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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?

#491

Post by babbledabbler »

It's natural to take criticism of your work personally so I think the first thing is to accept the initial emotional reaction as "ok" and not something to beat yourself up about.

The next step is to tame your emotional response. It's almost never a good idea to act based on emotions so you first need to get a level head before responding. You can journal, meditate, go in a room and rage out if you need to, but just get that chimpanzee in your brain to settle down. Not easy but has to be done if you want to transcend whatever is coming your way. Sometimes you will fail but there's always next time so just keep at it.

Once you've settled down, now it's time to rationally consider the content of the critique and decide how to respond. Criticism can come in many different shapes and sizes: valid, invalid, clear, vague, harsh and nice, well timed, ill timed. Unfortunately, some people can be downright mean so handling harsh and uncivil criticism is a skill that takes time to master. If you notice most highly successful people, they take nasty criticism like water off a duck's back. That being said, it's really unacceptable to have people making snarky comments on your work and if it's a pattern there, I'd consider finding a more nurturing place to work.

Once all that's done, decide whether the argument is valid and if so make the adjustment in good faith. If not respond, with your reasons respectfully and with an open mind. They may respond in turn, and if so you and your colleagues will have achieved a harmonious spirt of working together towards a higher truth and you will benefit in ways that cannot be overstated.

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

#492

Post by anonymouskimmer »

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…

I don't want people to get the wrong idea from your immune system analogy.

From what I recall, exposure to environmental antigens as a child helps train the immune system to not go off on them later (as allergies).

Exposure to any particular disease is only a positive in your adaptive immune system response to that particular disease (and may cause problems such as antibody-dependent enhancement of related diseases, as seen in Dengue, and some Flu infections). For particular diseases such as chicken pox it's better to get them as a child as they have worse symptoms if first caught as an adult. For other diseases I don't know that it matters much. It's probably best to just never catch them at all. And then for diseases such as measles, you don't want to catch them ever (at least before vaccination); definitely not after you've caught other diseases.

https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/Covid19-immunity-Yasser

> Does our immune system get stronger with every infection we fight off?

> To answer this question, let’s first discuss the two types of the immune system. Our immune system is composed of two arms, the innate and adaptive immune systems. The innate immune system acts fast (in minutes) after it recognizes a pathogen and, in most cases, eradicates the invading pathogens. During this process, the cells of the innate immune system, and their derived immune mediators/proteins, also activate the cells of the adaptive immune system which then develop memory immune responses toward these pathogens. Therefore, upon reinfection, the intensity of the innate immune system remains the same. In contrast, the adaptive immune response is much stronger than the initial exposure to these pathogens.

> So, to answer this question, our immune system doesn’t get stronger with every infection but the response of the adaptive immune system is much faster and stronger upon reinfection.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/10/how-measles-w...

> Reporting today in Science, the researchers show that the measles virus wipes out 11 percent to 73 percent of the different antibodies that protect against viral and bacterial strains a person was previously immune to — anything from influenza to herpesvirus to bacteria that cause pneumonia and skin infections.

> So, if a person had 100 different antibodies against chicken pox before contracting measles, they might emerge from a case of measles with only 50, cutting their chicken pox protection in half. That protection could dip even lower if some of the antibodies lost are potent defenses known as neutralizing antibodies.

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

#493

Post by bhasi »

DonHopkins wrote: post #311
davidguetta wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as i like the concept in general in life, in this case its just "you are not your lines of code". Also people who criticize people make a mistake kind of. Always criticize the code, not the person.

I once worked with an absolutely horrendous programmer named "Sam" who enjoyed the smell of his own farts so much that he he always smurfed his own name or possessive prefixes like "sams_" and "my_" in variable and function and file and form field and database column names. And he loved to get "artistically creative" with "elegant variation" of variable names and naming conventions, permuting and mutating them at eve…

https://twitter.com/secondmentions is a collection of instances of said "elegant variations".

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

#494

Post by AndrewKemendo »

What you’re going to have to work on is discernment.

You can’t, and shouldn’t blunt or callous yourself to criticism, after all it’s the important feedback that you get from your environment that informs where your attention should be for learning or applying lessons learned.

Rather, the key task now is for you to increasingly categorize and label this feedback in ways that allow you to appropriately evaluate whether the feedback is valid and perhaps does require introspection.

