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On Coding, Ego and Attention

josebrowne.com

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Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#61

Post by gcbw3 »

mettamage wrote: post #53
abvdasker wrote: post #35

In my experience, the best way to insulate yourself from the pangs of imposter syndrome and unproductive self-doubt is with experience of past successes. Early in my software engineering career I would constantly and painfully wonder if I was actually capable of fixing a certain bug or solving a new or difficult problem. But then after working hard on a solution, 99% of the time it would work out. After going through…

> I still sometimes panic when initially faced with a very difficult programming problem, but I can put those fears to rest much more easily by saying, "ok, I've solved hard problems before. I may not know how to solve this particular problem yet, but I feel confident that I will be able to figure it out just like I did in the past with difficult problems X, Y and Z." The following this just my experience, but it's a…

calling it "x86" tells me you were not without any prior knowledge of assembly before :)

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#62

Post by the_af »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #51
xouse wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I look at it, information is a force multiplier on action. If there's no action then 50 times zero is still zero.

But then if there’s no information, zero times 50 is still zero.

I'm not sure I agree, because the situation is in my opinion not symmetrical.

Work without reading about it: might work, and often does. Reading about it without doing the work: way less useful.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#63

Post by yumaikas »

pistachiopro wrote: post #18

This post did not reach the conclusion I was expecting based on the title. For me, I think I've largely experienced the opposite relationship between ego and my programming productivity. Learning to program as a kid was probably one of the most exciting developments in my life up to that point, and I expect that's true for many people on this forum. I originally attributed this to programming's usefulness, and the ma…

So, I've not really had that set of things, but when I went through a phase of working in fast food, that was helpful for helping me disentangle who I was from my ability to work as a software developer.

I suspect that sort of thing won't be much help to you, however, because for me, my motivations have been relational more than power-based.

That, and I find enough joy from programming just from the utility of things I've worked on, rather than needing it to be a vehicle for influence.

Still, I'm very interested to see where things go for you.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#64

Post by tppiotrowski »

eikenberry wrote: post #59

Did anyone else find the "Relative Distance" section seeming wrong. Not the harvard-vs-random school thing but the conclusion they draw, that you perform relative to your standing. How are students aware of their positions? Do some schools post rankings or something? When I was in school you're standing/grades were private and no one knew another students standing (aside from the obvious, people failing out and such)…

Many universities grade on a curve. X% get an A, Y% get a B, etc. If you are getting C’s in your classes you can infer that you somewhere in the middle 30%, A’s and you’re likely in the top 30%. You are correct in saying that you don’t know who is the best and worst in your class but all you need to know is where you stand for Relative Distance to work.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#65

Post by joana035 »

mettamage wrote: post #53
abvdasker wrote: post #35

In my experience, the best way to insulate yourself from the pangs of imposter syndrome and unproductive self-doubt is with experience of past successes. Early in my software engineering career I would constantly and painfully wonder if I was actually capable of fixing a certain bug or solving a new or difficult problem. But then after working hard on a solution, 99% of the time it would work out. After going through…

> I still sometimes panic when initially faced with a very difficult programming problem, but I can put those fears to rest much more easily by saying, "ok, I've solved hard problems before. I may not know how to solve this particular problem yet, but I feel confident that I will be able to figure it out just like I did in the past with difficult problems X, Y and Z." The following this just my experience, but it's a…

Try again, you will be surprised how things are more simple than it looks like. Practice, practice, until it clicks.

Give yourself some time in between too. It is all about the fun.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#66

Post by camgunz »

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you'll be able to say.

We've been doing CRUD in our industry for decades. How can we not just say "this is how you do CRUD, we're done w/ that now". We've been doing data serialization for decades now. How can we not just say "this is how you serialize"?

There are communities where this is the case. Why have we abandoned them? Why have we abandoned that knowledge and experience to reimplement things in language X or using platform Y?

We might not like to hear it, but my guess is it's a culture problem. They say the way to get ahead at Google is to build a new successful product. Is that the same thing we're doing? It's easier to get ahead by building a new Z framework than to become a core committer on X framework from 10 years ago? Are most X frameworks run by toxic communities? Is there something specific about software that means tenured projects become less and less useful/maintainable/understandable over time?

There's something in here that's specific to SWE. I don't know exactly what it is but, I think we should figure it out.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#67

Post by HellDunkel »

Self-improvement piece once again. Why are people so obsessed with this? Imposter symdrom seems to be a thing I really dont get. It never really bothered me if i actually caused the bug when looking for the root cause- ok maybe sometimes you worry if you messed up just before the release but thats pretty much it. Maybe realizing that you dont need to be a great programmer to make a great piece of software helps.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#68

Post by oarabbus_ »

camgunz wrote: post #66

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you're a carpenter you'll know if you're good or not. You'll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies/staff you need and so on, you…

>We've been doing CRUD in our industry for decades. How can we not just say "this is how you do CRUD, we're done w/ that now"

As an analyst, can you explain this bit?

I keep hearing things like "that's not actually a software development job, just CRUD", "we're done with doing CRUD" etc. But it seems like between the application and the DBA all the CRUD is taken care of, wouldn't the developer just work on the application itself? And isn't saying "we don't do CRUD anymore" somewhat akin to saying "we don't do [+-*/] anymore"? How can you have persistent data without CRUD? I must be missing a piece of the puzzle in this discussion.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#69

Post by vzidex »

lostmyoldone wrote: post #13

Big tired after an intense day, and I haven't really sat down and digested the article, but it seems close enough that I think my - admittedly primitive - tip can be of relevance. If you get stuck, you tell yourself in whatever way you want, and honestly, some version of the following: "I don't understand this thing that is happening, but I know there is a cause. It does not happen without cause." Honestly, it's a bi…

> If you get stuck, you tell yourself in whatever way you want, and honestly, some version of the following: "I don't understand this thing that is happening, but I know there is a cause. It does not happen without cause."

Seconding this, a quote I have from a past computer science teacher of mine is: "Someone with a brain wrote this code, so you - as someone with a brain - can understand it". Definitely helps me when I'm really stuck on a problem.

Re: On Coding, Ego and Attention

#70

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

the_af wrote: post #62
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then if there’s no information, zero times 50 is still zero.

I'm not sure I agree, because the situation is in my opinion not symmetrical. Work without reading about it: might work, and often does. Reading about it without doing the work: way less useful.

Spend a week in the lab to save a day in the library?
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