Isn't there supposed to be a code review before devs are allowed to deploy something to production? Yeah, Brian screwed up. But the company has at least some fault for letting him get that far unchecked.
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Be Kind
21–30 of 458 posts
Re: Be Kind
#22I hope Kevin learned not to let a junior dev deploy to production on Friday.
Well, he'd have to sooner or later. Better start learning as soon as possible :)
Re: Be Kind
#23Junior devs should also remember that whilst they might be trying to be kind, sometimes the support person you are trying to instruct probably knows more than you do. I was a bit bemused when a young guy who had just gone into devops and sysadmin gave me a mini lecture on the importance of open source and contributing to it if you have the skills, and that I really should give it a go one day, because open content is…
Juniors in particular are guilty of this, I've found - spending the last few years solving problems, they often come into the real world looking at most problems as 'simple' or 'a waste of time', and tend to be dismissive of non-programmers or domain experts. Some young people can also be surprisingly arrogant. College tends to be a very different experience from the working world.
Good on you for being patient and not letting them drag you into a place that would have humiliated them, though.
Re: Be Kind
#24I have the similar problem with code reviews. It is really hard to not sound harsh when giving a code review, especially in ones from junior developers where a whole laundry list of fixes comes out.
Best way not to sound harsh is to ask questions. "What are your thoughts on ...?", "Is this really what you meant to do?", "Do you think there is a better way to handle...?". It puts the power and learning opportunity back to the other person and lets them feel the accomplishment of improving. To the junior devs, when you screw up (and you will) own it and learn from it. Like public scandals, the cover up is almost a…
I find that tone works when the developer has clearly thought things through.
Other times, though, some developers need a very stern review. Things like: "Don't name your tests test1, test2, test3. Give them descriptive names," "Follow style," and "this does not belong in the dependency injector," and "don't screw with event publishing logic, filter this out in the event handler in the UI" are warranted when a developer isn't taking the time to think through his/her changes.
Re: Be Kind
#25When he returned to the air field, Bob Hoover walked over to the man who had nearly caused his death and, according to the California Fullerton News-Tribune, said:
“There isn’t a man alive who hasn’t made a mistake. But I’m positive you’ll never make this mistake again. That’s why I want to make sure that you’re the only one to refuel my plane tomorrow. I won’t let anyone else on the field touch it.”
Re: Be Kind
#26Re: Be Kind
#27The hardest thing for me when I was junior dev was simply being noticed. I'd rather someone be hard on me than to pretend I don't exist.
Re: Be Kind
#28Is that so uncommon? I mean, maybe I've been particularly lucky in my career but that sounds like standard behavior to me. I mean you already feel bad enough for blewing it that it's no use to add some more to it. And as the article says it happens literally to every one of us at some point. So unless your boss is a genuine bag, that's the expected way they should react
Unfortunately there are a non-negligible number of managers that take to the 'stick' approach and will yell at people, etc. Many people seem to be okay working in that environment so there doesn't seem to be pressure to stop that behavior.
I have been a graduate dev for four months now and i already feel like im not good enough on almost a daily bases. Though I do enjoy my code reviews because i know it will improve me as i go along.
Re: Be Kind
#29My first job was at an aerospace company in Florida. My boss was so nice.
I was really surprised to get the coveted desk in the 60° server room. Coming in off those 90° 100% humidity streets to put on a parka and sit at my workstation wearing fingerless gloves.
Man, anybody should be so lucky to apprentice with that guy.
Re: Be Kind
#30This was literally the biggest issue for when I started at my first job. We had a team member who was terribly condescending and talked down to everyone but especially me. You could tell that he hated the fact that he was on a team with a junior developer and took every chance he had to made sure I knew I wasn't as good as him. It makes a terrifying environment to ask questions because who knows what kind of response…
Oh his behalf, I apologize. I literally started laughing at a junior's code once but in my defense, he had spent 3 years at Amazon.