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How to communicate effectively as a developer

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Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#121

Post by johnchristopher »

_greim_ wrote: post #113
Jarwain wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything over-communication sounds like a coping mechanism!

It's definitely a coping mechanism. When you've been burned repeatedly by people nodding vigorously in understanding, then turning around and revealing a complete lack of comprehension, forcing you to either intervene or allow the error to propagate, it's tempting to fall into a habit of pre-emptively explaining everything.

> revealing a complete lack of comprehension, forcing you to either intervene or allow the error to propagate, it's tempting to fall into a habit of pre-emptively explaining everything.

Or maybe the explanation was bad to begin with. Over communicating won't turn a bad explanation into a good one. Understanding something doesn't mean you know how to explain it to someone else.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#122

Post by californical »

_greim_ wrote: post #74
BurningFrog wrote: post #51

Here is my competing take: The biggest problem I see in developer communication is what I call the "assumed context" problem. As in, you talk/write to people as if they know all about your code, except the detail being discussed. In reality, they usually have much less detailed understanding, and you're making no sense to them. I'm pretty sure this is related to people "on the spectrum" often having low "theory of mi…

> The biggest problem I see in developer communication is what I call the "assumed context" problem. Ah yes, the "shouting up from the rabbit-hole problem". > people "on the spectrum" often having low "theory of mind" capabilities. I somewhat take issue with this, as people on the spectrum are more likely to over-communicate, all other things being equal. Techies are rather caught in a web of social status pressures.…

I think your chart is incomplete, because in the bottom-right quadrant, there’s the caveat that they never ask for clarification and blindly do the wrong thing.

Then when you have to go back and tell them the basic assumptions that they are wrong about, and that they have to redo tons of work, you lose a giant sum of hypothetical points

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#123

Post by thundergolfer »

TillE wrote: post #116
thundergolfer wrote: post #22

Last year wrote a technical writing advice checklist for engineers called How to ask for help in Slack : https://thundergolfer.com/communication/slack/2021/02/24/how... . I was at Canva, a fast growing company adding 500 engineers a year, and the tenured engineers were getting hit with a lot of questions and help requests. I thought about this list a lot, and believe that maintaining adherence to all 10 checklist ite…

The problem with stuff like this (or ESR's How To Ask Questions The Smart Way) is that they only really get through to the people who care enough to want to improve themselves and their interactions, which is probably like 1%. Maybe it's easier if they're employees. But my overwhelming experience out there in the wild is that people ask terrible questions which can't be answered, because they put zero effort into any…

I somewhat agree, but where I worked people were motivated to improve themselves, and you can't build an effective organization assuming your new hires don't care; you at least have to try.

(ie. I can't go to my manager only ever with complaints and no action)

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#124

Post by wruza »

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:…

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.

These two sentences are not mutually exclusive. I love to discuss with professionals or hobbyists things that overlap with my own interests or profession. Or drink and joke with them, iow feel close. But put me in a pretty common group whose best interest are: shallow travel, second order or empty talks, etc - and I will plug away immediately, because telling them what they even laugh about is so boring would be rude.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#125

Post by Consultant32452 »

taude wrote: post #66
BurningFrog wrote: post #51

Here is my competing take: The biggest problem I see in developer communication is what I call the "assumed context" problem. As in, you talk/write to people as if they know all about your code, except the detail being discussed. In reality, they usually have much less detailed understanding, and you're making no sense to them. I'm pretty sure this is related to people "on the spectrum" often having low "theory of mi…

I think you're "assumed context" problem actually has another term called "Curse of Knowledge" [1] (which I believe it's much more known as). There's a ton of strategies that have been written about it. Just adding this term here for people who want to search for strategies on how to work around this. It comes into play in all forms of communication, written, verbal, Slack, etc... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu…

I can speak to what it's like with autism brain.

