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Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#321

Post by ambicapter »

agentultra wrote: post #314

First, recognize what constructive feedback is. Not all feedback is created equal. Most developers aren't trained in nor understand what constructive feedback is. Recognizing poor feedback is the first step. It's easier to accept constructive feedback because it's not directed in a personal way. Someone who leaves constructive feedback isn't questioning your intentions, motives, skills, or choices. They're not leavin…

I write plenty of feedback where I ask questions of the code author because I'm seeking to understand why they did something a certain way because there's a possibility that they are doing it correctly, but that possibility is likely small (e.g. it looks like they've written something in reaction to a possibility that is exceedingly slim, but possible). In that case it's very difficult to word it without sounding accusatory, but there's no way to word it without addressing them personally.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#322

Post by kukkeliskuu »

molly0 wrote: post #164
kukkeliskuu wrote: post #148

What you have encountered is actually one of the necessary steps to really become "a senior developer". And congratulations, you have already passed the biggest part of that hurdle: becoming aware of the issue. There are things that are fragile, things that break when they encounter a shock. Such as porcelain, when transported. There are things that are non-fragile, things that do not break when they encounter a simi…

Thank you, it sound to me like meditation could be a way of developing an anti-fragile attitude?

Yes, I believe meditation would be useful for you. There are many kinds of meditation, and I have experience only on very basic "sitting". Others have suggested developing compassion, and I know some have found compassion meditation helpful in developing that, but I don't have the first-hand experience.

I have found meditation to help me to stay calm in situations, and even if I am about to get angry, to become aware of it in situations, so I can remove myself from situation before acting. And also to calm down more quickly. When you can process the criticism from a better place in yourself.

Also, I have found tai chi to be have similar effect on me.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#323

Post by ethbr0 »

martypitt wrote: post #301
_popcornLurker wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm...I have to chime in here. "Anti-fragile attitude" when it comes to criticism is not built by tolerance. Quite the opposite actually. It is a common misconception. While making yourself numb against criticism IS a solution but not by far the best one. A high criticism tolerance is learned by understanding that ones self worth is not attached to output or delivery. (This is hard in our industry) It comes from self…

> A high criticism tolerance is learned by understanding that ones self worth is not attached to output or delivery. > You are not your lines of code. These statements are sage advice. And while I believe them both to be correct, I personally struggle with remembering these things when it matters most.

The older I get, the more I'm convinced the secrets of life come in contradictory tuples, and the application of all elements at appropriate time and in appropriate ways. Zen koans were onto something.

{"You are not your lines of code", "You should feel proud when your code is good and embarrassed when your code is bad"}

Both of these things are true.

To the matter at hand, how to take criticism constructively, the key for me is bifurcating my emotional response from my logical one.

Emotional response is noted, thought about, but routed inward. Logical one is routed outward.

E.g. "This is the dumbest application of a bad sorting algorithm I've ever seen."

Emotional/inward: "That hurts. Am I a bad programmer? How did I not know this? Will I ever be a person who does know things like this? I respect the person who's telling me this: do they still respect me?"

Logical/outward: "Fair. What algorithm would you have used in this application? If you have time, can you walk me through how you would have picked it?"

People usually screw things up when they don't hold space for their own emotional response and commingle it with the logical one (e.g. manufacturing a logical justification for what is really an emotional feeling).

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#325

Post by Insanity »

Study Art! One of my friends did an arts degree prior to entering the software industry. She said that studying and making art prepared her for all the criticism her code would get. You build thick skin.

But on a more realistic note - separating yourself from your work is hard. I accept that at times my code will be bad, sometimes the reasons are external and sometimes I just did not know better. But I try not to repeat mistakes, that is the key. Also I consciously frame it as “the code had a bug” vs “my code was bad”. How you phrase it goes a long way, imo.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#326

Post by pcblues »

I recently heard a criticism that this forum was looking too far backward in tech history and lore. Can I suggest everyone young and old look back even further in moral history. Start with the secret diary of Marcus Aurelius. It is about 2000 years old, and written by an emperor, and not meant to ever be published. But it is easy to read quickly and will teach you every thing you need to know about how to handle a tiny PR criticism. Don't trust me. Read it. No-one will criticize you for like-harvesting or virtue-signalling the same way again. Or at least a bit less :) All the best.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#328

Post by robertlagrant »

lwhi wrote: post #320
lumb63 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard similar statements from other people, and I have a disconnect that prevents me from understanding. Why would someone want to detach their self worth from what they do? If someone ought not feel a negative emotion in response to doing something “bad”, by what logic can they justify feeling something positive in response to doing something “good”? I cannot conceive of a world view that allows one to feel pro…

Fundamentally, because we are still worth something even when our achievements are completely removed. If you take the view that our achievements are necessarily integral to our self worth this logically isn't true.

But this isn't the point. The previous commenter was replying to someone who said that what we do has zero to do with our self worth. They were saying, no, it does have quite a lot to do with it.

Saying "well it's not all about what we do!" is not in keeping with the conversation.

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#329

Post by grugagag »

reality_inspctr wrote: post #271
Dwolb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Another adjacent PoV is improvement, not complete, is the steady state. What I mean is, throughout our entire schooling career we did work and turned in assignments that got graded. They were done. The work was over. Our professions aren’t like that. There’s no done. There’s always improvement. Therefore every piece of criticism, critique, or feedback has some data in it (sometimes layered in poorly worded ph…

it can be helpful, for some, to give up on the notion of retirement altogether. exist to exist the whole way through. do what you gotta do. many SV people have probably also seen anecdotal evidence the $B crowd has this mindset. it's the $M crowd sweatin the small stuff.

> it can be helpful, for some, to give up on the notion of retirement altogether.

Yeah, perfect and ready to be exploited with no end in sight.

What are $B and $M crowds? Billionares and millionares? Do you have any personal insight into those or just read about it?

Re: Ask HN: How do you not take criticism of your work personally?

#330

Post by sidlls »

kukkeliskuu wrote: post #148

What you have encountered is actually one of the necessary steps to really become "a senior developer". And congratulations, you have already passed the biggest part of that hurdle: becoming aware of the issue. There are things that are fragile, things that break when they encounter a shock. Such as porcelain, when transported. There are things that are non-fragile, things that do not break when they encounter a simi…

On the other hand, in this industry often what one engineer identifies as a mistake another might be neutral toward or identify as a best practice/correct.

Our industry doesn't have many standards, and it's not nearly as objective as some think. And often criticism isn't intended to improve an outcome: it's intended to bring others' in line with the critic's view of how it should be done.

All this to say, I'd just add to your comment that one must also develop the ability to discern when a critic is identifying a true mistake and when they are simply parroting a fad or injecting their subjective beliefs into the review.

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