How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#61

Post by NedIsakoff » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

okaramian wrote: post #43

harlanji wrote: post #3

Individuals often have little control over these things, and they are indicative of deeper cultural incentives. Without transgressing some, nothing will get done in many orgs. I see it a lot in big money VC backed startups, much less so in bootstrapped businesses. It’s important to be non-judgmental of people doing these things and simply leave or master Machiavellian moves to clear a path to promotion as other playe…

I agree. The system in place is to blame, and those people rose because they are just playing the game that is dealt to them. I'm not so good at the Machievellian political aspect, so I personally opt to leave when I notice behaviors like this are rewarded in the current system. I also wonder if I was able to rise in an organization that functions like this, if I would b the type of person to actually root out that t…

You won't be able to because the people higher are doing the same thing. Unless of course you make it to the top.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#62

Post by asabjorn » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

> A team with a bad developer is way better off short one developer than it is with a bad element.

How do you know that you just didn't communicate your issues well to the person? Is there a way to help them, you and your relationship improve so that you can be a stronger team?

We all have blindspots and weaknesses, and weaknesses that fit together like puzzle-pieces tend to find each other until you resolve them.

The half-moon is only an illusion, the whole moon is still there. You just don't see it, and you need the whole.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#63

Post by finaliteration » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

I’ll add another one: Nitpicking constantly.

I’ve worked with people who will fight and argue over every. Single. Detail. It drives me insane and usually makes me quit faster than anything else when I encounter those people.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#64

Post by edmundsauto » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #38

widforss wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development is the continual discovery that you were an idiot two weeks ago.

God knows. Especially when you're new like me. I go back even after a month and "Oh man I'd never do it like that again." No to say it didn't work or was even bad but I just found a better pattern to handle that case that I'd use by default now and it changes so much.

My advice: see if you can rewire your internal rewards. That feeling is the acknowledgement that you learned something.

The fact our ancient rewards system considers it embarrassing is of little importance.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#65

Post by Dzugaru » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

> Developers can’t easily go back to where they were right

> before an interruption. They need to get into the mindset

> for development and then slowly trace back to where they

> left off. And every fellow developer knows that.

I used to think like that too, but after 10 years programming in many environments, now I'm inclined to disagree. If I cannot refocus immediately after interruption - I know I'm doing something wrong. Maybe the thing is too complex and must be cut down to smaller pieces, maybe I didn't keep enough notes or thinking through - anyhow nowadays I cannot work without a clear understanding of what simple piece of what complex piece I'm doing and where I've written down the other pieces I should do next.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#66

Post by peteradio » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #40

vharuck wrote: post #18

I thunk there's a second "flavor" of arrogance, where a person believes they're the smartest, but not most knowledgeable, in the room. These people will openly admit they can improve and seek training, partly because they believe they're capable of anything. They don't think they're at the top of the mountain, just that their mountain has no peak. The real problem is they believe "lazy" coworkers will eventually be b…

Arrogance has very little to do with thinking you know a lot, or disagreeing with others, and everything to do with failing to follow social protocol. If you let other people speak, pause long enough that they feel like you are giving their words a fair evaluation, and then don't use words that they must interpret as telling them they are wrong you will not be seen as arrogant. This is true even if you rarely or neve…

Point 3 though. At some point how can you be so demure? Sometimes people are just stupid and wrong and need to get checked. Some guy working for a year getting nothing done and pretending like its some other problem than what it actually is needs to be forcefully briefed on their ignorance not 'hrmm well you see we tried it this way'.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#67

Post by dgzl » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

vharuck wrote: post #18

I thunk there's a second "flavor" of arrogance, where a person believes they're the smartest, but not most knowledgeable, in the room. These people will openly admit they can improve and seek training, partly because they believe they're capable of anything. They don't think they're at the top of the mountain, just that their mountain has no peak. The real problem is they believe "lazy" coworkers will eventually be b…

I see this in my step mother. My family isn't very high in social standing, but she has a nursing degree and a long well paying career, better than anyone else in my family. Now that I have a CS degree with similar pay, she pays me respect but still tangentially riffs on things she only half understands.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#68

Post by throwaway6734 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #40

vharuck wrote: post #18

I thunk there's a second "flavor" of arrogance, where a person believes they're the smartest, but not most knowledgeable, in the room. These people will openly admit they can improve and seek training, partly because they believe they're capable of anything. They don't think they're at the top of the mountain, just that their mountain has no peak. The real problem is they believe "lazy" coworkers will eventually be b…

Arrogance has very little to do with thinking you know a lot, or disagreeing with others, and everything to do with failing to follow social protocol. If you let other people speak, pause long enough that they feel like you are giving their words a fair evaluation, and then don't use words that they must interpret as telling them they are wrong you will not be seen as arrogant. This is true even if you rarely or neve…

> don't force them to admit to themselves that they were wrong: if you let people 'save face' they can just get on board and agree with you. If you force them to grapple with being wrong they will be difficult and will hate your guts

I think that an inability to admit a mistake is arrogant and results in a lack of accountability and ownership over individual's work. If someone makes a mistake they should be proactively owning it and trying to find solutions to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#69

Post by daxfohl » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

chooseaname wrote: post #4

9. Refuse to do any maintenance and only work on new projects. 10. Hide your actual productivity. IE: get done with your coding tasks in half the time, leaving other devs have to fix all the bugs that QA kick back. (This is probably a managerial issue, actually, but perpetuated by devs who do # 9.)

Or, augmenting #9, the team lead who takes all the interesting work and doles out compliance etc to everyone else.

Re: How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

#70

Post by munchbunny » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #66

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrogance has very little to do with thinking you know a lot, or disagreeing with others, and everything to do with failing to follow social protocol. If you let other people speak, pause long enough that they feel like you are giving their words a fair evaluation, and then don't use words that they must interpret as telling them they are wrong you will not be seen as arrogant. This is true even if you rarely or neve…

Point 3 though. At some point how can you be so demure? Sometimes people are just stupid and wrong and need to get checked. Some guy working for a year getting nothing done and pretending like its some other problem than what it actually is needs to be forcefully briefed on their ignorance not 'hrmm well you see we tried it this way'.

If it's actually that bad, you should just fire them or do your best to not work with them because they will drag you down with them.

For milder/more moderate cases, giving someone a way to concede without publicly admitting they're wrong is a often a useful tactic to get said person to do things the right way while building trust in your relationship with them.