The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

Great article. I know it's not the main subject, but I really liked this part:

> Technical Work as Emotional Regulation

Men are taught to do that in most societies. You are unhappy - don't bother talking about it (men don't cry), do sth for the society - you'll receive praise in return and your pain will go away for a while. Even if nobody'll praise you - you'll think better of yourself. Same thing that makes our fathers obsessively fix any minor inconveniences around the house instead of going to the doctor with their big health problem.

Men often laugh at women talking for hours instead of fixing the damn problem (and it is frustrating to observe). But we often do not fix THE damn problem either - we fix other unrelated problems to feel better about the one we fear thinking about.

What's more tech-specific IMO is the degree to which our egos are propped by our code. Code is the one thing many programmers had going for them when they grew up. It's what made them special. It's what was supposed to pay for all the bullying in school. It's what paid their bills and made them respected. It's very hard not to make code your main source of value.

People praise "ego-less" programming, and most programmers adhere to the rules (don't get overly defensive, take criticism, allow others to change "your" code, etc.) But that's not actually ego-less programming, it's just hidding your ego in the closet and suffering in silence.

If you procrastinate when programming - it's because you feel your code reflects on your worth as a human being. It's all ego. Changing what you do won't change that. You need to change what you think.

There's a... sad comparison of this article about over-responsibility, and https://www.benkuhn.net/blub/ about the value of learning about the stack you use (the more you know about the workings of bugs, sometimes the more they gnaw at you).

I too suffer from this, but as I learned, Nature built an elegant solution to this. Have a family and kids. Your choice when you have time off of work will be reduced to hacking or playing with your child that you have been neglecting due to a crunch at work. You’re welcome.

This was something I really enjoyed reading, having suffered greatly from the same conditions. It made me realize I’m not alone, and for that I hugely thank you, and everyone else in this thread who commented.

This is a great comment, as it hits far too close to my heart. Im currently trying to get my team to rethink how they are building the APIs for certain services in our product, and focus really on design and craftmanship. To the point where Im ready to start breaking it apart myself and coding up the solution on my off hours.

But then I look at my son, and say "screw it, they couldnt pay me enough to care out of hours and give up play time"