[simonholroyd]

If there really is a substantial difference in the quality of two software developers then that should play out in the amount of value delivered. The article lost me at:

> Conversely, what about the guy sitting in the corner who works 9 to 5, and seems to spend a lot of time reading the internet? Is he just very proficient at writing stable reliable code, or is his job just easier than everyone else’s? To the casual observer, the first chap is working really hard, the second one isn’t. Hard work is good, laziness is bad, surely?

If the brilliant developer is spending a lot of time reading the internet, never staying late, and producing the same output (minus bugs) as the weaker team, then maybe he's not providing quite as much comparative value as he thinks he is.

Note: Some discussion on here regarding sys admins. I agree the situation is different in the maintain-working-systems roles vs. the create-new-products roles.