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Discussion on: Coding with empathy

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nssimeonov profile image
Templar++

Why do you call "sanity", "consistency" and "maintainability" with the word "empathy"? I see how you tried to convince everyone, that doing your job well is actually caring about others, when in fact you just do whatever you have to do and do it well. If someone with less experience makes a mistake will you blame him for being selfish or trying to make others feel bad?

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benjamminj profile image
Benjamin Johnson

I don't think we should be mad or angry at someone who is less experienced for making mistakes! That definitely goes against the vein of being empathetic.

Just like any other skill, empathy can be learned and improved upon. The best senior devs I've met help teach less experienced devs (like myself) how to consider the future maintainability and long-term effects.

There's a lot to be said for craftsmanship and doing our jobs well. I guess why I wanted to frame maintainability and code sanity with empathy is because I think empathy can help fuel our thinking about producing quality code that is easy for others to step into.

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nssimeonov profile image
Templar++

My point is - this is basically common sense. Applying emotions to engineering is like describing mathematics with feelings. Sounds weird to me.