Live data from Hacker News

Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#11

I will say that code reviews with some individuals have been, by far, the most stressful and demotivating part of my job, and a major reason why I am looking to end a career in developing software in teams, and I would not be surprised if this caused long-term health effects. In some situations, I could feel the blood flow changing in my body, an increased heart beat and blood pressure. This is especially true in com…

I wonder how many people has all this sh*t cargo culting and nit-picking has sent to grave.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#12
post #9

Regardless of that, I don't find discussing software engineering topics productive anymore. Whether you go all the way with "boring tech" (php, ansible, mysql) or cool cloud (k8s, go, whatever), it's all the same at the end of the day: we are there to make some CEOs rich. Take pride of your skills in personal projects.

that +1000

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#13
Stress can definitely cause health issues. I don't think code review stress alone is enough. I'm having stress related issues because my TL and I don't agree on many tech topics and he's taking that out on me in performance reviews. Now my job is at risk because some young TL thinks his ways are the only ways.

I would bet my life is shorter after putting up with constant BS from my job. Maybe that's not a bad thing since life in general sucks.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#15
Setting trolling aside, this could also be an act of a person who is very scared and angry at the diagnosis, and who is dealing with the news by looking for external factors they can blame and redirect their feelings toward. It's a very human reaction for someone in a terrible situation, and I would be inclined to give them some grace for it.

Understanding is not agreeing though. Of course none of this is on you. Everybody deals with stress in their life, and if code review bickering was the worst thing they faced, I'd consider that pretty lucky indeed. As others mentioned, you can't control how others deal with adversity and emotions, and this includes this LinkedIn outburst. No need to feel guilt here whatsoever (though perhaps worth thinking about professional disagreements in general, and ways of handling those conversations in a productive rather than adversarial manner).

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#16
I can remember when object-oriented programming was all the rage and if you didn't see the light you were just too stuck in your ways apparently. I imagine back then Dave may have had some similars arguments with the senior programmers he worked with at the time as you did with him. You didn't cause his terminal illness.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#18
It’s not your fault. You didn’t contribute to his death.

How he handled (or neglected) stress in his life may have contributed to his death, but’s that’s on him, not you.

Consider also that he may have psychological issues and/or been looking for a target for his frustrations and you were the most opportune at that moment. I don’t like to throw around the word “toxic” because it’s overused, but it seems to fit the bill here.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#20
post #16

I can remember when object-oriented programming was all the rage and if you didn't see the light you were just too stuck in your ways apparently. I imagine back then Dave may have had some similars arguments with the senior programmers he worked with at the time as you did with him. You didn't cause his terminal illness.

It's funny because I had been the guy pushing OO on everyone thinking they are bad if they don't get it. Now I am serially defeating proposals to use, as the OP puts it, more "modern" solutions, because the young people proposing them are basically me back then. Inexperienced and impressionable.
Post reply on HN