Happy Halloween, everyone!
I think the question fits the theme, so I'd like to ask everyone:
What are your fears as a developer?
Here are the things I'm scared of (reasonable or not aside):
- not being able to find my next freelance client.
- production bugs.
- performance anxiety when showing interviewers and clients my work output.
- Imposter Syndrome (fear of being a fake or being too dumb)
that my Imposter Syndrome isn't even real, and that I actually suck.
running into a bug that has no StackOverflow, Github issues, and/or online solutions (which means I need to figure it out on my own).
posting a question online (especially on SO) where others might judge me.
the feeling of I'm not improving enough (lack of visible progress).
Almost forgot to add:
- not understanding what I'm reading
I'd like to know what you all are afraid of as fellow developers!
Note: I'm learning a lot from what everyone's sharing. Thank you, everyone!
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Latest comments (69)
Proxies
Why would they scare you?
Proxies are really helpful, personally.
I know that they help to prevent some common attacks, but setting everything up is so cumbersome. There is no single way and if some library developer didn't think of it you struggle for days. We recently needed to dig through source code from alpine Linux to make apk add work...
In aws you need to restart the docker deamon to make it work behind a proxy. Luckily we had some genius who figured that one out.
Writing some software for non-it coworkers only for them to not use it and instead ask me to do everything for them. This is very common where I work, mind you, so not at all far-fetched. You write a program, you have to take steps to not be the "operator" of your creation for the rest of eternity.
Yeah, got to teach people how to use the things you make for them. Sadly not many are willing to put in the effort to learn things and do it themselves.
Hmmm scare me?
As a dev?
That some one some where . . . will eventually use my various "hello worlds" as a guide post for "how to optimally code" 😱
Any untested code 😱
I should be scared of most of my code, then!
Marketing people that casually throw tech lingo into the conversation completely out of context or completely misunderstanding the definition itself.
If we're complaining about marketing people, what I find much worse and scarier is the "our software can do that" type, who claim their product does a thing when they don't have a clue, or worse, just assume their IT will get it done before the client actually needs this feature.
This is scary on both ends: Being the poor dude that suddenly has to implement features that have already been sold, but also having to work with software that doesn't (yet) even do the things you 100% need (and slowing down production down the line).
Yikes! Business people making false promises and overselling a product is just awful, not just in the software development world
Those are pretty much impediments that a Product Owner or any other managerial roles should defend the development team against. It's unfortunate that a lot of people don't have an ownership mindset and won't stand up for the developers.
I dislike non-technical people throwing away buzzwords as well.
I gotta drop some dad-wisdom here, because I used to dwell on imposter syndrome. Look, I'd tell you gotta stop worrying about what other people think of you and focus on the trials ahead with confidence in yourself... but it took me some staring-in-the-mirror-after-eating-a-pot-brownie levels of introspection to realize why that advice doesn't help. I was pained to admit I wanted people to say that to me. My imposter syndrome was narcissism, undermined by insecurity or not. By publicly proclaiming my abilities were lower than they appeared, I would lower the expectations of others, prompting encouragement and protecting my image if I failed, while inflating the impact of my performance when I succeeded. Everyone experiences the undercurrent of an imposter occasionally, sometimes rightfully deserved and others not. Maybe you're not like this in real life, new to the field, or this is post is intended to be a bit humorous. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. If you do find yourself overtly focused on thoughts of imposter syndrome it's time to ask yourself why, without being afraid of some hard truths in the answer. I'd tell you you're a perfectly competent dev, but you already know you are. People have told you that a hundred times and you can see proof of it every time you sit down to work. Just relax, and enjoy the ride. Life is too short and precious to be dishonest with yourself. ;P
It's okay! both serious and humorous comments fit in this thread!
I do agree that a lot of developers (including myself) have a tendency to understate their competency to play it safe. It hurts more to disappoint someone, and it's just "easier" to impress someone by lowering their expectations.
However, understating your own competence can be bad because it can lead to being lowballed in negotiations.
Account hackers. All code is lost.
PascalCase. For Everything!
C# is the best example!:
It drives me mad! There's no way to tell if
RandomIdentifieris a class, property, method, or constant (property) without seeing it being used, or going into the source code, and findingRandomIdentifier.Oh yeah, people that don't use the correct case for certain datatypes is annoying.
Like Constant variables should just be an easy uppercase, but people still are so lazy to do it.
It's not about laze, it's about people using outdated, or plain out wrong casing conventions.
And you'd think this is applicable to all languages with C-grammar. Nope. Apparently in C++ "uPpErCAsE is FoR mAcROs eVen ThOuGh ThEy'rE oUTdAtEd IN mOdErN cOde." - circa a person on r/CPP_Questions.
This sounds really mean, since they're just giving me advice.
But I still detest certain stylistic features. - And if people can't code in a style that's suitable for them, even if it looks alright, and isn't hurting anyone, then I get real steamed.
I have a fear of reading other peoples uncommented code 😂
BUT ITS SELF DOCUMENTINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
This happened this morning: Writing Documentation/Tutorials for "peers" who don't grasp that "Your-Repository-Name" is a placeholder and not the name of the repository to enter in. Good news is we can only have one "Your-Repository-Name" repository in any one azure devops project.
nice one!
1) Segment fault lol
2) Index out of range
3) Explaining someone what i am doing
The first two are basically the same mistake in different environments :D
1) Core dump segment fault lol
2) Index out of range
3) Explaining someone what i am doing
1) Core dump segment fault lol
2) Index out of range
3) Explaining someone what i am doing