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Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

nair.sh

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Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#251

Post by k__ »

hamstergene wrote: post #69

Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it. An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. The request to take a dev and "communicate" their expertise to anoth…

I'd say, on averaged, it's 50% what you say and 50% communication issues.

Most smart juniors have no problem with learning. Perceptual exposure and deliberate practice works almost mechanically. However, if someone can't tell you what examples you should be exposed to, you'll learn crap.

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#252

Post by Paracompact »

tsunamifury wrote: post #232
hathawsh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that interesting? The job of exploring a theory or model to such an extent that it can be expressed in computer code always seems to fall on the shoulders of a software developer. Other people can write specifications and requirements all day long, but until a software developer has tackled the problem, the theory probably hasn't been explored well enough yet to express clearly in computer code. It feels like s…

Sorry this is just the interior trapped nonsense that engineers find themselves in. Please touch grass Product designers have to intuit the entire world model of the customer. Product managers have to intuit the business model that bridges both. And on and on. Why do engineers constantly have these laughably mind blowing moments where they think they are the center of the universe.

I agree so much with the both of you, to the point it's difficult to avoid cognitive dissonance one way or the other.

Software people do what they do better than anyone else. I mean obviously! Just listening to a non-software person discuss software is embarrassing. As it should be.

There's something close to mathematics that SWEs do, and yet it's so much more useful and economically relevant than mathematics, and I believe that's the bulk of how the "center of the universe" mindset develops. But they don't care that they're outclassed by mathematicians in matters of abstract reasoning, because they're doers and builders, and they don't care that they're outclassed by people in effective but less intellectual careers, because they're decoding the fundamental invariants of the universe.

I don't know. I guess I care so much because I can feel myself infected by the same arrogance when I finally succeed in getting my silicon golems to carry out my whims. It's exhilarating.

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#253

Post by 0xpgm »

tsunamifury wrote: post #232
hathawsh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that interesting? The job of exploring a theory or model to such an extent that it can be expressed in computer code always seems to fall on the shoulders of a software developer. Other people can write specifications and requirements all day long, but until a software developer has tackled the problem, the theory probably hasn't been explored well enough yet to express clearly in computer code. It feels like s…

Sorry this is just the interior trapped nonsense that engineers find themselves in. Please touch grass Product designers have to intuit the entire world model of the customer. Product managers have to intuit the business model that bridges both. And on and on. Why do engineers constantly have these laughably mind blowing moments where they think they are the center of the universe.

We keep seeing things like cryptic error messages shown to end users simply because of the disconnect between the programmer and the end user.

If the programmer gets to intimately understand the user's experience software would be easier to use. That's why I support the idea of engineers taking support calls on rotation to understand the user.

Both can be true at the same time, a product manager who retains the big picture of the business and product, and engineers who understand tiny but important details of how the product is being used.

If there were indeed perfect product managers, there would no need for product support.

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#254

Post by npodbielski »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #238

“I found this new tool and it’s pretty cool ...” yup “This company does things this way, so …” agreed “Here, look at this HackerNews post that says this is best practice, we should probably …” sir/m'lady, we're at war from now on. This is the only reason I come here. Of course I don't take everything carelessly, but the amount of experts on this forum is damn high and this is the only forum in the last 10 years that…

At war with whom? About what?

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#255

Post by cpursley »

hamstergene wrote: post #69

Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it. An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. The request to take a dev and "communicate" their expertise to anoth…

This sounds like a whole lot of copium from devs who don't want to bother with the effort of just writing stuff down, ie good documentation practices...

Actually, maybe even worse (not directed at parent) - I think some "seniors" have a stick so far up their err keyboard, and think they are so wise beyond words that they refuse to share their "all knowing expertise" with anyone else as a form of gatekeeping or perhaps fear of being "found out" (that they are not actually keyboard "Gods").

Really though, just wright shit down even if the first draft isn't great. Write it down, check it into the codebase.

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#256

Post by frgturpwd »

hamstergene wrote: post #69

Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it. An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. The request to take a dev and "communicate" their expertise to anoth…

Yeah, you can't get it out in "one session of conversation", but you definitely can under a different... context.

"Seeing the work reveals what matters. Even if the master were a good teacher, apprenticeship in the context of on-going work is the most effective way to learn. People are not aware of everything they do. Each step of doing a task reminds them of the next step; each action taken reminds them of the last time they had to take such an action and what happened then. Some actions are the result of years of experience and have subtle reasons; other actions are habit and no longer have a good justification. Nobody can talk better about what they do and why they do it than they can while in the middle of doing it."

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#257

Post by lionkor »

frgturpwd wrote: post #256
hamstergene wrote: post #69

Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it. An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. The request to take a dev and "communicate" their expertise to anoth…

Yeah, you can't get it out in "one session of conversation", but you definitely can under a different... context. "Seeing the work reveals what matters. Even if the master were a good teacher, apprenticeship in the context of on-going work is the most effective way to learn. People are not aware of everything they do. Each step of doing a task reminds them of the next step; each action taken reminds them of the last…

Is this a quote from somewhere?

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#258

Post by kharak »

hibikir wrote: post #209
hamstergene wrote: post #69

Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it. An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. The request to take a dev and "communicate" their expertise to anoth…

A non-trivial part of the big difference between the juniors that seem talented and "get it", and those that don't is precisely their ability to form accurate enough world models quickly. You can tell who is going at the "physics" of software and applying them, and who is just writing down recipes, and doesn't try to understand the nature of any of the steps. It's especially noticeable when teaching functional progra…

I've always had excellent model building functionality for abstractions and got the "physics" of a subject rather quickly, be it economics, biology, certain mathematical subjects and more.

Then, I met software and computer science abstractions, they all seemed so arbitrary to me, I often didn't even understand what the recipe was supposed to cook. And though I have gotten better over time (and can now write good solutions in certain domains), to this day I did not develop a "physics" level understanding of software or computer science.

It feels really strange and messes with your sense of intelligence. Wondering if anyone here has a similar experience and was able to resolve it.

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#259

Post by egorfine »

> this is my senior developer. The avoider, the reducer, the recycler. They want to avoid development as much as they can

And push an insurmountable pile of technical debt onto the successor.

Well, yeah, I understand the idea and I'm all for it: the less code the better, the less changes the better.

However in certain industries it is no longer a right approach for the job. In modern frontend development if you did not update your codebase for like a couple of months, this codebase falls so much behind that it becomes way more expensive to push an upgrade as compared to daily minor updates of packages. Yeah, I hate this as much as you do, but this is the pace frontend is moving at, and if you don't follow, you will mount technical debt.

Re: Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise

#260

Post by lionkor »

I really dislike the "ah this is my favorite senior" language. The author would have done well to simply leave this "rating" of different kinds of people out, and it would not harm the article. In fact, it would improve it.

People don't want to be judged in the introduction of an article, based on how they like to approach their literal dayjob. It's a weird jab.

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