The Ballmer Peak: An Empirical Search
<|reference_start|>The Ballmer Peak: An Empirical Search: The concept of a 'Ballmer Peak' was first proposed in 2007, postulating that there exists a very specific blood alcohol content which confers superhuman programming ability. More generally, there is a commonly held belief among software engineers that coding is easier and more productive after a few drinks. Using the industry standard for assessment of coding ability, we conducted a search for such a peak and more generally investigated the effect of different amounts of alcohol on performance. We conclusively refute the existence of a specific peak with large magnitude, but with p < 0.001 find that there was a significant positive effect to a low amount of alcohol - slightly less than two drinks - on programming ability.<|reference_end|>
@article{stone2024the,
    title={The Ballmer Peak: An Empirical Search},
    author={Twm Stone and Jaz Stoddart},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.10002},
    year={2024},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    eprint={2404.10002},
    primaryClass={cs.SE}
}