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Been programming for 10 years and it's distressing how inadequate and incompetent I sometimes feel. I like to rebuff it as Impostor's syndrome, but who knows,

by sidcool 10y ago

Been programming for 10 years and it's distressing how inadequate and incompetent I sometimes feel. I like to rebuff it as Impostor's syndrome, but who knows, may be I am just bad and surviving because mediocrity is what the industry wants. On the other hand, the pleasure that a good piece of code in a beautiful software gives is something I can perhaps relate to an opiate high (as a metaphor, never tried honestly :) )

CannisterFlux 10y ago
I find it more like the feeling of having sorted out my wardrobe (folded things and thrown out old clothes, I hate doing this despite feeling better afterwards). Or a mix of that and say building a good looking Lego MOC from a limited set of pieces. But only for some things - I have several self-contained python scripts that give me this feeling. Sometimes fixing a bug in a clean way. Other things - Android apps for example - tend not to give me this vibe. They feel more nebulous and "unfinished", like it's a miracle they work at all and will break at any moment in ways I couldn't understand.
keithnz 10y ago
work environment can mess with your mindset to care. To the point of being told not to. you just need to achieve X, and move on, and you never get to make things in a way you care about them.... so you may decide personally to focus on the means, try different languages, learning new frameworks, techniques..... but never quite being in environment where you can build something you care about. Interviewing people you often hear peoples stories around this, it's a motivation to find a new job, or they end up with side projects / open source which they care about and start wishing they could do those full time. They just want a space where they can build things that matter to them. Some places get it, some don't, some partially get it. One of the classic things I have seen is "managers" that say they want you to care but don't really care themselves. Interestingly a number of years ago I went through a program called "Better by Design" which the NZ government sponsored for local businesses, see:- http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/why-design-matters/ http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/why-design-matters/ and a big part of the message about good design was really all about trying to make people care at every level of the company.

by sidcool 10y ago

CannisterFlux 10y ago

I find it more like the feeling of having sorted out my wardrobe (folded things and thrown out old clothes, I hate doing this despite feeling better afterwards). Or a mix of that and say building a good looking Lego MOC from a limited set of pieces. But only for some things - I have several self-contained python scripts that give me this feeling. Sometimes fixing a bug in a clean way. Other things - Android apps for example - tend not to give me this vibe. They feel more nebulous and "unfinished", like it's a miracle they work at all and will break at any moment in ways I couldn't understand.

keithnz 10y ago

work environment can mess with your mindset to care. To the point of being told not to. you just need to achieve X, and move on, and you never get to make things in a way you care about them.... so you may decide personally to focus on the means, try different languages, learning new frameworks, techniques..... but never quite being in environment where you can build something you care about. Interviewing people you often hear peoples stories around this, it's a motivation to find a new job, or they end up with side projects / open source which they care about and start wishing they could do those full time. They just want a space where they can build things that matter to them. Some places get it, some don't, some partially get it. One of the classic things I have seen is "managers" that say they want you to care but don't really care themselves. Interestingly a number of years ago I went through a program called "Better by Design" which the NZ government sponsored for local businesses, see:- http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/why-design-matters/ http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/why-design-matters/ and a big part of the message about good design was really all about trying to make people care at every level of the company.