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You can't impress developers

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Re: You can't impress developers

#111

Post by Joeri »

dvhh wrote: post #49

Well since you can have hardware emulator in javascript, we surely became less impressed in what you can run in the browser. example that come in mind http://bellard.org/jslinux/index.html

This is why the internet is bad for your self-image. In the whole world there are only a handful of people who could write something like jslinux. But, because of the internet, we have all seen it and consider this the reference to live up to. Well, most people cannot ever live up to fabrice bellard. I'm sure my work will never live up to his work. Does that mean all my work is automatically rubbish?

In my opinion, we should compare other people's work to our own work. If we compare against the work of the very best then 99.9% of things will fall short of what they should have been.

Re: You can't impress developers

#112

Post by mratzloff »

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #85
clicks wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar thoughts. I've been here for a few years and I haven't observed any specific decline. I'm a little confused by the perceived offense as well: it's not good to tell someone something sucks? I would much rather hear honest thoughts about my projects ("seems like a waste of time, poor implementation anyway, maybe try $x instead?") than be given a false sense of security through unwarranted praise. Of cour…

Having been in the industry for some time now, I've observed significant generational differences between how criticism is given and accepted. When I worked with developers raised in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, they generally wouldn't hold back when it came to criticism. If something was done wrong, or if something was a stupid idea, they'd say so very bluntly and to-the-point. They'd also be more open to receiving…

I have worked with a variety of developers over my career. The best were the ones that accepted and even sought out criticism, and knew how to apply it. Developers that can't handle criticism should be let go.

I would hesitate to generalize across generations. I have worked with some excellent younger developers who can take direct criticism and some terrible older developers whose ego couldn't fit through a door.

I tend to be more direct with my criticism when someone "should know better" and gentler when it's a more advanced concept for them. I've found that works well for most people.

Re: You can't impress developers

#113

Post by [deleted] »

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #88
akkartik wrote: post #8

You can't impress developers on HN . There's something about the social dynamics of large groups of developers online that causes relatively-uninteresting criticisms to dominate. But when somebody's actually trying something out, rather than just kibitzing? They're a lot friendlier. If you couldn't impress developers we'd never switch to new technologies. And yet here we are, with rack and sinatra and cucumber and no…

I'm not sure that the "new technologies" you listed are very good examples. Rack, for instance, isn't really that much different from CGI, FastCGI, SCGI, NSAPI, ISAPI, Apache modules, and so forth. It's just one more way of invoking custom code to handle an HTTP request. This is something we've been doing for many years now, and it really isn't "new". The same goes for Sinatra. I remember seeing Perl and Tcl code in…

[deleted]

Re: You can't impress developers

#114

Post by general_failure »

corresation wrote: post #84
davewiner wrote: post #53

Hacker News is going through a predictable evolution. In the early days it's a wonderful community of supportive collaborators. These are the people who start unmoderated mail lists and discussion groups, at least the ones that grow to the next stage. It attracts people who want to be part of an unmoderated mail list or discussion group. It doesn't matter what the topic is, they always show up. They feel a sense of e…

You've been saying this for literally years now. Back in 2011 you were declaring that "idiots" dominated Hacker News.

Some call it wisdom. Some call it broken record. You decide.

Re: You can't impress developers

#115

Post by akkartik »

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #88
akkartik wrote: post #8

You can't impress developers on HN . There's something about the social dynamics of large groups of developers online that causes relatively-uninteresting criticisms to dominate. But when somebody's actually trying something out, rather than just kibitzing? They're a lot friendlier. If you couldn't impress developers we'd never switch to new technologies. And yet here we are, with rack and sinatra and cucumber and no…

I'm not sure that the "new technologies" you listed are very good examples. Rack, for instance, isn't really that much different from CGI, FastCGI, SCGI, NSAPI, ISAPI, Apache modules, and so forth. It's just one more way of invoking custom code to handle an HTTP request. This is something we've been doing for many years now, and it really isn't "new". The same goes for Sinatra. I remember seeing Perl and Tcl code in…

What would you consider a 'real' technology? (Does my node example qualify?)

