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Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

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Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#31

Post by vanderZwan »

enraged_camel wrote: post #24

You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills. Wozniak is a very technically brilliant guy, and I have the utmost level of respect for him. But the sentence I quoted above just shows that he's also a stereotypical "nerd" in a lot of ways [1], in the sense that he has a very poor understanding of how humans operate,…

You're probably righ on Woz being a bit too soft, but just to play the devil's advocate: maybe he was just thinking of the stereotypical "nerd supremacy" type of criticism, which I think we can agree on is a damaging sort of criticism.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#32

Post by PakG1 »

lsh wrote: post #29
david927 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not a manager, it's not your job to criticize others. You can privately let the manager know why you think there was a failure, but that's just your opinion, the manager may see it differently. If you are a manager, while it is your job to occasionally criticize performance, it is never your job to criticize people. Further, if someone is "fucking up constantly," it's your fault. Do they understand the requ…

> If you're not a manager, it's not your job to criticize others. Nonsense. If you work in a particular role with others at a company, you are able to measure yourself against them and others - not just output, but in lots of different ways. If someone is doing a particularly sloppy job or "fucking up constantly" it's your responsibility as a professional and as a decent human being to raise them up. You can do this…

Depending on the organization, this is either acceptable or not, encouraged or not. And usually in every organization, if you're going to do the talking, you need to be one that everyone respects. Otherwise (again, depending on the organization), it can be a moment when everyone turns against you.

In especially toxic cultures, you need to be careful. It's unfortunate but true if you ever find yourself in one. Get out, get out fast if you are.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#34

Post by obstacle1 »

gingerlime wrote: post #16

"You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills." Reading from inspiring people like Wozniak makes me wonder how to adopt such advice. I am wondering about that almost every time I review a pull request. How do you deal with bad code, poor comments or over-engineering when you see it? Of course you can be nice, but…

> Of course you can be nice, but then code and product quality would end up affected.

Why? This attitude baffles me. You don't have to be a dick when reviewing someone's code, terrible or not.

> The person being reviewed knows it's not personal

It absolutely is personal if you make it personal, i.e. start personally insulting the author.

"How could you be so stupid to write this this way?"

"This is really idiotic code."

"Sorry, this dumb way of doing things is dumb, and I don't approve of dumb things in my project."

All of the above are personally insulting comments. You should not make comments like them if you value being civil.

There are plenty of ways to reject code without being a complete dick. For example:

"This is pretty neat, but I don't think it fits in here because _________"

"I really appreciate the commit, but _________ doesn't quite work with _______ idea."

"This is a great start. Could you change _____________ to meld better with ________?"

All non-confrontational ways to say "sorry, this isn't good enough" while also offering positive feedback.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#35

Post by argonaut »

lsh wrote: post #29
david927 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not a manager, it's not your job to criticize others. You can privately let the manager know why you think there was a failure, but that's just your opinion, the manager may see it differently. If you are a manager, while it is your job to occasionally criticize performance, it is never your job to criticize people. Further, if someone is "fucking up constantly," it's your fault. Do they understand the requ…

> If you're not a manager, it's not your job to criticize others. Nonsense. If you work in a particular role with others at a company, you are able to measure yourself against them and others - not just output, but in lots of different ways. If someone is doing a particularly sloppy job or "fucking up constantly" it's your responsibility as a professional and as a decent human being to raise them up. You can do this…

You missed david's point. You're not supposed to criticize the person (ex. "You are sloppy!"). You're supposed to criticize the person's work (ex. "Your work is sloppy!").

In my experience, criticizing the person just drags down their morale and usually doesn't motivate them, whereas criticizing their work sometimes motivates them to improve their work (it can also sometimes drag down morale as well, depending on how you go about it).

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#36

Post by kenkam »

pshin45 wrote: post #25
WillP wrote: post #20

I'm impressed by how well the response was written. Every sentence seemed to be written in a very unambiguous way. The phrasing may have been awkward, but was very appropriate for a Korean audience.

Good point, his email reply got me wondering how familiar he is with Korea and whether he was deliberately tailoring his message for a Korean audience as well. He talks about not learning from books, not caring about what others think about you, choosing a company based on how they treat you and not how "hot" they are - These are all the complete opposite of what Korea values and the way most Koreans live (book-learn…

I could say the same thing for the culture in Hong Kong or China at large too.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#37

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

gingerlime wrote: post #16

"You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills." Reading from inspiring people like Wozniak makes me wonder how to adopt such advice. I am wondering about that almost every time I review a pull request. How do you deal with bad code, poor comments or over-engineering when you see it? Of course you can be nice, but…

Some years ago, I had to do several personal development courses. Most of them were absolutely useless (at least to me), but one I found tremendously useful in various job and life settings. It was a course about assertiveness (and, in particular, assertive communication).

Assertive communication is about expressing a contrary position in such a way that you are totally firm, but not aggressive. Your interlocutor must understand that your stance is strong, but that you are a person who listens and is not just trying to impose mindless authority on them.

A basic template for assertive communication is something like:

1. "I understand that [description of your interlocutor's position and why it's understandable that he holds it]",

2. "BUT [description of your position and firm arguments to support it]",

3. "THEREFORE, [conclusion, which will typically match your position but make some concessions to theirs if you can]".

It sounds like something pretty trivial, but believe me, it makes a load of difference. People will be way more likely to accept your arguments if you explicitly show them that you have carefully listened to theirs and respect them. I have had people coming into my office to complain about something, and going out almost thanking me for that very thing!

Of course, this is a personal informal explanation and you'll be able to find much better explanations of this principle on Google.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#38

Post by seferphier »

alexholehouse wrote: post #7

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Woz is the catalyst that pushed me into programming, and that is something I'm perpetually thankful for. I should write him a note...

Very worthwhile. I'm sure he would be glad to hear from you.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#39

Post by Lewton »

obstacle1 wrote: post #34
gingerlime wrote: post #16

"You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills." Reading from inspiring people like Wozniak makes me wonder how to adopt such advice. I am wondering about that almost every time I review a pull request. How do you deal with bad code, poor comments or over-engineering when you see it? Of course you can be nice, but…

> Of course you can be nice, but then code and product quality would end up affected. Why? This attitude baffles me. You don't have to be a dick when reviewing someone's code, terrible or not. > The person being reviewed knows it's not personal It absolutely is personal if you make it personal, i.e. start personally insulting the author. "How could you be so stupid to write this this way?" "This is really idiotic cod…

I found both types of examples you gave insulting.

Obviously being called dumb is insulting, but being treated like a baby is too.

What's so wrong with just saying

"This should be changed because ___"

"You should avoid doing something like this because __" ?

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#40

Post by zwischenzug »

Lewton wrote: post #39
obstacle1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course you can be nice, but then code and product quality would end up affected. Why? This attitude baffles me. You don't have to be a dick when reviewing someone's code, terrible or not. > The person being reviewed knows it's not personal It absolutely is personal if you make it personal, i.e. start personally insulting the author. "How could you be so stupid to write this this way?" "This is really idiotic cod…

I found both types of examples you gave insulting. Obviously being called dumb is insulting, but being treated like a baby is too. What's so wrong with just saying "This should be changed because ___" "You should avoid doing something like this because __" ?

I always advise my staff to simply stick to the facts. Anything that can be disputed will be. This results in statements like:

"I'd like this changed because I believe it's a mistake to use globals in this context"

rather than

"You're/It's wrong to put a global here"

The difference is subtle, but important. It allows personal opinion to be used without the debate being personal.

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