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Good article. I have seen this situation weaponized in many corporate environments, not only by engineers, but also by business and legal people: "Oh, you don'

Good article. I have seen this situation weaponized in many corporate environments, not only by engineers, but also by business and legal people: "Oh, you don't know about X?" to shut down a contrarian opinion. Rather than explaining X, it is used to socially shame the other (typically honest and sincere) person into silence. As a senior developer one of the most important things you can do, once you have credibility, is to say out loud when you don't understand something. This allows more junior engineers to admit this as well, and helps control system complexity in the face of a conspiracy of the imposter syndrome.

smitty1e 5y ago
There was some turning point where one realizes that "If I'm the only one who gets this joke, it's not funny." At that point, we can mature from knowledge acquisition to knowledge transmission.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> As a senior developer one of the most important things you can do, once you have credibility, is to say out loud when you don't understand something. Yeah. Sometimes when I say I don't know or don't understand, I'm talking for others, not just for myself. But I have the standing or the self-confidence (or both) to admit that I don't know something without feeling bad about myself.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
For me it is approachability and not intimidating by how much coding you do outside of work. I felt like was gonna be fired every day cause my lead would do some crazy shit on his free time with JS, css, and math. I think maybe coding stuff should only be shown off if it's relevant to what's going on or for help. You can tell me all day you don't know something, but when you shows off advanced mathematic calculations using raw JavaScript to draw dynamic maps for a game you made as a "side project," I'm always gonna think you take your job too seriously. The best lead codes because they're paid. They don't care about the hardcore "best practices" stuff because it really does not matter. Understanding how to do the job does.
ozim 5y ago
I don't think it is a good article. I think it is way too long for presenting a simple concept of gate keeping. What is adding to the damage is coming up with portmanteau "Poelitism" which makes me think that author tries to be forcibly clever. Check out this: Poelitism is when you believe everyone had the same path of experience you had when learning the same area of expertise. Compare with: Gate keeping is when you believe everyone had the same path of experience you had when learning the same area of expertise. Well those kind of sentences, as cited below, are off-putting as it also seems like author is trying to be clever, while making x, y, z as broad statements it just makes it unclear. Would be a lot better if he would present specific example. However, even if it's ultimately true that you have to learn "z" instead of "x", that's not a helpful statement. You can't distinguish if it's right or wrong from the merits of the argument alone.

smitty1e 5y ago

There was some turning point where one realizes that "If I'm the only one who gets this joke, it's not funny." At that point, we can mature from knowledge acquisition to knowledge transmission.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> As a senior developer one of the most important things you can do, once you have credibility, is to say out loud when you don't understand something. Yeah. Sometimes when I say I don't know or don't understand, I'm talking for others, not just for myself. But I have the standing or the self-confidence (or both) to admit that I don't know something without feeling bad about myself.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

For me it is approachability and not intimidating by how much coding you do outside of work. I felt like was gonna be fired every day cause my lead would do some crazy shit on his free time with JS, css, and math. I think maybe coding stuff should only be shown off if it's relevant to what's going on or for help. You can tell me all day you don't know something, but when you shows off advanced mathematic calculations using raw JavaScript to draw dynamic maps for a game you made as a "side project," I'm always gonna think you take your job too seriously. The best lead codes because they're paid. They don't care about the hardcore "best practices" stuff because it really does not matter. Understanding how to do the job does.

ozim 5y ago

I don't think it is a good article. I think it is way too long for presenting a simple concept of gate keeping. What is adding to the damage is coming up with portmanteau "Poelitism" which makes me think that author tries to be forcibly clever. Check out this: Poelitism is when you believe everyone had the same path of experience you had when learning the same area of expertise. Compare with: Gate keeping is when you believe everyone had the same path of experience you had when learning the same area of expertise. Well those kind of sentences, as cited below, are off-putting as it also seems like author is trying to be clever, while making x, y, z as broad statements it just makes it unclear. Would be a lot better if he would present specific example. However, even if it's ultimately true that you have to learn "z" instead of "x", that's not a helpful statement. You can't distinguish if it's right or wrong from the merits of the argument alone.