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Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

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Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#241

Post by Spooky23 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #183
Spooky23 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have painted themselves in a corner re: remote work and get wacky in discussions about it. Lots of emo, not much fact.

My point is you cannot have any fact based discussions because statistics are generalised whereas people’s ability to thrive in office or remote work depends deeply on both the company culture and the individual. Thus it is always going to be an emotional argument rather than a fact-based discussion. It’s like asking someone what their favourite food is. They might be able to explain why they like the dish, but that…

It’s a little more than that, because people generally won’t go to war over pizza vs tacos.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#242

Post by kaffekaka »

fluoridation wrote: post #197
saghm wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether enough of the other people around you have the same characteristic you describe that it's reasonable to require it for everyone, including the ones that don't. For those of us who don't work better that way, being required to go into an office in person to provide ambience for our coworkers is extremely dehumanizing.

How is that dehumanizing when (by the parameters you've set) you're required to do it because you're human?

Because you are used as a tool for other people.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#244

Post by Ar-Curunir »

j-bos wrote: post #224
ryanackley wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like you're blaming the author for the lazy thinking of someone who might read his opinion and take it as objective fact. The 7 times 9 analogy doesn't track it all. 7x9 = 63 is an objective fact by definition . His thoughts on remote work are an opinion by definition . If other people decide that what he says is dogmatic, blame it on their own lack of critical thinking skills. The meta-point of the article…

> The meta-point of the article is that we should express are thoughts without qualifiers and embellishments to manipulate other people's perceptions of us. In my experience this is a common failure point among tech/analytical folks (myself included) which leads to their words and actions being genrally misconstrued and effectively misunderstood by the larger segement of the population which is rarely able or dispose…

“Technical” people are also people, and that doesn’t exclude them from communicating like reasonable adults.

Blaming the rest of the world for an inability to communicate effectively is not orienting the blame correctly.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#245

Post by sgarland »

exasperaited wrote: post #182
Aeolun wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have encountered people who are scared to post in large public channels. People weren’t assholes and/or snowflakes in those days. Implicit in being on the net was that you were fairly well behaved.

Oh lord no. I’m not sure that’s true at all! I mean in the early cool era of the internet there was a concept of a “netizen” and a window of brief joy, but the internet has always had domineering trolls, bullies, spaces where clumsy newbies were brutally flamed etc. The main difference is that more spaces were quasi-professional and non-pseudonymous, in that one largely got one’s internet access and identity (IP addr…

One difference, IMO, is that in technical forums / chat rooms, flaming was generally (modulo Torvalds, but honestly I give him a pass - the guy has to keep the level of quality excruciatingly high at all times, and that must be tiring) more reserved, and was along the lines of “RTFM.”

That’s not to say there’s more vitriol today; it’s swung the opposite direction, where newbies expect to have answers handed to them, or worse, they’ll post AI slop and then be genuinely surprised when someone asks them to explain it, or to show their work.

I don’t think that people should be belittled, but I also think it’s unrealistic to expect that experienced people should patiently teach every newcomer the same things over and over, without them having put in the minimum effort of reading docs.

I’m reminded of something I saw once on Twitter from a hiring manager who said that the best signal they had was whether a candidate had a homelab. This was met with criticism from many, who bizarrely accused him of being classist, since “not everyone has time to do that for fun.”

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#246

Post by redhale »

abhashanand1501 wrote: post #207

> Am I suggesting 100% test coverage? No, I’m not suggesting it. I’m demanding it. Every single line of code that you write should be tested. Period. This is from uncle bob. I hate the argument by people that 100% leads to "bad quality tests". Not doing it leads to bad quality code, people who don't care about quality of code, and hence dont write tests, suddenly start to care about quality of tests.

On literally every project I've seen that enforces a % threshold, that % threshold has directly led to bad quality tests. This is more true the higher the % is, with the worst being 100%.

You can argue that it _shouldn't_ be this way, and I would agree, but it is that way. Perhaps in part because developers are humans, and even humans with the best initial intentions will game metrics with a large enough sample size over a long enough time horizon.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#247

Post by pgwhalen »

devmor wrote: post #112
_ea1k wrote: post #22

Every time that I read this about remote work, all I can think is how much I miss IRC and the culture that came from it. We were doing remote work effectively decades ago. Don't have hallway conversations to fix bugs? Easy, just post your problems on the team chat and someone (often one of several people) would love to drop by to help. I'm not sure exactly all of the forces that have led to this changing so much, but…

One of the author’s primary reasonings for why remote work sucks is apparently that they find it difficult to treat other people like human beings without close proximity to them. That’s pretty weird and uncomfortable and I don’t know that I would want to work with someone like that in or out of office.

I think it’s pretty mature of the author to recognize that this is the way they (and most humans) work, rather than acting like they always have the ability to treat others with their absolute full capacity for respect.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#248

Post by artyom »

nirui wrote: post #120

> You lose ambient awareness of coworkers’ problems, and asking for help is a bigger burden. When I was in school, I discovered that I studied more effectively and efficiently when I'm surrounded by other students who's also studying. Then at work, I found I worked much more productively if my coworkers are all doing their work. It's not just simply peer pressure, it's an atmosphere effect, it tell you "hey, this pla…

This is a good take. I experienced the same.

Except in most cases it isn't true.

Yes, my best school/university years were when surrounded by people interested in studying. That was the optimal scenario, and everyone's reward was passing grades.

But in work nowadays, the reward is getting paid and promoted. That's not achieved by work, but by socializing, playing politics, creating mutually-beneficial relationships, building empires, and using everyone else.

Which is exactly what happens in a moderately sized workplace today, and one of the main reasons everyone else wants to stay home.

Remote work only sucks if your goals are misaligned with doing the actual job.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#249

Post by rib3ye »

cgriswald wrote: post #240
ryanackley wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like you're blaming the author for the lazy thinking of someone who might read his opinion and take it as objective fact. The 7 times 9 analogy doesn't track it all. 7x9 = 63 is an objective fact by definition . His thoughts on remote work are an opinion by definition . If other people decide that what he says is dogmatic, blame it on their own lack of critical thinking skills. The meta-point of the article…

His opinion on remote work is an opinion. The reasons he gives for having that opinion are not presented as opinion, but as fact.

Is your reasoning for your opinion that he didn’t preface his opinion as “in my opinion”?

His words read the same as any editorial I’ve seen.

Re: Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

#250

Post by fluoridation »

kaffekaka wrote: post #242
fluoridation wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that dehumanizing when (by the parameters you've set) you're required to do it because you're human?

Because you are used as a tool for other people.

Is that any more dehumanizing than just working a job in general?
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