Be nice to programmers
edu.mkrecny.com
Be nice to programmers
1–10 of 178 posts
Re: Be nice to programmers
#2Having the mindset that the mere existence of bugs constitutes a personal or professional failure is probably very unhealthy. Is this something developers experience? I've never felt bad about a bug before. I just go and fix it. No pain, just gain.
Breaking things and inconveniencing others are a much bigger drag for me. Those are the problems I stay late at work to solve.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#3I have a very intelligent friend who try as he might cannot learn programming. He has interests all over the academic board and teaches two unrelated courses. I think I understand now why he cannot. He's an eternal optimist. I tell him he's selectively ADD about programming, but maybe he's just allergic to the negativity of it all.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#4This brings up an interesting concept. All great creators (artists, programmers, woodworkers, hairdressers, etc) tend to be more pessimistic than optimistic. If you attitude is "Wow this program I wrote is totally awesome, I deserve a pat on the back", then you'll never improve upon your program and you'll end up never improving your skills and will end up a rosh katan[1]. You have to be the kind of person who sees each of your creation in a constant state of less than perfect in order for you to act upon making it better.
Interestingly enough, people on the other end of the spectrum (sales people, executives, marketing people, etc) have to be the opposite. You can't have any doubts about the awesomeness of the product. Doing so would be counterproductive.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#5Instead of submitting yet another bug report, you should totally submit a "bug" that is nothing but positive feedback.
A truly good product will have fans sending in messages and talking about the things they love -- make sure these comments make it to the developers too!
Re: Be nice to programmers
#6It sounds like a plateau, where he's not getting noticeably better from the mistakes he's making (so that he's not making them as much with each chunk of code he writes). Maybe this happens when you're close to your full potential?
Re: Be nice to programmers
#7I think one way to help fix this negative feedback loop is to use the advice of the Harvard Business Review's article "How Customers Can Rally Your Troops" (src: http://hbr.org/2011/06/how-customers-can-rally-your-troops/a... ). The premise is that consistently showing your employees proof of the positive effects your organization's products produce for end-users can drastically improve motivation. I just linked to the abstract, but the full article goes into the dramatic effects this technique had on a university fundraising call center (a job with constant negative reinforcement).
Re: Be nice to programmers
#8I have a very intelligent friend who try as he might cannot learn programming. He has interests all over the academic board and teaches two unrelated courses. I think I understand now why he cannot. He's an eternal optimist. I tell him he's selectively ADD about programming, but maybe he's just allergic to the negativity of it all.
He can't be that intelligent if he is externally optimistic about everything. Part of being smart makes you aware of the negatives of everything.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#9TLDR: write better code
functional programmers get to express their ideas as code
imperative programmers are so busy playing whack-a-mole with their bugs that they don't have time to think about new ideas
just look at the research[1] coming out of the Clojure functional programming community - especially Datomic. once you learn how to get your defect rate under control, you have time to explore crazy awesome new ideas
[1] https://thestrangeloop.com/archive/2011
[1] https://thestrangeloop.com/archive/2012
Re: Be nice to programmers
#10This is awfully melodramatic drivel. If you don't like what you are doing then stop doing it.