JargonFile/entries/superprogrammer.txt
2014-04-26 16:54:15 +01:00

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superprogrammer
n. A prolific programmer; one who can code exceedingly well and quickly. Not
all hackers are superprogrammers, but many are. (Productivity can vary from
one programmer to another by three orders of magnitude. For example, one
programmer might be able to write an average of 3 lines of working code in
one day, while another, with the proper tools, might be able to write 3,000.
This range is astonishing; it is matched in very few other areas of human
endeavor.) The term superprogrammer is more commonly used within such places
as IBM than in the hacker community. It tends to stress naive measures of
productivity and to underweight creativity, ingenuity, and getting the job
done and to sidestep the question of whether the 3,000 lines of code do more
or less useful work than three lines that do the Right Thing. Hackers tend
to prefer the terms hacker and wizard.