How does the 10x coder overcome configuration headaches?
nostrademons: Most 10x coders deal with it by not using 3rd party libraries, except for ones that are very highly regarded and trusted.  These tend to avoid most of the configuration headaches because everyone uses them, so the maintainers get lots of practice in making them easily installable.It's funny how common wisdom in the software industry is "reuse, don't rebuild", but if you look at projects that are actually successful and developers that are highly regarded, they all have a massive case of NIH syndrome.  Google and Microsoft both build all their own software.  Mozilla completely reimplemented COM for Gecko.  John Resig just got criticized recently because TestSwarm duplicates a lot of the functionality of Selenium Grid.  Linus Torvalds wrote his own OS instead of hacking MINIX, and then wrote his own VCS rather than use Subversion or CVS.  Chuck Moore wrote everything himself, down to the hardware, which he designed with CAD software he wrote himself in Forth, a language he wrote himself.If you look at it by numbers, this makes perfect sense.  The average library is, by definition, average, so a coder who is way above average can undoubtedly write something better given enough attention to the problem.  Plus, many of these super-coders got their reputation by writing lots of code in the first place, which you don't do if you just reuse third-party libraries.Unfortunately, everyone thinks they're above average, which is why we get such a profusion of libraries in the first place. ;-)