Programming/problem solving is a skill and is also creative in nature. It seems quite intuitive that ability follows some power law. Coming up with the Von Neumann machine takes a lot more capability than my meagre glue code I write layers and layers of abstractions above it.
I think denial of the 10x (or 100x) programmer arises from a few things. Firstly it hurts to admit that most of us are not 10x programmers but by definition this is true. Secondly many of us have not seen first hand how brutal talent/ability is distributed. Thirdly not all 10x-ers work well in teams and I've met fake 10x-ers who may be 10x more productive but at the expense of 10+ developers around them due to the inability to collaborate effectively.
On the second point, the starkest reminder is in music and sports - I've played piano all my life but am quite mediocre. My old teacher was a couple of leagues above me. Active soloists I've met are leagues above my teacher. Then you have a couple of the giants and they are in a league of their own. And yet universities and music colleges pump out thousands of really really capable musicians every year who will sound extremely good, just nowhere near the top.
Ronaldo/Messi or Federer/Djokovic/Nadal are also good examples of how brutal these curves can be. That an injury prone Federer in his 40s was still eclipsing all the rising tennis players is quite cruel for all those other top-200 players that have come and gone; who started later and retired earlier and yet also dedicated their sole existence to tennis.
If programming is creative in nature, then I'd see the modal developer as a rank and file journalist/copy writer. But dotted around are a couple of Wilde/Hemmingway/Tolkien/Orwell out there churning out text in their own special niches (or even creating their own niches)
Why do you use words like “brutal” and “cruel”? We celebrate those paragons - that’s why we have the Olympics. “Cruel” only makes sense in the limited scope context of single competitions.
And we should also celebrate hyper-effective programmers when we encounter them. There’s plenty of work to go around; they’re not taking jobs from others.
Have you watched Amadeus (the film). I like that movie for its exploration of the psychology of dedication being confronted by genius.
As outsiders of the sports, it is great to celebrate the GOATs like Feds Nadal and Djoko but a cursory google reveals that to reliably break even in the sport, you need to be inside the top 250 in the world.
To be 250th in the world at something like tennis takes a lifetime of graft and a tonne of talent, and yet the rift between 1st and 250th is still huge - you can often see #1 go extended periods without dropping a set and getting 6-0s which is a cruel reflection of the nature of the power law: you might be 1 in 100million but 1 in a billion talent completely wrecks you
EDIT reread your comment - totally agree with you regarding software vs individual competition.
I think denial of the 10x (or 100x) programmer arises from a few things. Firstly it hurts to admit that most of us are not 10x programmers but by definition this is true. Secondly many of us have not seen first hand how brutal talent/ability is distributed. Thirdly not all 10x-ers work well in teams and I've met fake 10x-ers who may be 10x more productive but at the expense of 10+ developers around them due to the inability to collaborate effectively.
On the second point, the starkest reminder is in music and sports - I've played piano all my life but am quite mediocre. My old teacher was a couple of leagues above me. Active soloists I've met are leagues above my teacher. Then you have a couple of the giants and they are in a league of their own. And yet universities and music colleges pump out thousands of really really capable musicians every year who will sound extremely good, just nowhere near the top.
Ronaldo/Messi or Federer/Djokovic/Nadal are also good examples of how brutal these curves can be. That an injury prone Federer in his 40s was still eclipsing all the rising tennis players is quite cruel for all those other top-200 players that have come and gone; who started later and retired earlier and yet also dedicated their sole existence to tennis.
If programming is creative in nature, then I'd see the modal developer as a rank and file journalist/copy writer. But dotted around are a couple of Wilde/Hemmingway/Tolkien/Orwell out there churning out text in their own special niches (or even creating their own niches)