Because having different output has nothing to do with being more productive. It's just different, that's it. And productivity is very hard if not impossible to quantify. Relevant experience and knowledge might boost productivity on a specific problem, just like it might make code nearly defect-free with little to no effort, or make someone much better at quickly understanding large code bases. But it doesn't mean that a person is going to be motivated and rested enough to leverage it for the benefit of their employer or that another person is going to be just as unmotivated or that it's not going to change for a different problem, etc.
To clarify what I meant by "how is it even a debate?": I just find it a bit "surprising" that many people in this industry refuse to believe that many programmers are 5x or 10x more productive than others (and write just as good code).
I should clarify too, that I do think it's incorrect to believe in so over generalized concept, these things are much more complicated to claim something like that. I also believe that nobody is going to be a very productive programmer working for an employer. It's just unhuman to work hard and make choices pursuing somebody else's success.
Because having different output has nothing to do with being more productive. It's just different, that's it. And productivity is very hard if not impossible to quantify. Relevant experience and knowledge might boost productivity on a specific problem, just like it might make code nearly defect-free with little to no effort, or make someone much better at quickly understanding large code bases. But it doesn't mean that a person is going to be motivated and rested enough to leverage it for the benefit of their employer or that another person is going to be just as unmotivated or that it's not going to change for a different problem, etc.