E01¶


Research	R0007 — AI Cognitive Amplifier
Run	2026-03-20
Claim	C004
Source	SRC03
Evidence	SRC03-E01
Type	Analytical

Long history of confirmed individual variation in programmer productivity

URL: https://www.construx.com/blog/the-origins-of-10x-how-valid-is-the-underlying-research/

Extract¶

The general finding of order-of-magnitude differences among programmers has been confirmed by many studies: Curtis 1981, Mills 1983, DeMarco and Lister 1985, Curtis et al. 1986, Card 1987, Boehm and Papaccio 1988, Valett and McGarry 1989, Boehm et al 2000. This represents over 30 years of replication.

Relevance to Hypotheses¶

Hypothesis	Relationship	Strength
H1	Supports	Confirms "every major study" language
H2	Supports	Confirms variation pattern
H3	Contradicts	Extensive replication contradicts material error

Context¶

This evidence supports the claim that individual variation is one of the most replicated findings in software engineering.