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T0D0
5y

I have never understood why there is so much animosity from seasoned devs in the community.

I see it in a lot of places. Stackoverflow, reddit, even devRant. In so many cases, an inexperienced dev will post to the web, only to be shot down by things like "this question is stupid" or "you all have it too easy and its apparent you never learned basic CS principles" or things of that nature. In a lot of cases, these are generally unhelpful replies and often teach new devs to be wary of seeking help.

Please help me to understand, why this is.

Is it because the community is angry at these devs trying to get a high paying job by going to a bootcamp and shortcutting the hard work it takes to understand core CS principles to become a decent developer? Then why not take a moment to provide resources or insight to these folks so they can learn to be better?

Is it because the community feels that devs from bootcamps are just watering down the pool of talent making our worth decrease? I feel this isnt really valid because seasoned, experienced architects will always be needed to build good software. And at that, why are we not ensuring that the next wave of developers is equipped to handle tasks like that?

There are a lot of good people in this community who want to help and make the net a better place for all developers (after all, many of us consider it home), but there's a lot more people out there with really shitty attitudes, and it frustrates the hell out of me that my juniors now equate arrogant, self-entitled responses and attitudes with "seasoned devs" and discourages them from even bothering to get involved in the community.

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  • 4
    5y
    Read http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html because you didn’t do the research yourself on this subject.
  • 10
    5y
    Yeah sure, noobs that have been spoon-fed, too lazy to even research fucking basics, expecting 3 months of boot camp to do the job, can't be arsed into RTFM or even google shit, "plz give me teh codez".

    These fuckers think they're special snowflakes, but guess what, they aren't, they're just leeches. Any forum or platform that tolerates this behaviour will be inundated in stupid questions, and experienced people leave because there's fucking nothing in for them.

    It doesn't make any sense to deal with every noob individually. That's why documentation and shit exists, you write it ONCE for MANY noobs to read. If they don't wanna do that because they're lazy assholes, then they deserve a kick into their butts so that they fucking GO AWAY.
  • 5
    5y
    @Fast-Nop all the more reason to write proper documentation.
  • 4
    5y
    The reason is simple imho.

    When someone spends his time and gives a reasonable, understandable cause of his problem, I'm willing to spend my time helping him.

    If someone points at a few lines of code and says: this makes no sense... Nope.

    Spend your time finding a solution. Spend your time describing a problem...
    And especially writing it down in a way someone else can follow and understand your way of thinking.

    Otherwise, yes. I seldom insult, but the silent treatment is always a pretty severe sign of me being pissed off.

    And last but not least: reason I'm being pissed off is because I think it is very selfish to not invest your time, but expect and demand (!) people to invest their time giving you a solution
  • 2
    5y
    There isn't one single answer for everything I guess.

    Some humans just are assholes, devs included. It's the sucky side of mankind.

    Apart from that the dev community largely runs on respect as "currency". You gain respect through skill, good ideas, or at least asking smart questions. IOW it's not that easy. Losing respect, OTOH... a few unnecessary questions and you get the cold shoulder.

    > Is it because (...) devs from bootcamps are just watering down the pool of talent making our worth decrease?

    Now that's a multi-faceted topic. Software is relatively abstract, non-devs generally can't tell if a dev produces good results or shit. And we, as an industry, are lacking certifications or standards or really any way of getting rid of bad products or people. Compare that to planes not allowed to fly due to defects, or doctors and lawyers getting expelled. That's a problem - but of course doesn't excuse bad behavior.
  • 0
    5y
    You don't want to train someone who can take over your job and/or the question/person who asked is just so low quality it's earned the pent up vitriol of a dev who wanted to do something else on the internet than......see some bullshit.
  • 1
    5y
    Quite simply, because they are stupid, they just don't know it yet. And if they're not told they're stupid, they'll never try to be less stupid. I know it sounds rude and entitled, but let me explain:

    A fresh dev is trying to import a bunch of CSV data into a MySQL database. Ofc DB is running on some shared hosting with extremely limited access, so the dev makes import script in PHP (obviously, they've only ever interacted with DB through PHP). And then PHP script timeouts, and hosting provider won't increase the limit. Without explaining the original problem, they as "How to run PHP script incrementally from browser?", and clearly Google only gives totally useless answers, while the actual solution would be to install MySQL client locally, connect, and run "LOAD DATA" command.

