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“Nothing you can do impresses me”

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Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#71

Post by vernie »

wereabout wrote: post #53
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 in…

Congratulations on your English proficiency; it's very impressive.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#72

Post by RogerL »

bduerst wrote: post #51
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think this is new, just more visible. Exactly this same culture is documented in Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine", and if you read biographies of Oppenheimer, Feynmann etc the same was going on back in the 40s. Academic math is filled with stories of famous crotchedy 'X' launching a withering attack during seminars.

I agree with your latter points; I think social media is making it possible to change this behavior. I.e. I view recent developments positively, not negatively.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#73

Post by jnbiche »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65
bduerst wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

True enough, but it may be one reason there are comparatively few women in tech. People choose a career for themselves when they're years of work away from being in any workplace. Hacker News is the closest thing that people will get to knowing what it's like to work in tech. Which is unfortunate, since HN is nothing like working in tech. Remember the brogrammer phenomenon? At the time, it almost seemed like that was…

>Which is unfortunate, since HN is nothing like working in tech.

Working with SV firms full of men in the 20s is exactly like this. My colleagues are pretty much brogrammers, or overseas contractors (who are similarly young, callous, arrogant, and emotionally...young).

And looking at other sectors of tech, things look pretty similar. What area of tech do you work in that is nothing like HN in terms of this attitude?

(disclaimer: I actually really appreciate HN as a source of information, and there's an impressive amount of expertise here, but as a social network, it's depressing).

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#74

Post by jnbiche »

Krowbar wrote: post #70

This is one reason I've had fun on the tilde club I joined a while back. There's a culture of curiosity (and curiosities) with a non-critical culture and a mutually agreed upon "NO DRAMA" rule. I've worked on some silly scripts and web pages just for the sheer joy of it and I've been able to share my work with others without fear of the usual hyper-critical community (which I also love in its own way).

>This is one reason I've had fun on the tilde club I joined a while back.

Is that still going on?

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#75

Post by JustSomeNobody »

1. A lot of developers are missing something in the brain that allows them to feel empathy.

2. Coding is all mental (don't tell that to your hands). So, when you question a developer's code, it's kinda personal. Some take this hard. Too hard. So they build up a defensive barrier.

3. Developers are treated as a commodity by people with business degrees. This feeds the notion that they need to be perceived as the best (or at least towards the top). If that means not letting a newb show them up, well, so be it.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#76

Post by moultano »

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…

I'm of two minds about this. I like supporting new ideas, but I've found that the quickest way to build the confidence of a new engineer is for them to have something succeed. So I do think there's a balance that has to be struck between supporting whatever they want to try and guiding them towards things that will give them their first taste of success.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#77

Post by JustSomeNobody »

jnbiche wrote: post #61
robbyking wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience in my areas of interest (be it music, cycling, or software development) that it’s the knowledgable, confident members of these communities who are encouraging and happy to share what they know, and it’s the inexperienced, insecure ones who are standoffish and quick to dismiss others’ abilities.

You're absolutely correct. The problem with software development is for some reason, there's an environment that makes a hell of a lot of people insecure, and then it feeds on itself (more insecure people criticizing, creating more insecurity). Why are people so insecure in software? I have no idea. Outsourcing? Social backgrounds?

I commented on the story, but I'll reiterate a point I made here.

Coding is all mental. When you question how or why a developer wrote a bit of code, it's like you're questioning their intelligence. Some developers find this hard to take and they build up a defensive posture because of it.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#78

Post by RogerL »

steven777400 wrote: post #60
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 some…

Until recently I've always worked in life-critical systems (bugs == death). Harshness was never required. Unceasing scrutiny was. As you say, criticism/analysis and harshness are different things. Probably some of the best leadership I ever witnessed was the lead engineer of a project walking around to each person and seriously asking "and what are you doing today to excel". You were expected to have an answer. It's never enough to just do your job, but it is enough to recognize your current limits, sometimes fail, and have a plan to improve. I try to apply that attitude every day, now over 20 years later (I'm guessing posting on HN does not go under that column, so back to work for me!!!)

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#79

Post by AznHisoka »

nercury wrote: post #8

If you want to see real delight in your work, do it for someone who needs it! They are usually not your co-workers :)

I agree. This applies to the startup world as well. Ask someone who isn't in your target audience for feedback, and they'll say X and Y is bad. Ask someone who actually needs it, and they'll say they love it.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#80

Post by pothibo »

moultano wrote: post #76
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…

I'm of two minds about this. I like supporting new ideas, but I've found that the quickest way to build the confidence of a new engineer is for them to have something succeed. So I do think there's a balance that has to be struck between supporting whatever they want to try and guiding them towards things that will give them their first taste of success.

Shipping is better for the confidence. And if you build a prototype that makes it into the product, boy does that raise the confidence level.
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