51–60 of 143 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I quite like the metaphor that our rational mind acts largely as the press secretary for our emotions.
I have never heard that metaphor before but I like it very much.
The first part of his book "The Righteous Mind" discusses this aspect.
ah, so he’s a junior dev
This should be split into:
Pride. When I made something neat
Suspicious. When something worked on the first attempt
I'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…
What you'll find is that many of those said to have bad soft skills actually just cared way more about the users than their coworkers. Steve Jobs or Linus Torvalds for example, if you sacrifice the user experience then this kind of people will get angry at you. If you are the top of the company it works, but if you want to climb the corporate hierarchy it doesn't matter you just need empathy for your boss, so you will get nothing for getting upset when your manager and your peers sacrifice user experience for no reason.
I'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…
But why the lack of empathy? Is it because developers are more comfortable with computers than with people? This is a common stereotype about programmers. Perhaps it has more than a hint of truth to it?
Examples of abrasive behaviour in developer circles are too numerous to list (from real life and online).
It's not just a lack of empathy towards fellow developers, lack of empathy is even more marked when applied to "non-technical" users who are often patronisingly viewed as clueless idiots (and a source of irritation for developers).
So many UIs (visual and non-visual) and interactions are badly designed by developers who show no empathy toward users struggling to complete tasks. If you can't use the software you're considered a clueless and annoying 'newbie'. (How dare you suggest I 'dumb down' the interface to accommodate your cluelessness).
RTFM? (Read The Fucking Manual) Even this patronising acronym speaks volumes about the sneering attitude among many developers towards other developers and users. (Never mind the fact that in most cases the manual doesn't exist or is so poorly written as to be useless.)
I'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…
I'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…
I have spent my entire career watching people say this and simultaneously doing the opposite out of either convenience or insecurity. This illustrates either a complete misunderstanding of empathy or some immature self-loving platitude.
I'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…
I'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…
Add a product designer or project manager that actually do things and all the empathy/making software for people becomes optional.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Programmers also suffer from the problem of no objective performance measure - there is no way to tell the difference between good programmer + hard problem and average programmer + easy problem.