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On Coding, Ego and Attention

josebrowne.com

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Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#121

Post by undergrowth54 »

> My ego creates a tight bond between my work and my identity. Linking my self worth to how well I do my job. This then creates the need to track my performance. To keep score. Spinning up mental processes that consume valuable resources which make staying on task very difficult.

I think this part is definitely true for me...

I have let "notice when you are confused" and "understand the impact of your work" and "make sure you are building the right thing" and "make sure you know stakeholder needs" get kinda etched into my identity. I keep wanting to _understand_ the systems I work with and I keep getting distracted by noticing problems with its UX or implications to business process.

I can turn that voice off with deliberate effort, but I don't know how to get it to stay off.

Does anyone else have any methods for more permanently-silencing UX-worries and just cranking out code?

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#122

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

the_af wrote: post #109
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view is the opposite, basically the adage “measure twice, cut once.” Work without research often is actively harmful in addition to failing and wasting time & resources. Research at least improves knowledge while not wasting other resources besides time.

In science, engineering and coding, I agree! However, I felt the context of this conversation was self-improvement though. In this particular context, it's easier to get things done without reading any motivational books/articles (in fact, most people get things done without reading about how to self motivate), and the contrary -- reading self-improvement articles -- doesn't mean anything if you don't do the actual w…

I think it’s true no matter the domain. You should take a scientific approach to self improvement.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#123

Post by razzimatazz »

HellDunkel wrote: post #67

Self-improvement piece once again. Why are people so obsessed with this? Imposter symdrom seems to be a thing I really dont get. It never really bothered me if i actually caused the bug when looking for the root cause- ok maybe sometimes you worry if you messed up just before the release but thats pretty much it. Maybe realizing that you dont need to be a great programmer to make a great piece of software helps.

Imposter syndrome for me is kept in check if I keep within my 'quota' of mistakes. It doesn't bother me if I am the author behind a bug (Normally every bug is an opportunity to understand the software we've built better), but if consecutive bugs come back to my work, then I notice it. And I notice it in others too, and then I want to see them putting effort into improving their skill, etc..

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#124

Post by TeMPOraL »

kortilla wrote: post #85
camgunz wrote: post #66

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you…

If someone wants a website that lists their company hours and has a contact form, that’s pretty much a known amount of hours for an experienced web dev. That’s about the equivalent of asking a carpenter to put in a door. If someone wants a custom built order and inventory management system, that’s like asking a carpenter to build a custom 4 story house from some napkin sketches. The whole reason computers are valuabl…

Agreed. Or in case someone brings up the good ol' "civil engineering" analogy - programming isn't like constructing a bridge. Constructing a bridge is what compilers do. Programming is the design and engineering that results in a blueprint. And our occupation is unique in that the construction part is so cheap, we can design iteratively, instead of actually thinking about what we're doing.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#125

Post by felideon »

undergrowth54 wrote: post #121

> My ego creates a tight bond between my work and my identity. Linking my self worth to how well I do my job. This then creates the need to track my performance. To keep score. Spinning up mental processes that consume valuable resources which make staying on task very difficult. I think this part is definitely true for me... I have let "notice when you are confused" and "understand the impact of your work" and "make…

No. I was unable to silence those thoughts and became a product manager, and am now a UX practitioner with strong opinions on software dev which I also can’t seem to silence (speaking of ego).

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#126

Post by _7fvc »

I think software ecosystems are currently infested by corporate interests. I feel kinda funny for saying this. It sounds like some kinds of left-wing politics. But software has become increasingly consolidated. There're 5-10 companies in the US that drive most of its development. They even picked up the most popular open source projects. When you're part of an ecosystem, your objective is to work the system. Making software has lower priority.

It's extremely hard to make money being an independent software developer. There's a lot of noise and money in the market. It's hard to compete with marketing from big companies. You have to work for a corporation or a startup with funding. You have to be part of an ecosystem. When you are accepted to a program like YC, you win an entry to an ecosystem.

Can you be a software artisan nowadays? Can a small team develop and sell software without having an ecosystem behind it? I've seen some examples of this, like Ruby on Rails, 37signals. But they are rare exceptions.

I'm currently working on an open source project. Let's see how long I can be independent for. Check out my project :)

https://github.com/vidalab/vida

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#127

Post by peterkos »

camgunz wrote: post #66

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you…

I remember reading an article that studied junior and senior devs and discovered that there was no way to get better at debugging. No matter how much experience someone had, their ability to problem solve was about the same.

I think that might have to do with this complexity, but also: software has so many ways of doing something, even within the same language -- and that gets permuted across, say, five different languages (Python, Rust, PhP...). It's impossible to say the "right" way to do it because there are multiple ways to achieve a valid result that's readable, AND there is a margin for disagreement between what is "readable".

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#128

Post by seangrogg »

DavidVoid wrote: post #116
camgunz wrote: post #66

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you…

> They say the way to get ahead at Google is to build a new successful product. Is that the same thing we're doing? It's easier to get ahead by building a new Z framework than to become a core committer on X framework from 10 years ago? A Kurt Vonnegut quote comes to mind: "Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."

I think the reality is that some people are actually just fine doing the maintenance - but they're unlikely to boost their career/paycheck by doing so comparable to what they'd have gotten from making a new thing instead. And that's an issue.

I'd love to go back to old code with the benefit of deeper domain knowledge and greater understanding of my tools and be able to make products even better. However, it's hard to square that against making +20% earnings by helping build a new chat app.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#129

Post by travisjungroth »

peterkos wrote: post #127
camgunz wrote: post #66

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you…

I remember reading an article that studied junior and senior devs and discovered that there was no way to get better at debugging. No matter how much experience someone had, their ability to problem solve was about the same. I think that might have to do with this complexity, but also: software has so many ways of doing something, even within the same language -- and that gets permuted across, say, five different lan…

I’d love a link to that article if you can find it. I wasn’t able to on my own.

I was just thinking today about how to teach someone to be better at debugging.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#130

Post by digitalmaster »

undergrowth54 wrote: post #121

> My ego creates a tight bond between my work and my identity. Linking my self worth to how well I do my job. This then creates the need to track my performance. To keep score. Spinning up mental processes that consume valuable resources which make staying on task very difficult. I think this part is definitely true for me... I have let "notice when you are confused" and "understand the impact of your work" and "make…

To be clear, i'm not suggesting you stop thinking about things like "understanding the impact of your work". In fact that's exactly what I think you should be thinking about. That's the "the" type question. It's only when you start to think thoughts like "Am I doing a good job at understanding the impact" that we get away from the goal. "I" am at the center of that question, instead of the "the impact of your work"
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