Negative focus
nrkbeta.no
Negative focus
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: Negative focus
#2There's a lot of money in making developers and tech businesses feel dissatisfied with whatever they have, regardless of whatever they need. I think one of the things we haven't really tackled that much is actual dishonesty in the industry, as in, how much of the fire and brimstone is really, really, just an attempt to sell you x or promote the one niche someone is comfortable in. Maybe we don't want to think of software as something higher than glorified laundry detergent, even though the same market rules apply to it.
Then, the people that actually are doing the right stuff are probably already busy doing the right stuff, and we rarely hear them -- or they just don't bother, seeing it'll be drowned in the noise anyway.
Re: Negative focus
#3Ranting gets attention, so people rant.
I've noticed people will use some library or platform or language, and at first they'll love it. Then two or three years on, all they can see are the places it falls short in the domain they're working in. I've personally experienced a disconnect when I'm still in the honeymoon phase, and the speaker has progressed to the "I-hate-this-it's-terrible-throw-it-out" stage.
Re: Negative focus
#4Well, Twitter is using Scala which is among the best modern languages (and I am not a Scala/JVM developer). It is not about the end result (worry of the business). It is about us developers enjoying the process (nobody else cares about that). I am much happier using rather than JavaScript for example, this is why I am pissed every time Mozilla leverages the historical browser language monopoly and preaches it's mantra that JS is the best choice. And indeed I have no choice but to use JS on the client-side, because everyone seems happy with the status quo (please no transpilation offers - it's demeaning crap). The more negative - the better.
Re: Negative focus
#5Well, Twitter is using Scala which is among the best modern languages (and I am not a Scala/JVM developer). It is not about the end result (worry of the business). It is about us developers enjoying the process (nobody else cares about that). I am much happier using rather than JavaScript for example, this is why I am pissed every time Mozilla leverages the historical browser language monopoly and preaches it's mantr…
> Well, Twitter is using Scala
Speaking of ranting and Twitter. On a higher level, I think Twitter is helping this negativity crystallize and come through better by the nature of the service. "Express your opinion in short burst of quick messages". It is hard to pass sometimes a more detailed description of what you mean so what comes out is often a mean short response. Usually people don't talk in short messages when they want to express an opinion or tell a story.
There is a whole slew of misunderstandings started on Twitter. Like someone bragged about writing a sorting algorithm. Well it was for learning a language but that didn't fit in the 140 character limit. Then they get attacked for "That is ridiculous this bubble sort it has been around for long" also in 140 charters. It snowballs from there. It is often followed by an apology on some blog somewhere.
Re: Negative focus
#6I see this sort of negativity as an inevitable result of forced positivity/neutrality in other contexts.
Conscious decisions to remain "professional," as well as unconscious limitations more deeply engrained in people all contribute to a bottling up of emotions.
There are a few outlets available in a work context where actual negativity is acceptable. Note that the negativity singled out for this article was either self-deprecating of a group the speaker is a member of, or aimed at inanimate tools.
Plugging these isn't going to fix anything. Instead of treating the symptoms, what can be done so that delivering or hearing a rant isn't a huge collective catharsis?
Re: Negative focus
#7I always thought the negativity was part of sales tactic. We want to sell you a new method for doing what you've always done. Insult your way of doing it, say there is a better way, and that way is our way.
Re: Negative focus
#8Ranting gets attention, so people rant. I've noticed people will use some library or platform or language, and at first they'll love it. Then two or three years on, all they can see are the places it falls short in the domain they're working in. I've personally experienced a disconnect when I'm still in the honeymoon phase, and the speaker has progressed to the "I-hate-this-it's-terrible-throw-it-out" stage.
Maybe people need to use fewer libs/frameworks?
The first company I worked as a dev for, while I was studying, wrote most stuff they used themself.
This led libraries and frameworks to just "fit".
But the company structure probably was different.
There was the development, who implemented frameworks and there were the consultants who implemented the end user stuff and installed/maintained it.
Most other companies I know just had a few consultants for customer-admin-stuff and planning and the devs did everything else...
Re: Negative focus
#9I hate to resort to this cliche... but our harsh self-view might just be because our industry is so young. We have higher project failure rates than other 'engineering' disciplines; but we're still trying to figure out HOW to build things. Half of the time, it's like giving an engineering crew a new, barely tested material and telling them to build a skyscraper with it.
The way I see it, our negativity is actually quite hopeful. We know we can do better. We know we WILL do better. So we are hard on ourselves because we see how far we have to go and what it will take to get there.
Re: Negative focus
#10Well, we are not driven by wanting something positive either.