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“Nothing you can do impresses me”

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Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#51

Post by bduerst »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #48
stevewepay wrote: post #15

When I first came to Silicon Valley, I had a couple of senior engineers as my mentors. The most important lesson I learned from them is that they were extremely supportive. I had a couple of ideas for new features, and instead of shooting them down and telling me why it wouldn't work, their responses were always "Hmmm, sounds interesting. Why don't you spend some time on it and let's see how it works out." When I did…

It seems like being supportive is something everyone agrees is a great thing, but few people actually do. Being supportive is just so much work, after all. Much easier to think of ten ways to tear something down. For evidence of how supportive tech communities are, take a look at what happens when someone tries to show off their early projects: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8747053 Comments include "They're pr…

The internet phenomenon of simultaneously granting voice with anonymity has definitely given rise to much more critical, negative discussion, which is ultimately fruitless and detracts from community value.

Like you said, it takes work to be supportive, and if your voice isn't tied to your reputation, many will forgo even attempting it.

That's not to say the workplace is the same though. Some people have figured out that support begets support, and put forth the effort. Online though, it's almost the tragedy of the commons, where users will take only what they want out of a community without even thinking about contributing to it's value or future.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#52

Post by deanj222 »

I think the real root of the problem is that we are much better at evaluating how to make something better than accepting and truly appreciating it for what it is. It's the same as when someone asks for feedback after reading you an article they just wrote, unconsciously we're biased towards giving feedback to improve the product being shown, not giving them praise on everything they did right. That being said, it is possible to train yourself to be better at giving positive reinforcement and that's what I took from the article.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#53

Post by wereabout »

protomyth wrote: post #22

My main hiring qualification has been "Will this person continue to write code that will make me get up in the middle of the night?" or "Will this person contribute to me only working 40 hours and having no emergencies?". I try not to hire the former and hire the later. The culture thing in the second paragraph is bull. A bunch of clones is no fun at all and doesn't give the proper vision. That being said, the "Nothi…

>A bunch of clones is no fun at all and doesn't give the proper vision.

Can you explain what this sentence means? Frankly, your English is crap and your vocabulary confused (particularly your articles), so I have a hard time understanding you. I'm telling you straight up in the hope that you'll learn and benefit from my criticism, since I am a very experienced native-English speaker. I hate wasting my time reading incomprehensible sentences. I'm sure you understand.

>This is the same crap attitude that leads directly to ageism since experience is not valued.

No, I think it's mostly been VCs and big Silicon Valley companies looking for people willing and able to work 60-100 hour weeks that has lead to ageism. And everyone wants to be the next Google or Apple, so a lot of smaller companies have aped this culture, including the ageism.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#54

Post by diminoten »

stevewepay wrote: post #15

When I first came to Silicon Valley, I had a couple of senior engineers as my mentors. The most important lesson I learned from them is that they were extremely supportive. I had a couple of ideas for new features, and instead of shooting them down and telling me why it wouldn't work, their responses were always "Hmmm, sounds interesting. Why don't you spend some time on it and let's see how it works out." When I did…

This goes both ways. I've tried to be a helpful force in a few coder's lives, but something prevents them from taking the advice to heart, and instead of getting better, they just stop coming to me. I then only run into their code during code reviews, and when I point out the issues, they take it as me saying, "you're no good", and never fix the issues, preferring to slink away into the night.

What's a guy supposed to do? I can't accept the code they write, and if/when I point out why I can't, they won't bother updating the code, and prefer to instead just disengage entirely from the process to go work on something else.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#55

Post by unimportant »

Your rant reads like "I'm a woman and want special treatment."

Tech is not touchy feely and I will never work for a company with female developers on the team, as women always try to be held at different standards than men.

Newbie bashing has been around since the dawn of the internet and harsh criticism is the only way for coders to improve.

Nothing is ever good enough, which is also the reason why technology improves.

