cozythunder

A common concept in startups is the idea of a "virtuoso programmer", a single programmer who is 10x more productive than the median. I have a STEM background, but have only been coding for a year and I'm having trouble understanding this concept. How is the skill of a programmer measured? By the speed they can't implement a new feature? The technologies they're familiar with?

I'm working on my startup and I'm striving to be a great programmer, but I don't know what I should be aiming for or how to judge my own skills.

Also I'm curious about the QandA app Whale that you started a few years ago. I'm actually about to launch something similar, and I only just discovered you'd done something similar. Can you share thy it ended up shutting down, or anything insights from the process?

Here's my (very early) landing page if you want to take a look!

I believe it's differentiated enough to matter.

Cameo is novelty, short form video. Patreon is subscription based. Twitter is hard to get a response. Reddit AMAs only occur once in every x years.

Currently if I want to ask a question and guarantee a long form text response, there's nothing that let's me do that.

Love to get your thoughts though.

How does someone like me, a solo-dev who is self taught learn these skills? Right now I spend a lot of time hacking on side projects, either tools I need or stuff I find fun. I've noticed my speed to build something has improved a lot. But in the factors you describe, not much change has been made. Is this something that can be learnt outside being an employee of a large tech company with an existing codebase, mentors etc.?