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What's the difference between 'programming language' and 'dialect'? 'Supports macros' or 'uses parens in surface syntax' doesn't feel like enough reason to label Clojure a dialect. Supersets of specs are closer to 'dialects', like ISO C and gcc C, or Kawa scheme and guile. Racket seems to add enough extra feature that programmers are quite likely to leave base scheme in any program, so it doesn't feel like a dialect either.

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(Parenthetically, since I'd rather discuss the original argument: I mildly agree with my sibling comment by thedanfilter: arguing about definitions doesn't feel like the most interesting conversation to have here. It feels nitpicky; you didn't actually ever comment on my original argument itself: that large-scale habits reveal developers aren't hard to impress. Do you disagree with it, or just with the examples I chose?

However, gravitating toward words like 'condescending' just adds more heat than light. Avoiding introducing incendiary distractions is hard; I'm not sure I'm succeeding in this comment. But comments here would be improved if we all tried harder not to take the bait. Maybe we should all try to skip past the first three comments we feel the urge to respond to every morning, or something.)

Re: You can't impress developers

#116

Post by gverri »

I remember a comment from PG about this matter. He too was not impressed with all the negativity lurking HN.

It's not about admitting genius. It's about recognizing effort and proactivity.

It's about stimulating good behavior. It's not about who's more badass.

Re: You can't impress developers

#117

Post by mratzloff »

xtrumanx wrote: post #106
PommeDeTerre wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm completely serious. Can you explain how my last comment was "condescending"? It's not "condescending" to express an idea that differs from that of somebody else. It's not "condescending" to disagree with a claim made by somebody else. It's not "condescending" to give examples why a claim somebody else made may not be true. The commenter I replied to suggested that certain technologies were "new". I disagreed,…

I agree with you PommeDeTerre. It's hard for me to take this meme of "HN is full of negativity" seriously when I constantly see people (like thedanfilter above) complain about comments whose only faults are that they aren't full of glowing praise.

This is a quintessential "middlebrow dismissal", taking an uninteresting point, dismissing it with trivial technicalities, and pretending it added anything to the conversation. The conversation then gets sidetracked to debate semantics or pedantic details.

I've started down-voting these types of posts.

Re: You can't impress developers

#118

Post by bjz_ »

jacques_chester wrote: post #82
Confusion wrote: post #79

Developers, in general, on average, chronically underestimate the time it takes to properly execute an idea and how many iterations and discovery of the exact needs of customers that requires. I work at a company that sells a tool for model based testing and invariably, at every customer company, there are developers that think our tool isn't worth the money, because when we explain to them how it works and they thin…

Humans are notoriously optimistic, and in particular, we forget about all the things we have to do in order to achieve the things we want to do. (I have been reading some research on this lately). I used to harbour the "build it in a weekend" suspicion about everything, and then I started building things. The world is a damn mess, is what it is.

Indeed, I don't think it's just a developer problem. Making stuff is haard, and the more you do it, the more you understand that.

Maybe it's related to that thing that has mentioned on HN quite often lately, where the incompetent people are unaware of their own incompetence?

Re: You can't impress developers

#120

Post by mratzloff »

cinbun8 wrote: post #37

Developers and engineers in general develop an ego with time. They take pride in their work and are very protective of it. They also relish the petty mistakes that others make and scoff at them - 'pfft I could have used X instead of Y to do Z. Who uses Y anymore !?'. For example, you can find this behavior when someone posts something about problem X and there is a minor grammatical mistake or an opinion that is expr…

No, that's not a given; please don't generalize. Some developers have an ego early on and deemphasize it over time. Others have never had much of an ego. I have known several developers like this. There is no inevitable increase in ego.
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