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Egoless Engineering

egoless.engineering

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Re: Egoless Engineering

#71

Post by Dansvidania »

claytongulick wrote: post #22

Was an interesting discussion, but lost me with the sort of pointless Musk bashing near the end. I remember back in the late 90's and early 2000's it was similarly cool to bash anything related to Microsoft. I spent a good bit of time writing a lengthy comment on slashdot about "Why to code". It was fairly poignant and well-received, except at the end of it I took a low effort pot-shot at Microsoft - because it was c…

I honestly did not notice the Musk bashing, but yeah, now that you mention it, I agree.

Still 1 bad paragraph (or picture in this case) does not nullify 99 good ones.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#72

Post by [deleted] »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #34

The stab at Musk seems out of place. You might not like him, or his politics, but he took over and reformed a slow and bloated place, and despite all the doomsayers Twitter is still working and IMO better than before. And he has a solid track record of delivering: finance app, electric cars, rockets. Sure he over-promises and under-delivers, sometimes borderline lies, etc. but there is a huge amount of wisdom behind…

[deleted]

Re: Egoless Engineering

#73

Post by 01100011 »

weitendorf wrote: post #62
pjmorris wrote: post #45

An ageless idea... "There once was the first software engineering best-selling book. It was called The Psychology of Computer Programming (Weinberg 1971). There was a peculiar idea contained among the many excellent ideas of that book. It was the idea that the task of programming should be egoless. Programmers, the author said, should not invest their ego in the product they were building. ... What’s the alternative…

People may bring ego into programming because of some kind of pathology (eg the need to always be right or in control) but I think in many cases it's because they truly care about the work. And the problem is not that they truly care, but that there is a mismatch between the amount of influence/control/autonomy they wish to exert on their work and the amount they are actually able to exert on it. I wasn't there, but…

Sometimes a person's dedication and care expresses itself to others as ego. Sometimes it is just ego.

I think we've all implemented some clever trick in our code that we started to feel proud of. It's hard not to do. Even if you just contribute to a small piece of the project, you still might have those instances of pride. We're all human, and it's fine to take a little motivation from your accomplishment. But hold on loosely. Be critical of your baby and be willing to throw it out if it isn't the best approach.

I used to really like driver/embedded programming because it seemed like there was a 'best approach' or idiomatic solution for most problems that eliminated ego. It felt more like electrical engineering. I often felt programmers working on higher level software treated their work like a personal art project and that turned me off from it.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#75

Post by srid »

claytongulick wrote: post #22

Was an interesting discussion, but lost me with the sort of pointless Musk bashing near the end. I remember back in the late 90's and early 2000's it was similarly cool to bash anything related to Microsoft. I spent a good bit of time writing a lengthy comment on slashdot about "Why to code". It was fairly poignant and well-received, except at the end of it I took a low effort pot-shot at Microsoft - because it was c…

The fact that they so readily call Musk as being "narcissistic" (or "asshole" or "cult leader") reveals the rather dark nature of these "egoless" souls.

It is good to evaluate people on their actions rather than what they claim to be. We saw a good example of this in the Elm community[^1].

---

[^1]:

From https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/why-im-leaving-elm/

> The leadership style in Elm is extremely aggressive and authoritarian.

> By that I do not mean impolite or rude. It is almost always very civil. But still ultimately aggressive and controlling.

...

> The team [at NoRedInk] shows a bewildering mix of cargo-cult inclusiveness coupled with inability to consider that anyone could be different from them in any way that matters.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34746161

>> the core team has that "happy cult" vibe where they think that if they're (passive-aggressively) polite enough, they don't have to worry about anyone's opinion outside their insular little group.

> "Happy cult" vibe is exactly how describe that faux-niceness they throw around.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#76

Post by tracerbulletx »

Sports metaphors are a bit unpopular in tech, but the teams that win championships in sports have exactly the same dynamics as a good business team and we should be taking a lot more from that school of thought.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#78

Post by MrLeap »

RobRivera wrote: post #74

I always check the ego at the door, but have a high threshold for persuasion if I've done due diligence.

This sounds healthy.

I find it's good to periodically examine things that you aren't persuaded by from the other person's perspective. Dig deep a little. Ask non confrontational questions to figure out where they're at and why they're there.

It usually uncovers useful understanding, even when your mind on the surface issue isn't changed.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#79

Post by shusson »

There are a lot of big egos in team sports, and in high performing teams you often have a team full of big egos, although there are usually a few "team players". I wonder what coaches think about ego.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#80

Post by srid »

pjmorris wrote: post #45

An ageless idea... "There once was the first software engineering best-selling book. It was called The Psychology of Computer Programming (Weinberg 1971). There was a peculiar idea contained among the many excellent ideas of that book. It was the idea that the task of programming should be egoless. Programmers, the author said, should not invest their ego in the product they were building. ... What’s the alternative…

The last paragraph is the interesting one, and here's the full quote in context:

    One of the reasons Communism eventually failed is that it assumed that we could all accept the philosophy "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The assumption that we could all subjugate our needs to those of others is about as faulty as the assumption that we can subjugate our egos for the betterment of the team. A system that works will have to acknowledge fundamental human traits and work within the bounds they create. And ego is one of those traits.
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