The more you can evaluate things like this, with curiosity as to other reasons that may be contributory, the more you’ll realize at least in my experience that “it’s not about you” in most cases.

Finding that saddle point of anxious introspection and detached boundaries tasks a while so, be patient with yourself and give yourself grace. I know I’m still working hard on it myself and I’ve been in senior leadership a long while now

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

#495

Post by fareesh »

It depends on the criticism

If it's invalid criticism:

If it's from someone whose criticism matters: pursue the criticism and reach the truth through reasoning

If it's from someone who doesn't matter: ignore, make stuff

If it's valid criticism:

You learned something. You could have continued doing things the wrong way and been worse off for it. You are in a position where someone cares enough to look at your work and take time to give you feedback.

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

#496

Post by molly0 »

Nihilartikel wrote: post #419
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…

The pro tip is to attach your self worth not to your skill, but to it's first derivative! That way any criticism that helps you improve your game, no matter how unpleasantly delivered, is a power up. I say it glibly, like it's easy, but it works if one can internalize it.

This was an interesting point of view.

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

#497

Post by m3kw9 »

You develop thicker skin as you get more push back. Also don’t think your code is the best way, which comes from being open minded. If there is an asshole that really rub it in and call names, sure you let them know but mostly they won’t. In other words practice the above and you will be able to take criticism like a good team player

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

#498

Post by moffkalast »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #424
moffkalast wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is not unlike criticising an artist's paintings. The things you make are a mirror of who you are because you use your life experiences, knowledge, and preferences to make them. By criticizing what you make, they are also criticizing you by proxy. Now sure it depends on the type of criticism in question. Finding a bug or other practical problems obviously isn't, but talking shit about a way something is arbitr…

You had better believe that when artists get a commission, the patron gets a say in how the work looks. When you are in a band or ensemble with other people, they also get a say in how "your" part of the music sounds. This is the same for code. Code you create with and for other people isn't really your creation in that way: all of it is a collaborative effort.

I don't think that really changes anything, just restricts the effective criticism to that specific part that you did. Though I suppose the more it's intertwined the less it matters. I don't think anyone really cares about that one function in the company codebase that's been rewritten 20 times by different people, and far more about that part of the game they coded themselves at a gamejam.

There's always external influence, but if you're involved you obviously added something and in most cases it can be scrutinized on its own merits.

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

#499

Post by racl101 »

I punch a pillow. J/K.

Personally, there's nothing you can tell me that is denigrating or unflattering about me that I don't already think about myself.

I am a short, fat, brown skinned, unattractive male immigrant of average intellect.

I already beat myself up quite a bit so it makes it very easy to accept criticism from others. It also keeps me constantly trying my best because I never feel like I'm secure in my standing that I can just relax. Keeps you humble too.

But at least I saved a ton of money on my insurance by switching to Geico.

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

#500

Post by sfink »

layer8 wrote: post #418
lexicality wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you actually are, in a very real sense. Someone else would have written different lines of codes. The lines of code are a function of yourself, an inherent part of you. Criticizing the lines of code criticizes that part of you. You can’t criticize a novel without implicitly criticizing its author. When we criticize an LMM’s output, we are typically criticizing the LLM. Perceiving criticism of one’s own work…

Part of this reads as if you're not allowed to be criticized for some reason. How is "I am not a perfect coder" really different from "I'm inherently flawed"? Being flawed just means you're not perfect. People are flawed. Everyone is. One doesn't have to feel bad about it. One only needs to take responsibility for it. And then one can actually feel good about having acted responsibly.

> How is "I am not a perfect coder" really different from "I'm inherently flawed"? Being flawed just means you're not perfect.

If you believe that your coding ability is an inherent part of you, then they are not different. If you believe that your coding ability is an ever-changing attribute of you but not core to who you are, then they are very different.

If x is 5, then x + 5 and 10 are the same thing. If x is 3, then x + 5 and 10 are not the same thing.

A good question to ask is which model is more useful, or which model is more likely to lead to various outcomes you might want. "Me=my code" is pretty good for producing top coders and winning competitive situations. It also tends to produce burnout and assholes. You aren't stuck with always using one or the other, either. A lot of people start with "me=my code" when younger, then switch partially or fully to "my code=my code" later when their initial model starts leading to conflict and inefficiencies in a system larger than just one or a few developers. (Or they start finding value in non-coding pursuits.)

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