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Are developers Jerks?

Ran across a slew of questions about "why are developers rude" - etc... but it seems... well, what do you think?

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/2yhjwe/why_are_experienced_programmers_so_hostile_toward/

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-software-developers-rude

Top comments (9)

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____marcell profile image
Marcell Cruz

In my experience most developes are really nice, I have almost 10 years of dev experience and have met developers from all over the world, Developers are engeerings too, so they tend to be direct and sincere, which some people take as rude

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

Yeah! We often want people to be more edgy - haha. But it depends on what the context is. People sure are helpful in most cases. Sometimes you need help - and ask in the repo and the author will just hop on a zoom call and help you! It's wild how amazingly helpful some people are - and then how horrible some other people are. Gotta just surround yourself with those good people. 😃

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bjorngrunde profile image
Björn Grunde

Reading the comments I think there is one thing that is not pointed out, our branch also has a lot of "socially handicapped" people. With that, I mean people with autism, Aspergers, social anxiety, and so on. Computers and programming is a perfect escape. These people can come up as rude know-it-alls without that actually being the intention. They just can't feel the situation.

Just wanted to point this out :)

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

YES! Did we not mention that? The questions and answers we linked to - talk about that. Plus, we are all of different ages, backgrounds, and moods. It's a more complex story than "The bully hit me on the playground."

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kspeakman profile image
Kasey Speakman • Edited

The context for this question seems to be about online interactions. IMO most everyone tends to be more rude online than in real life. It is sadly much easier to be offensive online, whether purposely or not. Some factors:

  • matter of fact statement without inflection or facial expression to gauge its intend
  • colloquialisms of one area found offensive in others
  • rude as a defense mechanism (because of other rude people online)
  • hurting people are more likely to respond and be hurtful
    • online can reach a lot of people, someone somewhere is always hurting
  • anonymity being a shield from consequences

Developers additionally tend to have specific experience in what and how they are coding. The internet exposes them to other circumstances that challenge what they currently know to be the "correct" way to do something. It becomes easy to get into arguments. If both people work through the disagreement in good faith, they would come to an agreement: what each of them is doing is right for their own specific circumstances. But often people prefer bumper-sticker-sized dismissive statements because learning new things is hard. And understanding another person's perspective is even harder. It is easier for your mind to just dismiss them and filter out their statements as invalid. So you can imagine that discussions in a highly technical field are rife for arguments, and probably-never-meet-you context of online does not encourage patience or working through issues. I know I've wasted quite a bit of time "correcting" and being corrected by people on the internet.

So no, I don't think developers are jerks. I think a lot of people are jerks in general. Our field naturally leads to a lot of disagreements in discussions. And any of us can be jerks if caught on bad days. We could all be benefited by giving a measure of grace to each other.

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

because learning new things is hard

and understanding another person's perspective is even harder

Great thoughts! These things should be taught.

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andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden

If you consider someone who sits down in front of a screen all day with headphones on inside of their own bubble as antisocial. Then yes we are all jerks 🤣

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vdedodev profile image
Vincent Dedo

I'm a jerk, but I've learned that I have to be nice. If I'm mean to someone, they've either caught me off guard or just before lunch.

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perpetual_education profile image
perpetual . education

Yes. This is also important... people need to be able to weather HUMANITY.

Kids at record stores weren't always nice to us... but - if we didn't deal with it - we wouldn't have any records... so - it's a bigger conversation than "nice" and "mean"