    A senior dev doesn't need to know the details to recognise it's some bs that shouldn't ever be done, while the person asking is pretentiously using their limited knowledge instead of seeing "mysql import csv"
  • 0
    5y
    @hitko "Quite simply, because they are stupid, they just don't know it yet. And if they're not told they're stupid, they'll never try to be less stupid. I know it sounds rude and entitled"

    It *is* rude and entitled. Some genuinely might need such a wakeup call, but for most "telling people they're stupid" has quite the opposite effect.
    Following the advice from "How to make friends and influence people", in my experience criticizing the idea instead of the person and being supportive in finding better ways is a more productive approach.
  • 0
    5y
    @VaderNT To continue in that rude tone: no senior in their right mind goes online to spend hours explaining something people could learn by doing a simple Google search and reading the first 3 results. They don't go there to chat with those who know jack shit about programming either, because they already have a group of friends to discuss sports over a pint of beer or whatever. What most people expect from online communities is finding others who face the same problems and discuss possible solutions, or, more generally, have a group of people with the kind of knowledge that's not readily available (online or in their real-world community). People asking for a quick fix instead of properly learning the subject are about as far from that as it can be, so don't be surprised when such communities quickly shut them down.
  • 0
    5y
    @hitko let's be careful not to talk past each other here.

    Like I said, genuinely bad workers are indeed a problem for our industry. Like the people only interested in quick fixes instead of knowledge that you mentioned. It may or may not be appropriate to be rude to these - I have seen some improving because of such "wakeup calls".

    However, as I understand OP, the question is why someone is rude to newbie devs with newbie questions. If one doesn't want to help, one could simply not reply, right?
  • 1
    5y
    @VaderNT Because there's hardly a newbie questions that doesn't have an easy-to-find answer on Google, a decent explanation why doing it is a completely wrong approach, or either of those should be obvious as long as you read basic documentation. Perhaps one could be more polite answering those questions, however there's usually a damn high chance person asking such questions failed to do everything mentioned above, so they're either incapable / unwilling to use search; too lazy to read the whole thing; sticking to their approach despite learning it's wrong.
  • 0
    5y
    @IntrusionCM on point.
  • 0
    5y
    @hitko
    > so they're either incapable
    Of course they are. Asking smart questions, researching, even self-teaching are skills that need to be learned. In that case it's very important to teach people how to think.

    > sticking to their approach despite learning it's wrong
    I acknowledge these exist. However, I'd like to talk about actual newbies for a moment. Those who don't know better.
    The question is, what is your goal with being rude to them? And what do you think which effect it has? How do you expect them to learn the mentioned skills if you just tell them to fuck off?
  • -1
    5y
    @VaderNT Could you stop taking things out of context already? Read the full fucking sentence, "incapable" refers to using search, and that's not a skill other devs are supposed to teach them. On the other hand, your inability to even try and understand a simple sentence as a whole before bitching about it is a perfect example why competent devs shit on newbies.
  • 0
    5y
    @hitko
    > Could you stop taking things out of context already?

    Why are you attributing a misunderstanding to malice? You wrote "so they're either incapable / unwilling to use search", which I understood as "they are either incapable in general, or unwilling to use search".

    > that's not a skill other devs are supposed to teach them

    Why not? Who determines what other devs are supposed to teach?

    > On the other hand, your inability to even try and understand a simple sentence as a whole before bitching about it is a perfect example why competent devs shit on newbies

    Thanks for helping me out here. Now what about the questions I asked? What is your goal with being rude?
  • 0
    5y
    @VaderNT You learn driving from a driving instructor, not from random people you happen to crash into on the road. The same goes for all other skills, and there's no need for devs to be polite if you "crash" or "drive way below the speed limit".

    But whatever, doesn't look like you're willing to understand that so I'm just gonna stop wasting my time here... And regarding the language: https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY
  • 0
    5y
    @molaram

    Sure.

    The way I see it is you need to mind your audience. There's no one approach that works for everyone.

    On the one hand there are people who need a good smack to get them thinking. You said that applies to you - kudos to you for taking that smacking and learning from it. Being nice to them does nothing, it's counterproductive.

    On the other hand there are those who respond better to friendly conversation.
    Being an asshole to them makes them dismiss what you say and resent you, just like described in the OP. That's counterproductive, too.
  • 0
    5y
    @hitko
    > You learn driving from a driving instructor, not from random people you happen to crash into on the road
    I call bullshit on that one. Using that analogy, I'll gladly give advice to those approaching me for driving tips. Unless they demonstrate they're not actually willing to learn. If that's not your thing that's fine.

    > But whatever, doesn't look like you're willing to understand that so I'm just gonna stop wasting my time here
    Whoa whoa whoa, dude. If you had good reasons for being rude my questions would be easy to answer. Instead, arguing with you is like playing chess with a pidgeon. You just knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, and strut about like you've won anyway. Because you have shit reasons, and you know it. Stuff your finger-pointing where the sun doesn't shine.

    And regarding the language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  • 0
    5y
    @molaram haha, that would be fun to watch. On a serious note, with all the shit SO has been doing lately (e.g. with Monica) I think a competitor actually wouldn't hurt.
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