Be nice to programmers • Hacker News Board

Re: Be nice to programmers

#11

Post by dubcanada » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #5

Instead 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!

Yah, but you always get that one person who no matter how good the product is can find a way to rip it apart. It's really sad :(. However the person who wrote this is most likely a "bug fixer", I know a lot of programmers who's day is

* Make something * Meet about making something * Make something else * Go home

And they never see or hear about bugs :)

Re: Be nice to programmers

#12

Post by mkrecny » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

aggronn wrote: post #2

Having 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.

It's not that "that the mere existence of bugs constitutes a personal or professional failure".

Rather, in order to debug I have to go into negative mode. It's a mindset where I'm mentally combing over something, trying to illuminate everything that's wrong with it.

It's not even that important that it's your code. Focusing primarly on the good aspects of something is a healthier mental model - but not one that will get your code debugged.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#13

Post by mkrecny » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

gpcz wrote: post #7

I 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 t…

very cool, thank you

Re: Be nice to programmers

#14

Post by mkrecny » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #9

TLDR: 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 idea…

interesting - do you have a resource / starting point for diving into some of this research?

Re: Be nice to programmers

#15

Post by wvenable » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:19 PM UTC

Apparently, I come off to some people as very pessimistic. I don't feel pessimistic but, as I programmer, I'm trained to focus on all the things that can go wrong and consider all the edge cases. This is a useful skill but can also be perceived as very negative even if that's not what I intend. Unfortunately, it's a skill that is also hard to turn off and ironically it's worse if I'm actually enthusiastic about something.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#16

Post by mkrecny » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:19 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #6

It 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?

perhaps ... I hope not : (

I think part of progress is a continual taking on of new and harder challenges - new technologies, advanced features etc - so your error rate should be fairly constant

Re: Be nice to programmers

#17

Post by mkrecny » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:20 PM UTC

freework wrote: post #4

This 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 e…

Couldn't agree more, thanks for the link

Re: Be nice to programmers

#18

Post by praptak » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:20 PM UTC

Try your hand at security and come back to appreciate the optimism and positivity(#) pervading the programming world.

(#)relative.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#19

Post by MatthewPhillips » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #9

TLDR: 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 idea…

Most bugs have nothing to do with the code being imperative.

Re: Be nice to programmers

#20

Post by sonier » Tue, Oct 09, 2012, 4:23 PM UTC

It is a different mindset when you are writing code and thinking 'Did I cover all the cases?' instead of 'What can go wrong?' For me, thinking about all the cases is a positive and fun thinking process, not a negative one focused on what can go wrong.