I am amazed at all these viewpoints (in the article and in comments) in favor of 1000 mediocre programmers versus 5 great ones. Have you actually seen big software development departments at work?
1000 mediocre developers is like a huge battleship (an old, clunky, unarmed one). You can't get everyone one the same page. You can't change directions. You have to dumb everything down and cut your ambitions in half just to hope to get a working product out.
5 great programmers would absolutely beat the hell out of 1000 mediocre programmers, every single time. I can't believe anyone even thinks it's a contest.
1000 mediocre developers is like a huge battleship (an old, clunky, unarmed one). You can't get everyone one the same page. You can't change directions. You have to dumb everything down and cut your ambitions in half just to hope to get a working product out.
5 great programmers would absolutely beat the hell out of 1000 mediocre programmers, every single time. I can't believe anyone even thinks it's a contest.