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How to communicate effectively as a developer

karlsutt.com

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Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#31

Post by aliqot »

massung wrote: post #19

This has little to do w/ being a developer vs. being human. People joke about the programmer in a dark corner plugging away and never talking to others, but that's actually pretty rare. In 20 years I've only worked with a handful of developers who don't want to socialize, collaborate, or solve problems together. The truth is that people - regardless of discipline - generally all want the same things from their work:…

I'm good at what I do and am most prolific when given a complex task and the time/space to do it. It's not about being a shut in, I just prefer to socialize about what you have planned for the weekend when I reach a stopping point.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#32

Post by commandlinefan »

> The examples on the right, on the other hand, try to make the reader do less work, even though it is more effort for the writer

Ironically, these are perfect examples of the sort of thing that developers think is better but actually turn out to be worse. I thought the same thing as the author, early on - the more detail I can cram into each message the better. What I've found, though, is that most people actually interpret that as hostility and prefer a short, quick overview followed by more detail when asked.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#34

Post by commandlinefan »

madsbuch wrote: post #26

I have experience that suggests the contrary of his suggestions. Working in a remote culture, often we can spend too much time writing things out and in turn reading things that are irrelevant. I would propose a more progressive framework: Start with the short message without any context. If needed, make a new message with all the context. As an example I have a couple of times asked for help where a response would l…

> I have experience that suggests the contrary of his suggestions

Yep, this is the "internet blog" phenomenon. The author asserts, without any evidence, that _X_ ought to be true, therefore _X_ is true.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#35

Post by FoomFries »

ramilefu wrote: post #3

The difficult bit here is the tendency for developers to detest these parts of the job. In my experience, most developers would prefer nothing more than to write code in a cave, never to share a word with anyone. Reviewing a PR, writing documentation, and sharing knowledge are all things taking time away from their passion. I think this is the origin for much of the friction we experience in collaboration and documen…

I would love to hear some resources for improving. Separating the chaff from the wheat on resources is always difficult for the layman, similar to learning an instrument for the first time. Most things I find on improving writing is related to fiction, and other areas of improvement seem unnecessarily anecdotal or story driven.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#36

Post by withinboredom »

benjaminmaccini wrote: post #27

This was a great read and conscious of the nuances to effective writing. Articles like these tend to have a "write this way NOT this other way" mentality. To paraphrase a comment I saw somewhere regarding code optimization: "Given enough time most code can be optimized quite a lot". The same can be said about writing. The audience, the topic, and the intended outcome make for a complex optimization problem that, as t…

I think a lot of this is your “intended audience’s tastes.” I’ve worked with people who will literally write you a book for every reply. The conversation was so incredibly dense you had to spend a long time just to figure out the point if there is even one to begin with.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#37

Post by kayodelycaon »

One of the issues with the effective communication listed is it takes a lot more effort.

It can take me up to an hour to get all of my thoughts into words organized for easy understanding. But I'm usually dealing with things much more complicated and detailed that a REST api.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#38

Post by KptMarchewa »

batesy wrote: post #4
ramilefu wrote: post #3

The difficult bit here is the tendency for developers to detest these parts of the job. In my experience, most developers would prefer nothing more than to write code in a cave, never to share a word with anyone. Reviewing a PR, writing documentation, and sharing knowledge are all things taking time away from their passion. I think this is the origin for much of the friction we experience in collaboration and documen…

Seems like a pretty significant opportunity to level up for those willing?

On the contrary, a lot of businesses punish it.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#39

Post by sokoloff »

commandlinefan wrote: post #32

> The examples on the right, on the other hand, try to make the reader do less work, even though it is more effort for the writer Ironically, these are perfect examples of the sort of thing that developers think is better but actually turn out to be worse. I thought the same thing as the author, early on - the more detail I can cram into each message the better. What I've found, though, is that most people actually i…

The ones at the top of the blog post? The ones on the right are better for nearly every case I can think of.

"what is 'it'?", "who is 'her'?", and "'not working properly' how?" are not the type of detail questions that people generally want to have to ask ever. (maybe the third is sometimes OK)

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