner.
4 comments

I've measured between 2x - 3.5x for every 12 minutes of a Rich Hickey talk. What's even more staggering is this continues even for repeated viewings.
>watching it will make you a 10x better programmer.

That sounds wrong. Can we drop this rhetoric?

What rhetoric? Are you confusing this with "the 10x programmer" meme?

Claims of becoming a 10x better programmer aren't claims about making one a 10x programmer. The former is about relative self-improvement and motivationally hyperbolic; the latter is about relative comparison to others, is often used negatively to belittle, and is detrimentally hyperbolic.

> motivationally hyperbolic

It's such a ridiculously high number that it ceases to be motivational.

I would defensively be more hyperbolic and use a different number, just because 10x is tainted by stupid ideas in programming. But your intent was pretty clear to anyone paying attention... that's just a high bar sometimes.
It's obviously hyperbole.
It needs to be rephrased into this:

"Watching this video will make you into a developer who is respected 10x more by their peers."

Would it?
Probably not, but it's fun to think about.

If respect is measured by an integer, going from level 2 to 20 is great. But if you have no respect, then gaining 10 times as much still leaves you at none.

If you are disrespected DON'T WATCH THE VIDEO unless you want to be disrespected more by a factor of 10!

No it's hyperbole.

However if you go from writing spaghetti code to something more structured (i.e. loosely coupled, however that is expressed in your language) then you're team mates will hate you less.

Well, no, but it will make you 10x richer.
harhar
Also: try out Clojure (... the programming language created by Rich Hickey based on this principle).
Was 100x for me. My boss unfortunately did not agree with me.