Be nice to people.
Be nice to programmers
51–60 of 178 posts
Re: Be nice to programmers
#52I can identify with some of what the author has saying, as I've struggled with a pessimistic attitude throughout most of my adolescent and adult life. However much of it was formed long before I learned to code. I've recently been working to be more optimistic as I think it can be learned. However, I suspect pessimists tend to make good programmers rather than programming causing someone to become more pessimistic. I…
"However, I suspect pessimists tend to make good programmers..."
It might also be that pessimism could limit programmers' capabilities by making them afraid to take on ambitious problems. Being somewhere in the middle of the spectrum might make someone a better programmer than being either too optimistic or too pessimistic.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#53How about we stop being nice to computers? Put some of the onus on them. We do all of the work, they just crunch the numbers.
Make the compiler responsible for something.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#54The punches are pulled in this piece. Not only is the compiler continuously complaining, once you ship code, your customers call in to complain about every conceivable bug and a great deal that weren't conceivable. You can have thousands of happy customers, but you as the developer will hear from the three guys with obscure configurations and bizarre setups encountering bugs. Shipping software is ten seconds of "Hoor…
But this is true of any "producing" profession. Any time you're creating something and "putting it out there", there's going to be a huge stream of criticism from every direction. Artists, writers, musicians, engineers, carpenters, etc.--all of their work is constantly under scrutiny by "the customer" and/or "the boss". Even non-producing professions have to deal with constant scrutiny of their performance and negati…
You make great points, and I agree with everything except: systematically eliminate your weak spots.
Sometimes that is what you need to do. But sometimes you are better off further enhancing your strengths to real excellence rather than bringing up your weaknesses to an acceptable level.
Sometimes you can really sell your strengths, the things that make you stand out, and then work around the weaknesses by focusing on projects where they don't matter or by hiring an assistant/partner that can handle the areas you are weak in.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#55I get what he's saying, but I think he answered it himself, when he questioned if he was being overly dramatic. He is being really over-dramatic. I would love to hear about any occupation where the negatives aren't run into in a similar way that he describes programming. That being said, the one thing that I dislike about programmers in general is that I think we believe we sound smarter if we figure out ways how an…
The mindset between engineers looking at new ideas and resolving old ones are different. A good engineer with foresight can see when an idea or proposal is good but at the same time he's thinking of the challenges it poses. I know I do this daily and the linked post is actually pretty hard hitting for me.
When I was looking for new work everywhere I applied I looked at how beneficial it was for me but that was always balanced with questions about how it will shape my career and if it will take me to a place I want to see myself in 5 years or will it put me 5 years behind my ultimate career goals? No matter what company or person I talked to I managed to find the reasons why it might not be beneficial to me.
I spoke with my girlfriend a lot during this search. At one point she got fed up with me and said to "shut up and stop being so negative". It sort of offended me because in a sense I didn't feel that I was being negative but rather "just looking at it from all angles". The coder mindset reaches into our daily lives where we start weighing the pros and cons of every decision to figure if it is worth the effort instead of just enjoying things.
Of course, I may not be typical. I live in an area with very few hackers and engineers so its hard to compare myself outside of these forums.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#56The punches are pulled in this piece. Not only is the compiler continuously complaining, once you ship code, your customers call in to complain about every conceivable bug and a great deal that weren't conceivable. You can have thousands of happy customers, but you as the developer will hear from the three guys with obscure configurations and bizarre setups encountering bugs. Shipping software is ten seconds of "Hoor…
But this is true of any "producing" profession. Any time you're creating something and "putting it out there", there's going to be a huge stream of criticism from every direction. Artists, writers, musicians, engineers, carpenters, etc.--all of their work is constantly under scrutiny by "the customer" and/or "the boss". Even non-producing professions have to deal with constant scrutiny of their performance and negati…
There is not a discrete "brokenness" to things like art or music. What you ship works or it doesn't work. Nobody knows or cares about the mountains you moved to produce what you did, they only care about the parts that don't work.
Some industries are absolutely comparable, but a much smaller number than I think you're implying.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#57I get what he's saying, but I think he answered it himself, when he questioned if he was being overly dramatic. He is being really over-dramatic. I would love to hear about any occupation where the negatives aren't run into in a similar way that he describes programming. That being said, the one thing that I dislike about programmers in general is that I think we believe we sound smarter if we figure out ways how an…
I like this point. In one company I was told a couple of times that things I suggested couldn't be done. I got a raise by going off and making a proof of concept that it could be done.
With that said, identifying challenges that need to be overcome ahead of time can be a useful step in planning as long as its not always seen as a reason to do a full stop on thinking about the concept.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#58The punches are pulled in this piece. Not only is the compiler continuously complaining, once you ship code, your customers call in to complain about every conceivable bug and a great deal that weren't conceivable. You can have thousands of happy customers, but you as the developer will hear from the three guys with obscure configurations and bizarre setups encountering bugs. Shipping software is ten seconds of "Hoor…
But this is true of any "producing" profession. Any time you're creating something and "putting it out there", there's going to be a huge stream of criticism from every direction. Artists, writers, musicians, engineers, carpenters, etc.--all of their work is constantly under scrutiny by "the customer" and/or "the boss". Even non-producing professions have to deal with constant scrutiny of their performance and negati…
Salespeople make the sale sometimes. A doctor sees someone walk back in for their checkup who couldn't walk a week ago. A technical support person often says goodbye to a cheerful happy customer. Musicians may have to deal with criticism in the papers, but if they delist their phone number it's because of the fans, generally, not the critics. Actually that goes for almost all the creative industries.
Developers have very little positive to go off of, and few professions have customers as discerning and grumpy as compilers.
I wouldn't claim it's utterly unique, and everybody's got their own problems. But I don't think it's healthy or a good idea to ignore the problems we face because some people sometimes in some particular way have things even worse.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#59This guy has not discovered what it means to be a programmer, he is simply in a phase of his programming life. Chasing down bugs all the time? Why? I don't do this, and when I run across a bug it is usually a quick fix and not a big deal. The goal is not to write it perfectly without bugs. The goal is to release it perfectly without bugs, and to do this all you have to do is test your code often as you make changes t…
Sounds like you've never been tasked with working on a huge base of code you'd never seen before. If all I ever did was work on code I wrote, I could see myself thinking like you do.
This is not the case for a lot of people. Maybe in this HN startup bubble, but not in the "real world" of software engineering.
Re: Be nice to programmers
#60[deleted]