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“Nothing you can do impresses me”

ginnabaker.wordpress.com

101–110 of 132 posts

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#101

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…

> since then I've had many jobs where the other engineers were always hypercritical

Bullying is not exclusive to jocks. I've always seen any kind of bullying, from anyone, as a sign of severe insecurity.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#102
This confuses programming culture with "the tech world", which might or might not mean silicon valley, but at least something similar.

One of my very favourite comment on hacker news was about Notch (Minecraft's creator) just coding toy games and not attempting anything big: "I think pg might have overlooked this side of hackerdom." I feel the comment can apply much more broadly.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#103
I sympathize with the general sentiment but did not like the piece itself. I am open to considering the possibility that I am in fact part of the problem. Nonetheless, I will share my thoughts.

> But because of the urgent need for new blood / ideas in the tech world, our lack of ability to reward new developers is a particularly profound example of shooting oneself in the foot.

Slow down. You're fresh out of coding bootcamp, so it seems a bit presumptuous to be pontificating about "our" problem as if you don't have a vested interest in being "rewarded".

> Or, put another way, what if a friend had spent a month perfecting his roast veal, cooked you some, and was eager for your opinion. Do you really want your first reaction, before tasting it, to be, “I hope the wine in the veal sauce is authentic French Merlot!”

This is a deeply flawed analogy. Do you expect potential colleagues and employers to treat you as a friend would? Do you think a professional chef would be uncritical of this hypothetical veal if someone came in off the street with it looking for a job?

> Seriously, is “Is it responsive?” really the first words you want to come out of your mouth, before you’ve even seen the product?

In my opinion this sounds like a contrived straw man. At a minimum, it's not generally representative.

> In the last two months, I built an app with a friend. It’s not rocket science. It’s not perfect. But it was a lot of work, and it’s beautiful, and it’s mine, and I am so proud of it.

> [from the landing page] : "Free, Easy, Secure"

I could not help but be taken aback. Coming from a group of novice developers, declaring an app "secure" is a bold claim.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#104
post #23

The kernel of the argument in this post is hiring. The discussion about "coder culture"† is germane because it drives the gatekeeping function of in-group coders in hiring. I don't have a problem with people discussing what is or isn't productive about how a stereotypical programmer behaves in groups. But the real issue here is that the stereotypical programmer is given entirely too much authority in the hiring proce…

From what I heard the other day from a Google employee involved in hiring, Google people also hire off of informal methods, and they don't have a well-lubed statistical machine for hiring/firing and managing people.

I guess that means everything I learned in school doesn't work at Google-scale? Unfortunately the conversation didn't get to that point, but I was very curious about why a giant organization with the resources to set up a self-aware HR process didn't do so.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#105

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…

The culture must've changed... I've recently had people in Silicon Valley tell me "this would never work" when they were staring at a working prototype. I generally avoid the south bay now.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#106

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.

I've certainly heard that said in jest, sarcasm and wit are things many programmers hold dear and believe they are best in.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#108

I sympathize with the general sentiment but did not like the piece itself. I am open to considering the possibility that I am in fact part of the problem. Nonetheless, I will share my thoughts. > But because of the urgent need for new blood / ideas in the tech world, our lack of ability to reward new developers is a particularly profound example of shooting oneself in the foot. Slow down. You're fresh out of coding b…

I had a similar feeling. You start out doing grunt work when you're new in a career, it isn't glamorous and you have to prove yourself through actions. Coworkers are not friends first, they are coworkers. I'm not sure, but I think this post has a feeling of entitlement.

Re: “Nothing you can do impresses me”

#109
post #12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I feel like I'm doing good work, I'm a lot more productive, and I care more about doing things right vs just getting them done. Obviously constructive criticism needs to happen -- the author isn't disputing that. In fact, she says "it's been tough to get useful feedback" because people care more about cutting the other person down than actually evaluating the work. It's very easy to couch constructive criticism…

> When I feel like I'm doing good work, I'm a lot more productive, and I care more about doing things right vs just getting them done. What you're really saying is that you have the rewards system of a child. The application the author wrote is very simple and has no use - what kind of feedback is she looking for?

Different people are at different levels on the needs hierarchy.
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