In conversations people often say things that I have unusual associations about. My mind will start spiraling about the unusual association and I will begin an internal narrative about the new, unrelated topic without verbalizing any of it. I will continue with the original conversation with the convo partner. Then, out of the blue, I will verbalize something about the second topic and the convo partner has no idea what I'm talking about. The topics can be as unrelated as databases and the mating habits of penguins. I have forgotten that the convo partner did not take the journey into the second narrative with me.

Countdown to database of mating habits of penguins comment.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#126

Post by chrisweekly »

skydhash wrote: post #104
hbrn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. But it's not even about writing. Developers hate communication , in any form. Going remote made it much worse, there's even more ways to avoid communication or turning it async. The only remedy I found is actively forcing people to talk to each other, starting with yourself. Doing a code review? Grab the reviewee in a Slack huddle for 15 minutes, it'll save time for both of you. Need a code review? Grab the…

> The only remedy I found is actively forcing people to talk to each other, starting with yourself. That's not communication. That is forced socialization. There are things that are expressed more efficiently in spoken form, but the truth is that spoken words are ephemeral and the mechanism for storing and retrieving them are cumbersome. I like written communication, it forces you to be more structured in your thinki…

Agreed; even further, the presence of even a small number of interrupts can disrupt the extended focus and context-building that are required to solve gnarly problems. See also pg's famous "Maker's schedule" post:

http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#127

Post by [deleted] »

johnchristopher wrote: post #121
_greim_ wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a coping mechanism. When you've been burned repeatedly by people nodding vigorously in understanding, then turning around and revealing a complete lack of comprehension, forcing you to either intervene or allow the error to propagate, it's tempting to fall into a habit of pre-emptively explaining everything.

> revealing a complete lack of comprehension, forcing you to either intervene or allow the error to propagate, it's tempting to fall into a habit of pre-emptively explaining everything. Or maybe the explanation was bad to begin with. Over communicating won't turn a bad explanation into a good one. Understanding something doesn't mean you know how to explain it to someone else.

[deleted]

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#128

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

_greim_ wrote: post #74
BurningFrog wrote: post #51

Here is my competing take: The biggest problem I see in developer communication is what I call the "assumed context" problem. As in, you talk/write to people as if they know all about your code, except the detail being discussed. In reality, they usually have much less detailed understanding, and you're making no sense to them. I'm pretty sure this is related to people "on the spectrum" often having low "theory of mi…

> The biggest problem I see in developer communication is what I call the "assumed context" problem. Ah yes, the "shouting up from the rabbit-hole problem". > people "on the spectrum" often having low "theory of mind" capabilities. I somewhat take issue with this, as people on the spectrum are more likely to over-communicate, all other things being equal. Techies are rather caught in a web of social status pressures.…

I don't think I am on the spectrum ( I mean, I guess technically everyone is, which is why its a spectrum ), but I do know that I was ..what is a good word.. chastised.. no.. maybe gently admonished for putting up very long detailed summaries with some discussion of potential risks involved in an assumed approach, potential tradeoffs and pitfalls.

It really depends on your boss, but I come from compliance world, where you do want to CYA pretty extensively.

Anyway, back to the story. I was effectively asked to keep writing executive summaries. I hate to say it, but things seldom are that simple. I can simplify it for you, but you will lose a lot of context with that. And this how we get to the situation, where only one guy in the entire company knows how X actually works with all the constraints that it brings.

Re: How to communicate effectively as a developer

#129

Post by fortylove »

thundergolfer wrote: post #22

Last year wrote a technical writing advice checklist for engineers called How to ask for help in Slack : https://thundergolfer.com/communication/slack/2021/02/24/how... . I was at Canva, a fast growing company adding 500 engineers a year, and the tenured engineers were getting hit with a lot of questions and help requests. I thought about this list a lot, and believe that maintaining adherence to all 10 checklist ite…

I usually dislike processes like what you describe as they normally just add friction, even if there are good parts. But as a senior eng, I find your list very good. Thanks for sharing!
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