I've read Peopleware. Your mention of it is another example of the uncritical citation of references that Bossavit talks about in his book.
Peopleware isn't a scientific study. It's a collection of essays and opinions by two authors I have a great deal of respect for. The closest it gets to science is an un-sourced discussion of DeMarco and Lister's "Coding War Games." In that discussion, it specifically says that differences in productivity (which were less than 10x) were likely due to workplace factors, not individual productivity.
People constantly say that there's "strong evidence" supporting the 10x productivity, but no one ever quotes a scientific study that provides this evidence. At best, people list references, often without reading or understanding them--as you did with Peopleware.
There could well be a 10x difference in productivity, but gut feel and testosterone-fueled claims aren't the same as science.
(It's no surprise that there's no science backing the claim. In order to show evidence for a 10x difference in programmer productivity, you'd first have to define "programmer productivity" and come up with an unbiased measure of it. And that's surprisingly difficult, as some of the discussions in this thread have shown.)
>Your reference of it is another example of the uncritical waving of references that Bossavit talks about in his book.
He says, while uncritically waving a single reference that has no backing evidence. You seriously don't see your hypocrisy here?
>Peopleware isn't a scientific study
Duh? That is why it contains citations, to the studies the authors conducted. You sure did a poor job of reading it if you are actually that ignorant.
>In that discussion, it specifically says that differences in productivity (which were less than 10x) were likely due to workplace factors, not individual productivity.
No, they were 10x. That is precisely what it says. And why do you suggest workplace factors being part of the difference makes the difference not exist? I don't even understand how you can say something that absurd and not realize it.
>There could well be a 10x difference in productivity, but gut feel and testosterone-fueled claims aren't the same as science.
Ok, I'll just take your ignorance-fueled gut feel claim as proof that all the scientific evidence doesn't exist.
Whoa there. You are being way too rude and aggressive about this. Please help keep HN civil; that's much more important than any argument.
Peopleware is a classic, or at least many software professionals regard it that way, but it is a classic of folklore rather than science. Here is an example that I asked one of the authors about years ago: https://hackernews.hn/edit?id=1995716.
The research literature itself on these matters is extremely flimsy. There is not even any empirical evidence for the stuff we all agree on, such as that version control is good (http://www.neverworkintheory.org/?p=451) let alone on the controversial points such as productivity. Incidentally, how do you measure productivity?
I'd be happy to be wrong about this, though. Perhaps you could cite a study or two that really does hold up to scrutiny?
Perhaps if you don't like the dozens of studies, you could offer a critical response to them rather than ignoring their existence no matter how often they are pointed to?
Peopleware isn't a scientific study. It's a collection of essays and opinions by two authors I have a great deal of respect for. The closest it gets to science is an un-sourced discussion of DeMarco and Lister's "Coding War Games." In that discussion, it specifically says that differences in productivity (which were less than 10x) were likely due to workplace factors, not individual productivity.
People constantly say that there's "strong evidence" supporting the 10x productivity, but no one ever quotes a scientific study that provides this evidence. At best, people list references, often without reading or understanding them--as you did with Peopleware.
There could well be a 10x difference in productivity, but gut feel and testosterone-fueled claims aren't the same as science.
(It's no surprise that there's no science backing the claim. In order to show evidence for a 10x difference in programmer productivity, you'd first have to define "programmer productivity" and come up with an unbiased measure of it. And that's surprisingly difficult, as some of the discussions in this thread have shown.)