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I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

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Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#3

Post by friendly_chap »

gammateam wrote: post #2

> I was mad that, while I spent my nights learning F#, my daughter started calling everyone around “fathers”. A lot of elitism comes from going through a high level of discipline for no reward. Just do what is fulfilling

That's a really interesting idea, do you have any source?

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#5

Post by futureastronaut »

It bothers me that the conclusion doesn't escape the framework of code reviews as places of conflict, and that the author feels guilty for his claimed competence.

> No big deal if the code’s not good, I can fix it myself it I need to.

A mentor can't be passive like that. Don't leave 200 comments like you used to, but distill them into something smaller, more cogent and digestible. More importantly, drop the idea of "good" and focus on what the implementor was thinking. I think the author understands the need for more effective communication in code reviews, but unfairly reduces the exchange to an "argument."

It's also dangerous to correlate work-life balance with incompetence. It's not a contradiction to be good at your job, current with the industry, and present for your family.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#8

Post by iheartpotatoes »

This is incredibly honest. Maybe it's just me, but it 100% resonates with me. I find myself doing the exact same thing: as soon as I feel myself mounting up on my high-horse I have to talk myself down from being an asshat. I've gotten better at it because I'm now responsible for people's careers, and my pettiness is no reason to make someone's life suck because they are still learning -OR- because they think differently than me and have a different solution that I might not even UNDERSTAND. Being open-minded is really fucking hard for me some times.

These comments stuck out:

"Because I do code review for self-identification."

and

"It turned out that, instead of becoming a good coder, you simply have to convince others you’re a good coder. This behaviour begets a vicious cycle that produces not professionals, but toxic asshats."

One way to nip this culture is stop hiring people who only KNOW THIS culture.

If the author is reading this, there is one solution I have encountered: diversity. If you only hire white dudes in hoodies with stickers on their macbooks you're only going to get the toxic gamergate crowd, which has not gone away at all.

Believe or not there are other kinds of programmers in the world, and the most enjoyable products I've worked on were ones that had more women and more POC on their teams. Toxic asshattery can be minimized by not giving them complete control over the culture of a workplace.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#9

Post by honkycat »

This guy sounds like a massive, toxic asshole.

I'm tired of dealing with people like this. It does not have to be this hard. Tech companies should fire more people just for being jerks.

> I was mad that, while I spent my nights learning F#, my daughter started calling everyone around “fathers”.

Huh, you mean missing out on the good parts of life while martyring yourself for a company that does not give a shit about you can lead to resentment and toxic work culture? YOU. DON'T. SAY.

Honestly, a lot of the time management will stoke the "hero coders" ego so they will do the free work.

Management: Oh, Hero Protagonist! We need you! How will we ever earn enough to give our CEO the 15 million bonus if you do not martyr yourself for this feature?

Hero Protagonist: They're right. I am the best and smartest. I better dump all of my emotional labor onto my coworkers and significant others and bury myself into doing free work for my company.

> When you work as a developer, you always have to argue. You, as a team, arrive on a solution after a lot of argument, even though we call them “discussions”.

I do not feel this way at all. There are productive ways to have discussions that do not involve getting defensive and arguing.

The fact that you have to drag all of your discussions into toxic arguments in order to save face is... sad.

> And yet it’s somehow important than your arguments “win” more often than not, just to feel good and confident in your power.

No, it is not. That is just how you feel to justify your constant toxicity.

I see very little "power" in bullying all of the other developers on my team into following my opinions.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#10

Post by fredsted »

I've seen a few cases where otherwise talented developers would kind of miss the point of code reviews and focus on code style much more than the code itself, nitpicky stuff like sorting of imports, etc., leaving hundreds of comments while at the same time overlooking quite serious bugs.

Presumably, codestyle comes easy for them due to their neurotype, but they have a hard time reining themselves in and just end up wasting thousands of other developers' hours for zero business value.

I've never understood why these people don't just spend a few minutes adding some rules to ESLint or whatever.

However, while this person really feels like an asshole, it's incredibly mature of him to recognize his past behavior and try to improve.

For many developers, it's incredibly satisfying to "be right", and due to the fact that's it's easy to leave some comments, the humanity of their coworkers can often take a backseat.

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