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I dislike the mentality that one must "struggle" to be patient with new devs and that it's "more than they deserve." Is it really so hard to help other people

I dislike the mentality that one must "struggle" to be patient with new devs and that it's "more than they deserve." Is it really so hard to help other people learn, and to accept that the only advantage you have on them is starting earlier?

ericlippert 7y ago
I take your point, but let's be fair. My attitude was "this code is bad and I'm going to demonstrate my skill by improving it" when it should have been "please teach me what design and implementation concerns went into the choice of algorithm here". I was lucky to get a gentle and thoughtful correction for my presumptions.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  It's great that you saw that you had a bad attitude and reflected on it. But ignorant arrogance is a personality trait some people have sometimes, not a new grad trait.
- nocman 7y ago
  Kudos to you first for recognizing your own error and second for openly admitting it. I think there many things to consider here. For new developers, I'd encourage you to look for those "old guys" who really know their stuff. There's a lot of unmined gold you can discover there if you find the right ones. I think us older developers would do well to imitate the patience and kindness of Tim Paterson more often. I guess what I'm saying is both sides could do with a huge dose of humility. I know at times I've been the youthful dev out to one-up the "old guys", and I've been the senior dev thinking "these kids today" to myself when dealing with those with a lot less experience. And both of those are bad. Also, there are many times when a young guy fresh out of college spots a problem, finds a great solution, and makes things ten times better by just doing it! If you're in the business for a long time, it can become too easy to be cynical, and lose your enthusiasm. I think the best thing we can do is try to let the good stuff from both sides rub off on each other.
pjmlp 7y ago
Learn on their own they must.
mbrameld 7y ago
> Is it really so hard to help other people learn, and to accept that the only advantage you have on them is starting earlier? If only the world were that black-and-white. It took me a long time to realize the habits I learned from my father in this area were toxic. Not everybody got the same upbringing you did, it sounds like yours was more advantageous than mine in that respect.
king_magic 7y ago
Except it is a struggle. It's often a struggle to get newer devs to stop wasting time, it's often a struggle to get them to focus on the problem you're trying to solve instead of the new library all the cool kids are using, etc. I agree with the "more than they deserve" mentality, but let's be honest here: it's a struggle. We've all been through it as new devs, and we'll all help new devs struggle through it as well.
- hhjinks 7y ago
  I've worked with juniors who always scope creep their very simple introductory tasks. Something as simple as "add these two fields to the existing API response" suddenly turns into "change the method signature of 90% of existing methods because DTOs make code lines shorter".
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    New team members also notice the mess veterans made by feature creeping "add two more fields" to a 100 field monstrosity that is a usability and security nightmare, but no one can improve it because the lead engineer got promoted for building v1 and refuses constructive criticism.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  I've seen in with senior devs too. "architecture astronauts" and "principal engineers" interfering with solving problems. Why drag an unnecessary distracting stereotype into the conversation?

ericlippert 7y ago

I take your point, but let's be fair. My attitude was "this code is bad and I'm going to demonstrate my skill by improving it" when it should have been "please teach me what design and implementation concerns went into the choice of algorithm here". I was lucky to get a gentle and thoughtful correction for my presumptions.

lonelappde 7y ago
It's great that you saw that you had a bad attitude and reflected on it. But ignorant arrogance is a personality trait some people have sometimes, not a new grad trait.
nocman 7y ago
Kudos to you first for recognizing your own error and second for openly admitting it. I think there many things to consider here. For new developers, I'd encourage you to look for those "old guys" who really know their stuff. There's a lot of unmined gold you can discover there if you find the right ones. I think us older developers would do well to imitate the patience and kindness of Tim Paterson more often. I guess what I'm saying is both sides could do with a huge dose of humility. I know at times I've been the youthful dev out to one-up the "old guys", and I've been the senior dev thinking "these kids today" to myself when dealing with those with a lot less experience. And both of those are bad. Also, there are many times when a young guy fresh out of college spots a problem, finds a great solution, and makes things ten times better by just doing it! If you're in the business for a long time, it can become too easy to be cynical, and lose your enthusiasm. I think the best thing we can do is try to let the good stuff from both sides rub off on each other.

pjmlp 7y ago

Learn on their own they must.

mbrameld 7y ago

> Is it really so hard to help other people learn, and to accept that the only advantage you have on them is starting earlier? If only the world were that black-and-white. It took me a long time to realize the habits I learned from my father in this area were toxic. Not everybody got the same upbringing you did, it sounds like yours was more advantageous than mine in that respect.

king_magic 7y ago

Except it is a struggle. It's often a struggle to get newer devs to stop wasting time, it's often a struggle to get them to focus on the problem you're trying to solve instead of the new library all the cool kids are using, etc. I agree with the "more than they deserve" mentality, but let's be honest here: it's a struggle. We've all been through it as new devs, and we'll all help new devs struggle through it as well.

hhjinks 7y ago
I've worked with juniors who always scope creep their very simple introductory tasks. Something as simple as "add these two fields to the existing API response" suddenly turns into "change the method signature of 90% of existing methods because DTOs make code lines shorter".
- lonelappde 7y ago
  New team members also notice the mess veterans made by feature creeping "add two more fields" to a 100 field monstrosity that is a usability and security nightmare, but no one can improve it because the lead engineer got promoted for building v1 and refuses constructive criticism.
lonelappde 7y ago
I've seen in with senior devs too. "architecture astronauts" and "principal engineers" interfering with solving problems. Why drag an unnecessary distracting stereotype into the conversation?