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Here's a real tip for people new to the industry.

It's one of those things that's been said over and over again but very few can really seem to employ. I suggest you learn it /well/.

You are not your code. Criticisms of your code, ideas, or your thought processes, is not a criticism of YOU. You absolutely cannot take criticisms of your work personally.

We are engineers. We strive to seek the best solution at all times.

If someone has found a problem with your code or with an idea or whatnot, it is coming from a place of "this is not the best solution", NOT "you're an idiot".

It's coming from a place of "I'm closing this PR because it is not a change I feel suits this project", NOT "I'm closing this PR because it's coming from a woman".

It's coming from a place of "This feature request is ridiculous/this bug is not actually a bug", NOT "you're a fucking idiot, fuck you".

It's coming from a place of "I've already had to address this in a number of issues before and it's eaten up a considerable amount of my time already", NOT "I don't even know you and this I don't have time for a nobody".

You do not get to be bitchy to maintainers because they denied your request. It's not a reflection of you at all. But if you're arguing with someone who has maintained a piece of code for almost a decade, and they're telling you something authoritative, believe them. They're probably smarter than you on this subject. They've probably thought about it more. They've probably seen their code used in many different places. They have more experience than you with that codebase in almost all cases.

Believe me, if we cared about who was behind all of the issues, pull requests, etc. we get, we'd get NOTHING done. Stop taking shit personally. It's a skill, not a defense mechanism. Nobody has the time to sugar coat every little thing.

Let's normalize directness and stop wasting time during technical discussions into opportunities for ego-stroking and circle-jerking and back-patting.

Comments
  • 1
    Something I also had to learn the hard way. Had an argument with a collegue becuase even though I was the young dev, I've done this exact thing in a project a few months ago and knew the way to do it. I apologized to him after a few days because it was bugging me that we had raised our voices slightly. He was like: wut? we good.

    Yeah that's when I learned that. x)

    About the woman part though: I did encounter guys which dismissed what I said completly, just to be told the exact same thing by another person who was higher ranked, and then they listened to the guy. Not sure if this was a "woman" thing or not, will never know, and I also don't want to know tbh, but unfortunately, that shit still happenes. Sad rly. We ended up always telling one guy to tell the other guy to do smth since we just didn't want to bother anymore... ^^'
  • 1
    @hasu Yeah I don't doubt that happens in work environments, the women thing was more about github. I've seen maybe one instance of remote sexism on GitHub in the ten years I've used it. Uber had a really nasty problem with sexism and homophobia when I worked there though :/
  • 1
    I may not be my code, but my code is my mind.

    And that’s why criticism must always be delicate.
  • 0
    @BrainDrain That's a nonsense statement.
  • 0
    @junon it is often subtile. I'm glad that I haven't encountered it that often so far.

    Once I've got feedback which was so useless about our code that I was seriously wondering if this person really thought my work was bad but couldn't express it properly as to why, or if the person was sexist and was just trying to find reasons to hate on the work.

    Like, making comments about my english, suggesting I should let a native speaker proof read (which I did), while making so many grammatical and spelling errors themselves. Or pointing out that I haven't explained something, which I totally did, if you would just read through it. This kinda stuff. I was reading this review like "mate, you are grasping at straws here for absolutely no reason. I can see that and I'm new. Come on now"
  • 1
    @hasu Yeahhhhh I've seen that happen a few times. Can't even bring it up to HR because how do you even quantify it lol. Such a frustrating situation :/
  • 0
    @junon I don’t expect devs to have a sense of poetry; but until you understand how personal a person’s work can be to them, you’ll never be promoted beyond “lead developer”.
  • 1
    @BrainDrain But.. I've already been promoted beyond "lead developer".

    I still don't understand what you're trying to say. A labor of love, sure, but if you take offense at any criticism of your code, you're doing something wrong.
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