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Be nice to programmers

edu.mkrecny.com

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Re: Be nice to programmers

#171

Post by lucian303 »

majormajor wrote: post #108

Among all the non-programmers I've talked to about work, I've never found one who doesn't have to deal with some sort of constant, repetitive negative feedback. Teachers have to deal with some kids that simply won't stop acting out, and who continually perform poorly on assignments (not to mention parents happy to tell them everything that the teacher is doing wrong). The salespeople have countless deals they fail to…

I think part of the reason the article is negative is that in much of the industry it's not you building anything, but it's you fixing some garbage that was hacked on by an army of a thousand morons before you into something that isn't really fixable into what management wants.

All the while dealing with people around you who do not understand what you do, whatsoever. This last part is crucial and it is everywhere. I have yet to meet someone who is not an engineer or ex-engineer who actually understands what I do and what I have to deal with not only with my own code (which is far from perfect) let alone code written by some overseas contractor who just got his copy of Java for Dummies so he can learn PHP.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#172

Post by irishcoffee »

Evbn wrote: post #144
irishcoffee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not a discrete "brokenness" to things like art or music. What you ship works or it doesn't work. Nobody knows or cares about the mountains you moved to produce what you did, they only care about the parts that don't work. Some industries are absolutely comparable, but a much smaller number than I think you're implying.

Ahem. http://www.psdisasters.com/

That would be the definition of 'doesn't work' I think.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#173

Post by otakucode »

Being wrong is fantastic. You simply have to come to appreciate it. Every time you learn that you are wrong - and this applies for everything in life, not just with programming - you never have to be wrong in that way ever again. Not for the rest of your life, if you can remember, will you be wrong in that particular way. How amazing is that?

You're not 'focusing on the negatives', you're getting to be wrong, a fantastic opportunity. Most people don't get to be wrong. They persist in their wrongness and swim about in a sea of mediocrity with no sense of personal advancement. To get to be wrong on a regular basis is nothing short of exciting. Sure, others will misunderstand it. Managers and business types will not understand why you simply couldn't do everything flawlessly from the start and they'll try to give you a hard time about it. But it doesn't really matter. No matter how hard they push you, they can't make you think. No one can. It has to be undertaken entirely under your own will. And when you do so and come up with something wrong - you know you are actually guiding yourself to develop rather than stagnate.

Go on, be wrong! And then never be wrong in that way ever again!

Re: Be nice to programmers

#174

Post by faucet »

I'm a kind of programmer, be nice to me! However... At my workplace all managers above my own including CEO resigned over my 3 years tenure there. Most of my colleagues (they do not write any code but are paid quite well too) are new. Talk to me about negative thinking!

Re: Be nice to programmers

#175

Post by faucet »

I'm a kind of programmer, be nice to me! However... At my workplace all managers above my own including CEO resigned over my 3 years tenure there. Most of my colleagues (they do not write any code but are paid quite well too) are new. Talk to me about negative thinking!

Re: Be nice to programmers

#176

Post by josh_fyi »

Doctors see sick people more than healthy people. Divorce lawyers get more business than the lawyers for happily-married couples (I guess they can help them with a will.)

We programmers live on the borderline between respected professional and prole grunt. Is it Doctor/Lawyer/Software Engineer; or Mechanic/Technician/Software Engineer?

Re: Be nice to programmers

#178

Post by AD-Edge »

Interesting post

For myself personally I feel the positive of making progress, or implementing that new feature, by far over-weighs all the little bits of negativity and frustration of a bug or error. Even if that implementation isnt 100% correct, its still satisfying to see something happening which takes you another step towards the goal. Sure it can be pretty destroying to get stuck on that one main problem for a long time, unable to find a solution and with a million errors being thrown, but then when that problem is solved the positive feeling can be even larger anyway, depending of course.

I find it unrealistic to expect it to be any other way, youre an imperfect human trying to design something so complex, within an environment that has zero tolerances for mistakes. Hell, if you even accidently capitalize a single letter somewhere in thousands of lines of code, the whole things going to fall in a heap.

So I cant say I overly relate to the main attitude of the article, as much as I understand what its saying.

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