4 ms·

Consider the following three approaches of communicating that you are good at iOS development: 1) You write interesting blog posts about iOS development and di

Consider the following three approaches of communicating that you are good at iOS development: 1) You write interesting blog posts about iOS development and discuss it with other people working on related projects. 2) You write apps and open-source them or publish them and their utility yields lots of great reviews. 3) You write some mediocre apps, but you make sure to tell people stories about how good you are at iOS development, and you network your way to a piece in every tech blog to advertise your apps. The difference between 1, 2, and 3 is that your actions in #1 and #2 are actually evidence that you really are good at iOS development, whereas your actions in #3 are not evidence of anything! Nobody with a healthy sense of skepticism "knows" that you are good at something because you make a point to tell them about it, because it doesn't take any skill (in that thing) to do the telling. Someone is supposed to know because you do it and you did a good job and your work helps other people. This apparently sensible approach would work even better if everyone else in the world were not screaming from the rooftops how good they were. The code blog author writing useful advice is great. That same blog author submitting all his posts to Hacker News contributes nothing more to his greatness.

tobtoh 15y ago
> The code blog author writing useful advice is great. That same blog author submitting all his posts to Hacker News contributes nothing more to his greatness. Submitting his blog to HN is part of communicating - and - spreading his advice to an even wider audience. And it's these sort of people who develop a following, influence and success. You seem to be under some misguided belief that technical excellence is mutually exclusive to communication skills. On the contrary, what the other posters have been saying to your post is that you need both to be truly successful - they are both important and both need development. A marketer who has nothing worthwhile to market is no better than a technical person who can't communicate his achievements.
- fragmede 15y ago
  > A marketer who has nothing worthwhile to market is no better than a technical person who can't communicate his achievements. I disagree; working code speaks for itself. The real point is that the marketer and technical person are complementary.
  - tobtoh 15y ago
    Code only speaks for itself to other coders. If all you seek is to mix with other programmers or work on a small self-contained project that is purely code based, then that is fine (I say this in a non-derogatory manner). But most things in life are not self-contained - you have to mix and interact with people who are not subject matter experts - and with no communication skills, or a belief that 'people should recognise good code when they see it', you'll never go as far as you could if you had accepted that self-promotion is a necessary part of interacting with others.
    - exit 15y ago
      he specifically said working code. the software actualized by code DOES speak for itself to anyone capable of using it. self promotion is bullshit.
      - tobtoh 15y ago
        To a degree yes it does. But an inability to self-promote will, in most cases, limit your influence/reach. Good example is Chrome/Safari/Firefox/IE - they all do roughly the same things, for most people, there is little difference between them. Google realises the need to self-promote ... they just released their 'Dear Sophie' ad pitched at a wider audience than just the tech community. > the software actualized by code DOES speak for itself to anyone capable of using it. And this is the point that one of the parent posters made - this attitude of 'people should be able to tell how brilliant my code/software is' is really arrogant (the parent posters words, not mine). Your customers/users will almost never be more knowledgable about your software than you are - so by not self-promoting, you will actually be losing customers/influence/users because they will pass on your products if they don't understand the benefit to them. This applies to the most brilliant of customers to the dumbest.
        exit 15y ago
        any yet the self-promotion of browsers has NOTHING to do with their quality! ms did a great job of self promoting ie and it's a piece of shit. firefox gained a huge market share because the actual experience of the code is brilliant, not because of any self promotion. all self promotion does is add a layer of noise over figuring out what to use. that is the ONLY reason google advertises chrome - because all the marketing scum out there has made it necessary.
codyrobbins 15y ago
First of all, this is a false dichotomy—you’re presenting an example with two fantastic iOS developers who don’t self-promote and one mediocre one who does. In reality, it’s probably more likely the fantastic iOS developers who self-promotes gets noticed over the fantastic iOS developers who doesn’t self-promote. Ignoring your rhetorical feint, though, I think it’s completely reasonable to say that—by definition—you cannot be a fantastic iOS developer if you produce things that nobody knows about or uses. I would call the mediocre apps that get usage the product of a superior developer than the good ones that don’t. Software that exists in a vacuum with relatively little adoption is more or less useless. (At least, if we’re talking about a consumer-focused platform like iOS.) It doesn’t matter how elegant your apps are if no one uses them.
- rayiner 15y ago
  When you take away the dichotomy, his point still stands: Mediocre iOS developer who doesn't self promote versus mediocre iOS developer who does. Since 90% of everyone is mediocre, a culture that encourages self promotion just fills the world with crap.
  - codyrobbins 15y ago
    The word mediocre is subjective and this just devolves into an ontological or semantic argument surrounding the meaning of mediocre. What’s mediocre to you may very well not be to lots and lots of other people. Or—if you prefer—in the form of an aphorism: ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’
aik 15y ago
I think Robert Greene has some interesting things to say about this ("48 Laws of Power" for example). (I hope I'm properly representing some of his thoughts here) Clearly #1 and #2 are ideal. Clearly #3 is not (however there can be a healthy and superior balance between #1/#2 and #3). But clearly #3 exists, just as #1 and #2, and WILL ALWAYS EXIST. Power can be achieved through any of the 3 means, and it's up to each individual to choose their own path. What "geeks" (among many others) tend to do is close their eyes to the fact that this power struggle exists, and decide to not play any game at all. This leads to an endless frustration and mounds of material for whining. Note: I believe it is very unfortunate that most marketing exists and how ubiquitous it is.
- mquander 15y ago
  I agree with this. You can buy in or bow out, but the game isn't going away.