Easily satisfied people tend to create sloppy work.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#56

Post by outsidetheparty »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #19

What’s the first thing that you as a senior developer would say to that person before seeing or testing their project? Let me guess — you’re thinking, “Is it responsive?” Does it reflect poorly on me if this sounds like a rather convoluted hypothetical? Then again, I'm not involved in web development, for what it's worth. Maybe there are people who actually think like this.

The phrase that came to my mind was "wildly disproportionate straw man", but, yeah.

I'm mildly sympathetic to the author's point -- there certainly exists a subset of developers who are more interested in bashing other peoples' code because it's not properly buzzword-compliant / in the wrong language / the wrong framework / uses the wrong whitespace formatting / does or does not include semicolons, than in evaluating it on the actual merits. (Though I suspect other industries also have their fair share of pedants and egotists.)

Maybe I'm misreading but it seems the criticism the author cites was in the context of job interviews, which isn't exactly the right place to be looking for mentorship or supportive "A for effort" type feedback.

It also seems like she isn't differentiating between critique of the code and critique of the coder. (To be fair plenty of people have a hard time keeping these separate, whether on the giving or on the receiving end.) The point of asking "is it responsive?" is -- or at least should be -- "responsive is important, maybe you should do something about that", not "I am unimpressed and you are a bad person who should feel bad."

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#57

Post by jnbiche »

diminoten wrote: post #54
stevewepay wrote: post #15

When I first came to Silicon Valley, I had a couple of senior engineers as my mentors. The most important lesson I learned from them is that they were extremely supportive. I had a couple of ideas for new features, and instead of shooting them down and telling me why it wouldn't work, their responses were always "Hmmm, sounds interesting. Why don't you spend some time on it and let's see how it works out." When I did…

This goes both ways. I've tried to be a helpful force in a few coder's lives, but something prevents them from taking the advice to heart, and instead of getting better, they just stop coming to me. I then only run into their code during code reviews, and when I point out the issues, they take it as me saying, "you're no good", and never fix the issues, preferring to slink away into the night. What's a guy supposed t…

>I've tried to be a helpful force in a few coder's lives, but something prevents them from taking the advice to heart, and instead of getting better, they just stop coming to me.

Why do you think that is? (Sincere question)

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#58

Post by [deleted] »

unimportant wrote: post #55

Your rant reads like "I'm a woman and want special treatment." Tech is not touchy feely and I will never work for a company with female developers on the team, as women always try to be held at different standards than men. Newbie bashing has been around since the dawn of the internet and harsh criticism is the only way for coders to improve. Nothing is ever good enough, which is also the reason why technology improv…

[deleted]

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#59

Post by scentoni »

unimportant wrote: post #55

Your rant reads like "I'm a woman and want special treatment." Tech is not touchy feely and I will never work for a company with female developers on the team, as women always try to be held at different standards than men. Newbie bashing has been around since the dawn of the internet and harsh criticism is the only way for coders to improve. Nothing is ever good enough, which is also the reason why technology improv…

Is this a Poe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law) or are you really that stupid?

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#60

Post by steven777400 »

unimportant wrote: post #55

Your rant reads like "I'm a woman and want special treatment." Tech is not touchy feely and I will never work for a company with female developers on the team, as women always try to be held at different standards than men. Newbie bashing has been around since the dawn of the internet and harsh criticism is the only way for coders to improve. Nothing is ever good enough, which is also the reason why technology improv…

Criticism is not bad, but is "harsh" the "only way"? Is there no utility in constructive criticism that isn't harsh? Is there really no other way to improve? For example, if I review someone's code who is better than me, and I learn new techniques from that review, then I have improved, even though there was no criticism involved.

Also, be careful with "always". Pedantically, all it would take is one woman coder somewhere in the world who doesn't try to be held to a different standard to invalidate your premise. I've found that the women coders I work with do not appear to expect or behave any differently in terms of standards or quality compared to the men.

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