[Ologn]

It's The Mythical Man Month idea. Programming software is a different thing than working on an assembly line, or a call center, or in retail sales. You're much better off having four programmers who are worth paying $200k a year than ten programmers who are worth paying $75k a year.

[PaulHoule]

I'm going to argue that, at scale, process beats the quality of the people you're using -- and also that there are toxic cultures, around Google and C++, where very smart people get seduced into spending all their time and effort fighting complexity, battling 45 minute builds, etc.

[zahlman]

> and also that there are toxic cultures, around Google and C++, where very smart people get seduced into spending all their time and effort fighting complexity, battling 45 minute builds, etc.

Not sure what you mean here. "Fighting" as in "seeking to prevent", or "putting up with", or what exactly? Is this supposed to be bad because it's exploitative, or because it's a poor use of the smart person's time, or what exactly?