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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

#91

Post by kaybe »

dnautics wrote: post #49
humanrebar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. Permit me to expand on them slightly. To some people, myself included, frank honesty is respectful. I could be alone here, but I can find passive-aggressiveness, needless euphemisms, and the like to be patronizing. Treating me with kid gloves is like saying, "I have an opinion, but I don't think you are emotionally mature enough to handle it in its raw form." It's important for "jerks" to be conscious o…

> "I have an opinion, but I don't think you are emotionally mature enough to handle it in its raw form." exactly. That is how I feel when someone treats me with kid gloves.

But also, I have encountered several people who considered themselves to be just honest all the while implying that the person they tried to help was stupid and beneath them, lazy and so on. If there is no close relationship between the two it will lead to misunderstandings and a very bad work environment very soon.

It's impossible (for most of us) to switch this context-reading off, therefore be very careful to use neutral language and emphasize what is not implied if it could be understood that way (unless you do try to tell the person they're stupid - of course you shouldn't lie).

I've had a team break up over this. One teammember used languange he thought was just honest, but managed to insult and demotivate everyone else by making them feel ignorant in everything they did.

TL;DR: It's good to be open and honest, but make sure subtext is not negative (you cannot have no subtext); unless maybe the person you're talking to knows you respect them anyway.

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

#93

Post by jtbigwoo »

dnautics wrote: post #86
Joeri wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

even bittercoating things is not necessarily bad. Sometimes it's good to take a pessimistic attitude and come out being pleasantly surprised, if you're the type of person who sees it as a challenge and not a discouragement . The litmus test is when the bittercoated thing turns out to work, does the person who delivered the skepticism come forward and congratulate you on a job well done?

It's been my experience that putting a really negative person on a team is like handing that team an anchor. Either the team starts to ignore and isolate them or their attitude wears everyone down and the rest of the team stops trying. I've seen successful negative people whose jobs allowed them to go off and do their own thing, but I've never seen them thrive on a team unless their attitude changed.

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

#94

Post by enraged_camel »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #41
programminggeek wrote: post #2

Replace Software Development with any job and you are really on to something. People are mean and jerks are everywhere. Perhaps somehow society has convinced us otherwise, but there are a lot of terrible people out there. A lot of people do evil things, a lot of people hurt other people. This is not new and it's not a secret, people for whatever reason are more oblivious to it than they should be or perhaps people ar…

I think that the post over states it but I don't think it's entirely wrong that software developers are atypical in their behaviour, even if it's not exclusive to them. There is something specific about the way that people in software development can be jerks - passive aggressive behaviour, sometimes a lack of self awareness, a certain type of arrogance or at the very least a lack of empathy. And this in an area wher…

>>There is something specific about the way that people in software development can be jerks - passive aggressive behaviour, sometimes a lack of self awareness, a certain type of arrogance or at the very least a lack of empathy.

Yes.

Generally speaking, I refer to this as "lack of social skills."

I don't mean that as derogatory, although I know it will come across that way. Most developers have grown up around computers, and in a lot of situations have chosen fiddling with computers to socializing with people. As a result, they don't gain important social skills until later in life, if at all. For example, the software architect for my company's software suite is an absolutely brilliant guy. But he's just incredibly awkward around people. When it comes to working in projects, or even simple things like answering questions from less technical people, he's terribly arrogant and condescending. I experience such attitudes from non-developers much, much less often.

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

#95

Post by dnautics »

kaybe wrote: post #91
dnautics wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I have an opinion, but I don't think you are emotionally mature enough to handle it in its raw form." exactly. That is how I feel when someone treats me with kid gloves.

But also, I have encountered several people who considered themselves to be just honest all the while implying that the person they tried to help was stupid and beneath them, lazy and so on. If there is no close relationship between the two it will lead to misunderstandings and a very bad work environment very soon. It's impossible (for most of us) to switch this context-reading off, therefore be very careful to use…

but you don't have the ability to control the other person's perceptions or references, and so you don't have control over subtexts. The BETTER solution is to just be honest, factually and emotionally. If you need to establish that you respect someone anyways (and you should, if they deserve it), you do that contextually outside of the sub-argument where you're 'being brutal', ideally, before, and after, and if there's an emotional misunderstanding, you work to fix it retrospectively. And part of this is, you probably shouldn't be 100% negative in all of your interactions (unless the project truly deserves no accolades) - if you do give out strong accolades when they are due, that is an equal part of being brutally honest.

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

#96

Post by dnautics »

jtbigwoo wrote: post #93
dnautics wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even bittercoating things is not necessarily bad. Sometimes it's good to take a pessimistic attitude and come out being pleasantly surprised, if you're the type of person who sees it as a challenge and not a discouragement . The litmus test is when the bittercoated thing turns out to work, does the person who delivered the skepticism come forward and congratulate you on a job well done?

It's been my experience that putting a really negative person on a team is like handing that team an anchor. Either the team starts to ignore and isolate them or their attitude wears everyone down and the rest of the team stops trying. I've seen successful negative people whose jobs allowed them to go off and do their own thing, but I've never seen them thrive on a team unless their attitude changed.

well, I should have qualified that I don't mean that you should be negative all the time. Because you exhibit a lack of judgement if you can't identify good things, just as much as you exhibit a lack of judgement if you can't identify mistakes and vocalize it vociferously.

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

#97

Post by foobarbazqux »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #89
dnautics wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 expre…

> 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 don't think we really disagree. I think that if conflict is avoided through saccharine niceness, eventually it will come out as vicious back-stabbing, and vice versa as you've noted. So the two apparent opposites actua…

Hmmm, maybe a better way to say it is that the firm politeness pairing is a middle ground between the saccharine niceness / vicious back-stabbing pairing and the brutal honesty pairing.

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

#99

Post by avelis »

consultant23522 wrote: post #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 unint…

I wish I could upvote this statement more. It is difficult to transition from an environment of honesty and truth then into an environment where lies and deceit are the common denominator of communication.

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

#100

Post by nickthemagicman »

karmajunkie wrote: post #81
nickthemagicman wrote: post #69

Just commenting to say, that in our profession WITHOUT licensure there is not other way to really prove that we're competent except for our reputation. This leads to big egos and constantly trying to make your self look better no matter what. If we were a licensed profession like medicine where you have a third party proof of your competence and you weren't constantly trying to guard your reputation, I bet you that i…

Not in my experience. That just lends itself to a lot of protectionism and equally inflated egos (and the piece of paper to prove you earned it.) In fact, only academia tops medicine for inflated egos and self-aggrandizing behavior in my book.

Ego is not so much the problem, it's that the computer industry is way more cutthroat.

Doctor's and Academic's ego's come from having to maintain the same reputation that a computer person has to maintain.

However, it's worse for the computer monkeys because we have the same level of intellectual capital to master yet we have no license to protect our years of knowledge which makes the industry way more cutthroat and step on your buddy to get ahead in my opinion.

Just my observations.

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