It is always disheartening to walk away from a heated conversation. After having it happened to me in both professional and personal life, I took a...
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I'm not sure you're describing a reality here. I think communication is difficult, period. When I see non-programmers discussing, or non-programmers with programmers discussing, or programmers with programmers discussing, it's always the same problem: they define the terms differently, they have different expectations, they don't listen, and they're sure they have the "truth".
It's because you're not living in Germany :D
Definitely not here in America XD.
Yeah communication is difficult period. Just wanted to add some insight for perhaps why programmers may have a small niche of problems in this. Otherwise it'd be just a regular and already-beat-to-death type of article.
For me it is different. I do not like correcting people. When we had pod meetings in my school we would do group coding. Sometimes one of the group members would start coding and make blatant errors, but for some reason I would feel bad for correcting them. I guess I didn’t want to make anyone feel bad. I would just let someone else call it out or see if they catch it first
The concept of pair programming actually depends on one person questioning the other, catching each others errors, and offering opinions as a means of increasing quality.
Definitely don't like making people feel bad, but at work feeling sometimes have to come second. I have had several instances if I didn't say something we would be stuck at a problem while on a tight schedule.
I'd say generally it's better to speak out on something than not, at least it means you are paying attention to the topic.
I can definitely understand that. I guess it’s different for me because I haven’t been in the work setting yet
I've let a lot of thing pass by unsaid with my product manager as well. he often asserts why there is a problem with our app even though he doesn't spend time coding the app.
I just let him say whatever he wants because most of the time what he says have zero ramification and it's really not worth busting his chops.
Thanks for this insights. Now I understand why a course leader was mad at me. I organized a scrum course for my colleagues and me (around 30 people) but at some point the course leader just totally snapped and got mad at me for "frustrating" the class by constantly asking why things were done a certain way and what would go wrong if we did not do it like that. He thought I was at the course against my will. Little did he know that I was the initiator....
I had a very similar experience with my lead too! It was one of the moments that made me think I need to find out what went wrong exactly.
This should be "is far from the norm" instead. It's not abnormal to deviate from the defacto-standard. Qualifying behavior of high technical people as not normal is derogatory, especially because this norm is based on loud and popular opinion.
I don't think it's bad to be not normal. If we are just like the average joe, then we should be paid the average joe's salary and be replaceable by some random our boss meet on the street.
Daaamn. This made me think about how I'm sometimes regarded as pessimistic or a devil's advocate cuz I'm all in to see what might go wrong rather than what is likely to go right. Plus the explaining of why or why not take a given choice is somewhat automatic for me when talking with someone about decisions.
I think communication may come difficult as it is, but it surely has its own for each of us in accordance with our lives. Interesting point. Thank you! <3
you are welcome :D I do that all the time just like you, so now I just let a lot of things pass without bothering.
is that bad? thinking of the side of programmer i see it as a really good thing :D
it's pretty bad when your not-as-technical boss gets annoyed easily because no one else ever doubts him ... or your girlfriend who's thinks you just don't trust her XD
ahhh the "issue" with the girlfriend.. the worse it gets the more logical i get and it spirals out of control :D
classic!!!!
Imagine combining that with a scientific background 😆😁
that is exactly me lol ... I am a biology major with interest since childhood. Drives my mom crazy sometimes XD
Same here: also originally a biologist (evolutionary behavioural biologist, how about you?).
was just a physiology graduate then i jumped ship to web dev immediately XD I didn't want to be in a lab or study more to become a doctor... so i had to find my way out somehow.
I agree with the fact that us programmers are used to the constant criticism but this doesn't mean we are entitled to do it with others. Interesting topic, great post.
Oh yeah we aren't entitled. Doing that constantly just makes someone an asshole.
It's more for the instances when I randomly finds something that doesn't make sense to me and ask for clarification. People can get embarrassed real fast since they never thought about it until then.
An interesting assertion. How do you test it? :) Seriously, now, I never thought about it that way. Warrants further introspection.
I didn't think about it this way until I consistently see people having problems replying when I ask why. It's always weird to see people's shock face when they were so confident just a word ago.
I really do think a lot of times people don't actually think about why they do or say something.
Alternate titles:
"Why Conversations Are Difficult With * SOME * Programmers"
"Why Conversations Are Difficult With Certain Personality Types Regardless of Profession"
hashtag: broadbrushmuch?