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The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

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Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a large middle ground between saccharine niceness and vicious back-stabbing. I find that someone who doesn't work well with emotions is typically bad at reasoning too, because the arguments they make end up expressing their feelings in obtuse ways.

> I find that someone who doesn't work well with emotions is typically bad at reasoning too, because the arguments they make end up expressing their feelings in obtuse ways. This is an interesting explanation. Do you think that people bad at understanding their emotions are less aware or mindful of their unconscious biases?

Yeah, more or less. I think that whatever is unconscious (read: lost, forgotten, dissociated, unfelt, or unthought) ends up getting expressed anyway, in yourself or in your relationships. Seeing this expression clearly in the world requires working with your emotions. If you cannot do that, then it's very difficult for any of your strongly held "rational" views to change, because doing so would require dealing with some pretty heavy emotions.

The upshot is that it gets really tiresome to argue in situations where you've realized this is what's happening. In my experience, most of the time that you see hardcore polarization on an issue, where all appeals to reason seem to fall on deaf ears, it's actually due to some kind of emotional blockage like this. At this point, practicing empathy and asserting firm but flexible boundaries is often the only way out.

So, pay attention to your emotions, they're trying to tell you something.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#72
I negotiate on mutual goals, and how to achieve them. I also do my best to leave no room for egos. It does cut out a lot of people. But they tend to be the people you really don't want to be dealing with anyways. Egos cloud judgment and lead to more mistakes which is exactly what I want to avoid when I'm trying to achieve goals.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#74

One thing I wish this article talked about: Sometimes, people are brutally honest with little tact. If you're overly sensitive, you might think that such a person is being mean or being a jerk - but they have your best interests in mind , because they are telling you either a factual truth or an unvarnished personal opinion. The reason why they are brusque is not because 'they have been abused' but because, the toler…

I prefer a more tactful style myself, but i would have to agree that a lot of perceived "jerkiness" is really an expression of misplaced respect.

I have known programmers who are brutally honest, but they do it because in their mind that is how adults talk to each other and this is how they wish to be treated themselves. Being 'tactful' in their mind is the equivalent of treating the other person like a child, and inherently disrespectful. I can see that point of view even if i don't think it is productive.

And then i have known programmers who are just bullies and mean. The difference is that they bittercoat things, making them sound deliberately worse, and they push people down so they can feel smug. That is not ok.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when I hear too many platitudes or niceties that are designed to pad out critical analysis, my ears shut off and the person delivering the analysis loses credibility in my mind. What some people find easy to ingest, others find insulting and will reject it. It is my perception (and this may or may not be correct) think that people who are often too concerned with seeming nice - are going to be exactly the people who…

There's a large middle ground between saccharine niceness and vicious back-stabbing. I find that someone who doesn't work well with emotions is typically bad at reasoning too, because the arguments they make end up expressing their feelings in obtuse ways.

>There's a large middle ground between saccharine niceness and vicious back-stabbing.

Perhaps you misread me. I'm claiming that saccharine niceness goes WITH vicious back-stabbing. Because people who are vicious back-stabbers are going to be inclined to overcompensate with niceness.

>I find that someone who doesn't work well with emotions is typically bad at reasoning too, because the arguments they make end up expressing their feelings in obtuse ways.

I find the opposite. In science, in order to assess your evidence, you often have adopt a somewhat dispassionate stance, and make judgements unclouded by emotion. An inability to process emotion, then, can be a tactical advantage, because it doesn't incur the overhead of compartmentalization (which taxes my brain). And to go to the extreme, I have had had more than one friend who were extremely impaired in their ability to process human emotions (I think the in thing is to label this 'asperger's') who were extremely good at reasoning, as evidenced by the fact that they were brilliant mathematicians, and I don't mean number crunchers - full on propositional logic and proof-crafters.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#77
post #28

One thing I wish this article talked about: Sometimes, people are brutally honest with little tact. If you're overly sensitive, you might think that such a person is being mean or being a jerk - but they have your best interests in mind , because they are telling you either a factual truth or an unvarnished personal opinion. The reason why they are brusque is not because 'they have been abused' but because, the toler…

Wrong. Tact, compassion, and honesty are not in any way incompatible. And no, people who think they are being "brutally honest" while forgetting compassion or even basic fucking manners are not doing so with others' best interests at heart. They are just being assholes. There are bonafide reasons for that behavior, and they deserve a measure of compassion themselves while receiving that message, but don't try gilding…

Correct. I'm sick of the "I am just being honest" defense. There is a large margin between being honest and being an asshole.

Question: "Do you think I should rewrite this code?"

Honest answer: "Yes, definitely. You've made some mistakes that will make this impossible to maintain, such as...".

Asshole answer: "Yeah, this code looks like shit".

As the author noted, this tendency is symptomatic of people with high intelligence, but questionably intact egos. I left Mensa because I was tired of all the petty bickering resulting from people "being honest" about their opinions; if I had a nickel for every time someone was called a "moron" for stating their political leaning...ugh.

Nobody is above civility and tact.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#78
This is precisely why I went into programming in the first place. A computer doesn't have feelings. It doesn't lie to me, I don't have to lie to it. It will do exactly what I ask it to do without fail, though I regularly ask it to do the wrong thing. They are completely and totally predictable.

People, on the other hand are emotional and mostly stupid (even the smart ones). They are going to lie to you, even if unintentionally, and you're required to lie to them in return. The person you're meeting might have had their family pet die last night and will react to you in completely irrational ways.

It's no wonder why when your job is to deal primarily with emotionless computers all day that it's tricky to then context switch back to lying and walking on eggshells.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#79
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Tact, compassion, and honesty are not in any way incompatible. And no, people who think they are being "brutally honest" while forgetting compassion or even basic fucking manners are not doing so with others' best interests at heart. They are just being assholes. There are bonafide reasons for that behavior, and they deserve a measure of compassion themselves while receiving that message, but don't try gilding…

Correct. I'm sick of the "I am just being honest" defense. There is a large margin between being honest and being an asshole. Question: "Do you think I should rewrite this code?" Honest answer: "Yes, definitely. You've made some mistakes that will make this impossible to maintain, such as...". Asshole answer: "Yeah, this code looks like shit". As the author noted, this tendency is symptomatic of people with high inte…

I think if you are using Mensa as your reference set, you've got some pretty extreme sample bias in terms of 'egos'.

Re: The Dark Side Of Software Development That No One Talks About

#80
I think its a bit much to say that people being assholes is the dark side that no one talks about. Truthfully, there aren't a lot of dark sides to software that no one talks about. The dark sides I can think of off the top of my head: misogyny; we consider ourselves successful if we put entire industries out of work; ageism; classism; the myth of the meritocracy; neoliberalism; creation of a private surveillance society; overly dramatic HN headlines; probably more I'll think of in the next five minutes.

The thing is, all of these, with the exception of that last one, are talked about quite a bit.

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