tobtoh 15y ago

> The code blog author writing useful advice is great. That same blog author submitting all his posts to Hacker News contributes nothing more to his greatness. Submitting his blog to HN is part of communicating - and - spreading his advice to an even wider audience. And it's these sort of people who develop a following, influence and success. You seem to be under some misguided belief that technical excellence is mutually exclusive to communication skills. On the contrary, what the other posters have been saying to your post is that you need both to be truly successful - they are both important and both need development. A marketer who has nothing worthwhile to market is no better than a technical person who can't communicate his achievements.

fragmede 15y ago
> A marketer who has nothing worthwhile to market is no better than a technical person who can't communicate his achievements. I disagree; working code speaks for itself. The real point is that the marketer and technical person are complementary.
- tobtoh 15y ago
  Code only speaks for itself to other coders. If all you seek is to mix with other programmers or work on a small self-contained project that is purely code based, then that is fine (I say this in a non-derogatory manner). But most things in life are not self-contained - you have to mix and interact with people who are not subject matter experts - and with no communication skills, or a belief that 'people should recognise good code when they see it', you'll never go as far as you could if you had accepted that self-promotion is a necessary part of interacting with others.
  - exit 15y ago
    he specifically said working code. the software actualized by code DOES speak for itself to anyone capable of using it. self promotion is bullshit.
    - tobtoh 15y ago
      To a degree yes it does. But an inability to self-promote will, in most cases, limit your influence/reach. Good example is Chrome/Safari/Firefox/IE - they all do roughly the same things, for most people, there is little difference between them. Google realises the need to self-promote ... they just released their 'Dear Sophie' ad pitched at a wider audience than just the tech community. > the software actualized by code DOES speak for itself to anyone capable of using it. And this is the point that one of the parent posters made - this attitude of 'people should be able to tell how brilliant my code/software is' is really arrogant (the parent posters words, not mine). Your customers/users will almost never be more knowledgable about your software than you are - so by not self-promoting, you will actually be losing customers/influence/users because they will pass on your products if they don't understand the benefit to them. This applies to the most brilliant of customers to the dumbest.
      - exit 15y ago
        any yet the self-promotion of browsers has NOTHING to do with their quality! ms did a great job of self promoting ie and it's a piece of shit. firefox gained a huge market share because the actual experience of the code is brilliant, not because of any self promotion. all self promotion does is add a layer of noise over figuring out what to use. that is the ONLY reason google advertises chrome - because all the marketing scum out there has made it necessary.

codyrobbins 15y ago

First of all, this is a false dichotomy—you’re presenting an example with two fantastic iOS developers who don’t self-promote and one mediocre one who does. In reality, it’s probably more likely the fantastic iOS developers who self-promotes gets noticed over the fantastic iOS developers who doesn’t self-promote. Ignoring your rhetorical feint, though, I think it’s completely reasonable to say that—by definition—you cannot be a fantastic iOS developer if you produce things that nobody knows about or uses. I would call the mediocre apps that get usage the product of a superior developer than the good ones that don’t. Software that exists in a vacuum with relatively little adoption is more or less useless. (At least, if we’re talking about a consumer-focused platform like iOS.) It doesn’t matter how elegant your apps are if no one uses them.

rayiner 15y ago
When you take away the dichotomy, his point still stands: Mediocre iOS developer who doesn't self promote versus mediocre iOS developer who does. Since 90% of everyone is mediocre, a culture that encourages self promotion just fills the world with crap.
- codyrobbins 15y ago
  The word mediocre is subjective and this just devolves into an ontological or semantic argument surrounding the meaning of mediocre. What’s mediocre to you may very well not be to lots and lots of other people. Or—if you prefer—in the form of an aphorism: ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’

aik 15y ago

I think Robert Greene has some interesting things to say about this ("48 Laws of Power" for example). (I hope I'm properly representing some of his thoughts here) Clearly #1 and #2 are ideal. Clearly #3 is not (however there can be a healthy and superior balance between #1/#2 and #3). But clearly #3 exists, just as #1 and #2, and WILL ALWAYS EXIST. Power can be achieved through any of the 3 means, and it's up to each individual to choose their own path. What "geeks" (among many others) tend to do is close their eyes to the fact that this power struggle exists, and decide to not play any game at all. This leads to an endless frustration and mounds of material for whining. Note: I believe it is very unfortunate that most marketing exists and how ubiquitous it is.

mquander 15y ago
I agree with this. You can buy in or bow out, but the game isn't going away.