[Dilpil]

The 10x coder doesn't really have a magical trick for dealing with those kind of things. He simply maintains his focus, and makes steady progress until the problem has been solved.

However, the 1x coder ignores the problem, or declares it unsolvable. Inevitably, he waits for the 10x coder to fix it. The 10x rule holds.

10x coding is as much about willpower as it is about technical competence and experience.

[sunkencity]

>However, the 1x coder ignores the problem, or declares it unsolvable.

Haven't we seen that before? It's usually solvable within 5 minutes. And so true, if you want to become a good programmer, never give up trying to solve a problem, and don't wait for your seniors to solve it for you, because you will never develop the skills needed to solve the problem yourself that way.

[mistermann]

Precisely. Some people never seem to get past a certain skill level because they don't have the ambition to get pissed off and figure out how something really works.

[kragen]

Spending N hours on a problem that's very difficult to solve is often worse than deciding to find a way to avoid solving it. There are N₂ examples in my history where I solved a problem that was much harder than necessary — or spent a lot of time trying, then failed — when I should have just stepped back to ask if it was worth it.