RE: 10,000 hours

[Jeff Larson <jeff.larson@sailpoint.com>]

> I just read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", and it makes a
> convincing argument that there really is no such thing as a prodigy,
> and it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice to become great,
> whether you are talking about music or computer programming. 

Speaking for computer programming, I wouldn't say this is true but I
guess it depends on how you define "great".

The average programmer works around 2000 hours a year.  Of course not
all of that is "practice" but factor in free time projects, and
pre-employment education and it is not unreasonable to say that
someone with 5 years of professional experience has clocked 10,000
hours of practice.

That would include most of the programmers in the world, and if my
work experience is any indication, very few of them are who I would
consider "great" :-)

10,000 hours might get you "professional".  You would be able to
compete in the job market and be a valued team member.  But great?

I think greatness as a programmer is much harder to quantify than
greatness as a musician.  Many people think Linus Torvalds is great,
but he basically just wrote a Unix kernel which was hardly new or
monumentally difficult.  He was certainly very *influential* but to me
that is not necessarily the same as greatness.

Jeff

(60,000 hours and still not great)