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"When you say you are good at something, that's arrogant." Learned that the hard way. When I was young (college in the 90s), I had a Software Development clas

"When you say you are good at something, that's arrogant." Learned that the hard way. When I was young (college in the 90s), I had a Software Development class. We formed small teams and created a piece of software in a waterfall methodology.[1] Why I thought I was so great: I had taken independent study in high school to learn algorithms and data structures to take the Computer Science AB(now discontinued) AP test (covers recursive algorithms and dynamically allocated data structures, in Pascal at the time) and got a 5 out of 5. So when we got together to discuss who would work on what, and we needed to code our own data structures in C/C++ for the project, I was excited and said "I'm the master!" of that. There was an older member of the team (who even developed and sold his own software product, a program to print booklets, for DOS already) who later in the meeting made a very sarcastic reference to me being the "master" of that and it really stung. [1] Looks like they still have it. They added github, UML, and user stories. C S 371 https://pixl.nmsu.edu/files/2017/05/syllabus-SDev-2017-1-V10.pdf https://pixl.nmsu.edu/files/2017/05/syllabus-SDev-2017-1-V10... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Computer_Science#AP_Computer_Science_AB_(discontinued) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Computer_Science#AP_Compute...

xfan009 6y ago
I have to question why someone with that level of seniority would need to be in a software development class. Generally my experience with people who are demonstrably successful is that they are not insecure like you described. Is it possible they were bluffing?
- drivers99 6y ago
  I think he was just going back to get his degree. I should say that it was just a shareware product he had developed that I was talking about. I don't remember what he had done for a living up to that point.
- dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
  Software development classes are mandatory for some courses, and it is not that uncommon to find some already-not-so-green programmers in them. Some are just looking for the certification at the end of their programme. > Generally my experience with people who are demonstrably successful is that they are not insecure like you described. Is it really insecurity? Teasing someone about their previous arrogance when they're actually a beginner is one of the better forms of putting-down IMO. Teaches 'pride cometh before fall' and all that. And a group project is a quite informal space to do that in.
  - dgb23 6y ago
    I agree. As colleagues/collaborators it is almost a responsibility to keep each other in check like this. As long as it is skillfully applied and empathic. Sprinkling a bit of humor on top can help too (for both sides).
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  In the old days there was actually quite a few companies that was created and run by people with very little programming experience but a lot of business sense. In about 1995 I worked for a company that had sold their business system to companies like Eriksson and Dell. But the codebase was about 5 million codes of CBasic, copy and paste programming and GOTOs everywhere. It all started in a guys basement in early eighties. It all started to crumble around the time I was there, because porting that old DOS system to Windows just wasn't possible. And a ew batches of thousand of tons of steel had got lost for big a customer in our inventory management system... Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that just because someone had developed a successful (in making money) product doesn't mean they are actually good at programming.
katzgrau 6y ago
When you're new to CS, you're excited and kind of have that Dunning Kruger effect of not knowing how much of a noob you really are. I think all of us who have gotten to the senior level were there at some point. And when we see the same noobishness in young people just getting started, especially if they're making the assertion that they know much more than they actually do, you can't help but playfully put that attitude in check. I've done/said similar things to junior members on my team, always in jest, but only because I know where their head is at and that I've been there too. I hire attitude and well, they're ready to go from day 1. And of course, the more they learn going forward, the more they realize the extent of their former bravado. Hopefully the guy referring to you as the master was constructive and congenial overall.
danans 6y ago
You were probably more excited that you were arrogant, but your choice of words "I'm the master" implied an attitude that your abilities were unsurpassed, to which anyone would be incredulous. It was probably that perceived attitude of arrogance that the others were reacting to, not your actual skills as they were. To claim mastery to a group of people who have no prior experience with you seems like a result of misreading the social environment. Whether that misreading is borne of arrogance or naivety is a separate thing. Software development classes are themselves more about learning how to socially coordinate people to complete a project with ambiguous requirements, which depends far more on social and situational awareness than raw skill in a particular technical area. So if your takeaway years later was learning how to better communicate your abilities with a team of people, perhaps you learned exactly what was intended by that class.

xfan009 6y ago

I have to question why someone with that level of seniority would need to be in a software development class. Generally my experience with people who are demonstrably successful is that they are not insecure like you described. Is it possible they were bluffing?

drivers99 6y ago
I think he was just going back to get his degree. I should say that it was just a shareware product he had developed that I was talking about. I don't remember what he had done for a living up to that point.
dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
Software development classes are mandatory for some courses, and it is not that uncommon to find some already-not-so-green programmers in them. Some are just looking for the certification at the end of their programme. > Generally my experience with people who are demonstrably successful is that they are not insecure like you described. Is it really insecurity? Teasing someone about their previous arrogance when they're actually a beginner is one of the better forms of putting-down IMO. Teaches 'pride cometh before fall' and all that. And a group project is a quite informal space to do that in.
- dgb23 6y ago
  I agree. As colleagues/collaborators it is almost a responsibility to keep each other in check like this. As long as it is skillfully applied and empathic. Sprinkling a bit of humor on top can help too (for both sides).
Ma8ee 6y ago
In the old days there was actually quite a few companies that was created and run by people with very little programming experience but a lot of business sense. In about 1995 I worked for a company that had sold their business system to companies like Eriksson and Dell. But the codebase was about 5 million codes of CBasic, copy and paste programming and GOTOs everywhere. It all started in a guys basement in early eighties. It all started to crumble around the time I was there, because porting that old DOS system to Windows just wasn't possible. And a ew batches of thousand of tons of steel had got lost for big a customer in our inventory management system... Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that just because someone had developed a successful (in making money) product doesn't mean they are actually good at programming.

katzgrau 6y ago

When you're new to CS, you're excited and kind of have that Dunning Kruger effect of not knowing how much of a noob you really are. I think all of us who have gotten to the senior level were there at some point. And when we see the same noobishness in young people just getting started, especially if they're making the assertion that they know much more than they actually do, you can't help but playfully put that attitude in check. I've done/said similar things to junior members on my team, always in jest, but only because I know where their head is at and that I've been there too. I hire attitude and well, they're ready to go from day 1. And of course, the more they learn going forward, the more they realize the extent of their former bravado. Hopefully the guy referring to you as the master was constructive and congenial overall.

danans 6y ago

You were probably more excited that you were arrogant, but your choice of words "I'm the master" implied an attitude that your abilities were unsurpassed, to which anyone would be incredulous. It was probably that perceived attitude of arrogance that the others were reacting to, not your actual skills as they were. To claim mastery to a group of people who have no prior experience with you seems like a result of misreading the social environment. Whether that misreading is borne of arrogance or naivety is a separate thing. Software development classes are themselves more about learning how to socially coordinate people to complete a project with ambiguous requirements, which depends far more on social and situational awareness than raw skill in a particular technical area. So if your takeaway years later was learning how to better communicate your abilities with a team of people, perhaps you learned exactly what was intended by that class.