3 ms·

If I know you’re trying to manipulate me with some speaking strategy, it looks bad for you and fails

dahart 9y ago
Man... wild. I sincerely have no idea what is bugging you, whether it was something I said or something in one of these articles. I'm honestly interested to hear why you're responding this way. I am open to a point of view that contradicts mine. I'm wrong about things as often as anyone. But it feels like you might have misunderstood something along the way and taken it personally? I don't know, feel free to clarify, if you want to discuss this. If you don't want to discuss this, how about we just stop and let it be? It sounded like you thought the code reviews article at the top of this thread, and the optimism article that I linked were contradicting each other? Is that what you meant by strategic speaking not making sense after reading both of these articles? As far as guides on how to communicate, I'm not sure what you mean about it not being normal. I can't even count how many best-selling books on communication there have been. Learning how to manage programmers is largely about how to communicate. Learning how to be a better programmer is as much about learning how to communicate with your manager and team mates as it is about learning programming language features. I spent 20 years in school learning about ways to communicate. I've since spent 20 years coding for corporations of various sizes, and all of them have had both mandatory and elective classes on communication. Learning communication styles & pitfalls seems absolutely normal to me. In my opinion, breakdowns in communication are the single largest problem in software development, and probably the single largest problem with the human race. I'd speculate that someone who thinks learning how to better communicate won't help them at all is most likely unaware of history and also frequently failing to communicate effectively.
- jonwiththewind 9y ago
  Can't tell if this thread got meta or if this a perfect example of the original article's point to not use "you". Eradicatethots intention (I believe) was to say: "If I know [someone] is trying to manipulate me with some speaking strategy, it looks bad and fails."
  - dahart 9y ago
    Great point, I did assume it was me and not someone. Maybe he's not as agitated as it seemed. But the article's point was to avoid personal attacks, not about pronoun confusion, right? If you're right, then I made the mistake. Yours is the better more generous benefit of the doubt assumption anyway, so in retrospect I prefer it. That said, I don't think it's fair to claim that avoiding personal attacks, and using language that helps people to be more optimistic is equivalent to manipulation that looks bad and fails. It's very, very hard to read @raganwald's blog post and take it as manipulative - did you check it out? You should! I still don't understand "I don’t think a guide [on communication] can help you if you feel like you need one." Did I mis-interpret that one too, is there also a better assumption here than the one I made?
    - jonwiththewind 9y ago
      I agree, the thoughtful and intentional use of language is important (read through raganwald's post and it is a good explanation of that). Seems cynical to me to think of conversing as a strategic game of manipulation. Didn't mean to agree with the previous poster – simply found it amusing that the idea of not needing to think about communication was immediately disproven by the statement being misinterpreted.

Man... wild. I sincerely have no idea what is bugging you, whether it was something I said or something in one of these articles. I'm honestly interested to hear why you're responding this way. I am open to a point of view that contradicts mine. I'm wrong about things as often as anyone. But it feels like you might have misunderstood something along the way and taken it personally? I don't know, feel free to clarify, if you want to discuss this. If you don't want to discuss this, how about we just stop and let it be? It sounded like you thought the code reviews article at the top of this thread, and the optimism article that I linked were contradicting each other? Is that what you meant by strategic speaking not making sense after reading both of these articles? As far as guides on how to communicate, I'm not sure what you mean about it not being normal. I can't even count how many best-selling books on communication there have been. Learning how to manage programmers is largely about how to communicate. Learning how to be a better programmer is as much about learning how to communicate with your manager and team mates as it is about learning programming language features. I spent 20 years in school learning about ways to communicate. I've since spent 20 years coding for corporations of various sizes, and all of them have had both mandatory and elective classes on communication. Learning communication styles & pitfalls seems absolutely normal to me. In my opinion, breakdowns in communication are the single largest problem in software development, and probably the single largest problem with the human race. I'd speculate that someone who thinks learning how to better communicate won't help them at all is most likely unaware of history and also frequently failing to communicate effectively.

jonwiththewind 9y ago
Can't tell if this thread got meta or if this a perfect example of the original article's point to not use "you". Eradicatethots intention (I believe) was to say: "If I know [someone] is trying to manipulate me with some speaking strategy, it looks bad and fails."
- dahart 9y ago
  Great point, I did assume it was me and not someone. Maybe he's not as agitated as it seemed. But the article's point was to avoid personal attacks, not about pronoun confusion, right? If you're right, then I made the mistake. Yours is the better more generous benefit of the doubt assumption anyway, so in retrospect I prefer it. That said, I don't think it's fair to claim that avoiding personal attacks, and using language that helps people to be more optimistic is equivalent to manipulation that looks bad and fails. It's very, very hard to read @raganwald's blog post and take it as manipulative - did you check it out? You should! I still don't understand "I don’t think a guide [on communication] can help you if you feel like you need one." Did I mis-interpret that one too, is there also a better assumption here than the one I made?
  - jonwiththewind 9y ago
    I agree, the thoughtful and intentional use of language is important (read through raganwald's post and it is a good explanation of that). Seems cynical to me to think of conversing as a strategic game of manipulation. Didn't mean to agree with the previous poster – simply found it amusing that the idea of not needing to think about communication was immediately disproven by the statement being misinterpreted.