Pure dread, when you have signed up for a new gig and open an existing code base for the first time. Starring at hundreds of unknown files and folder with no idea what anything is and how it all works. No going back, you're a new maintainer, so better get to it. Usually after a few days you start getting a grasp, and it's not so bad though :)
Programmers’ emotions
41–50 of 143 posts
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#42I've been thinking about this A LOT over the last year. Knowledge work is Emotional work. Software developers make software for PEOPLE. Making things for people requires empathy to be successful or else a whole lot of luck. Having empathy means putting myself out there. It means asking questions that sound ignorant. It means going from feeling like I had a great idea to seeing all the flaws and shortcomings of that i…
Regarding your last sentence, I think technical jobs, and especially people who write code as part of their job, are forced to develop a special kind of humility. Engineers, scientists, technicians, deal with the law of physics everyday. As a developer particularly you get immediate feedback dozens if not hundred of times a day. You can't bullshit your way out of a bug. The computer is cold, rational and executes the piece of code you wrote. You can't convince it to run your program with pretty words.
This is in contrast to other jobs, for example marketing specialist. As a marketing specialist you spend weeks or months on a well crafted marketing campaign, then you launch and the results are not bad but yet not great either. There could be millions of reasons for your campaign to have failed. You could job-hop thinking you did a great job and blame the lukewarm success on external factors.
There are people who spends their whole career failing at what they do who would never know otherwise because their job lacks this sort of cold instant feedback.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#43There are two things in life that bring me joy like no other, and they're basically the same: completing a physical fabrication project and successfully implementing something in code.
The elation I get when it comes out exactly the way I imagined is unrivaled.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#44What is it about programmers that makes them (in general) not expressive, effusive, gregarious, ... I have a deadpan face most of the time, people complain about not being able to read me. When I was younger, I rationalized that I don't want emotions to cloud the logic of a conversation. But I ultimately realized that I was deadpan all the time, whether in work/reasoning discussions or personal interractions. Regardl…
Yes, I can relate. I realize now that fun conversation is highly illogical, emotion based. I view my desire for control and logic actually gets in the way of emotions, which makes conversations less enjoyable.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the the good stuff right there though.
Addiction, by definition, causes problems in other areas.
Anything, in excess.
But, it seems that winning in life is figuring out how to get healthy addictions (to work, exercising, good diet, helping other people).
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#46Imposter Syndrome: Not an emotion per se.
It’s a belief. That everyone else is smarter than you.
Opposite of dunning-kruger, where you think you’re smarter than everyone else.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#47Programming work is emotional, and the technical interviews that may get you there even more so.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#48> Relief. When I solved a problem I had been struggling with for a long time.
I like to call this an 'Aha! Moment'. They happen rarely enough though, so the dopamine hit is not enough to really enjoy programming.
Also: programming for me needs ergonomics and accessibility. My setup is really opinionated and catered to me only. Others can't so easily jump into my setup and start coding away. They'd feel really uncomfortable in my chair and have to understand all the keyboard shortcuts I have burned into memory, as-well as a bunch of macros.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#49I've been thinking about this A LOT over the last year. Knowledge work is Emotional work. Software developers make software for PEOPLE. Making things for people requires empathy to be successful or else a whole lot of luck. Having empathy means putting myself out there. It means asking questions that sound ignorant. It means going from feeling like I had a great idea to seeing all the flaws and shortcomings of that i…
Yes. Thank you for putting this so succintly. I've been looking for the words to describe it.
Re: Programmers’ emotions
#50I don't see rage listed. It should be. Sometimes it's almost Homeric.