5 ms·

Maybe some people take to programming like a fish to water, but plenty of others struggled at first. Knowing when to give up is important, but part of that is k

Maybe some people take to programming like a fish to water, but plenty of others struggled at first. Knowing when to give up is important, but part of that is knowing when not to give up. That is a complicated and individual question; an ignorant gatekeeper who discourages anyone who's not immediately successful isn't helping here.

mjburgess 5y ago
The gordon-ramsey (army coach, sports coach, theatre director, ballet director...) school of "encouragement" prescribes the opposite. That is: if you arent passionate enough to overcome discouragement, you arent passionate enough to excel. Of course, we dont need excellent programmers en-mass. However, it is interesting to observe that this "egotistic troupe leader" is a fairly common form of small-group excellence-seeking human organization -- and appears to work. It gets more-and-more common when looking at how the best "troupe-sized" groups in the world are organized. I'd be interested in research on this area.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Well, it also has a lot to do with whether or not you want good teams, or good individuals. The "Marine Bootcamp" methodology is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, and is how we make good teams. Teams are how we make awesome stuff, but individuals are how we conceptualize awesome stuff. I've found that the best products come from hybrids of the two.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    I think this is a really helpful remark. If you look at where this works, the team simply needs to execute -- largely not think creatively. I can see, then, why this is a comparatively rare form of organisation in programming teams. I wonder if there's room for it in programming training. Imagine being drilled to produce the same algorithm in a variety of languages over-and-over. Would this be useful? (I use to drill myself in writing dynamic dispatch MVC frameworks as a teenager; I could produce a whole framework and app in a 1hr technical interview -- is this useful? I dont know). I raise this because I've become increasingly interested in rationalising the Ramsey-esq autocrat, as its always been a part of myself I have been most self-critical of; because I am at once very sensitive to upsetting people but also "brutally attentive" to their (and my own) failure. I have recently been asking myself: is this brutality actually useful? How much? Does it really require the humiliation a Ramsey or drill-sarg engages in? Recent western cultural mores are aimed at ameliorating ego-injuries. Is there value in causing ego-injuries? Is there value in humiliation? Clearly there is -- it works in some cases. Its a weird question to ask though: our culture is so preoccupied with preventing ego-injury... it seems immoral and absurd to suggest causing them.
    - pm90 5y ago
      I don’t think there is value in humiliation. I feel like it will attract a certain kind of personality. Maybe you want that in a group of Marines who make life and death decisions. Most programming jobs luckily don’t involve those kinds of choices (the exceptions may be medical devices, manned rocket software etc). Importantly you are discouraging a whole bunch of folks who might have much to contribute but have been chased away by the distasteful practices in the industry.
- headmelted 5y ago
  So I’ve thought about this in the years since. Here’s the thing though: the person in question was already struggling, as a new person in an office of people with experience, without assistance from their manager. For their boss to tell them some variant of “you’re not cut out for this” in that vulnerable of a position when you have no frame of reference (and when it’s from the same manager that was supposed to have been helping you) is wildly different to hearing that from an impartial peer.
- closeparen 5y ago
  In several of those contexts, quitting is going to be even more painful than perseverance (in terms of both social shame and punishment). You don’t need to worry about alienating captives.

mjburgess 5y ago

The gordon-ramsey (army coach, sports coach, theatre director, ballet director...) school of "encouragement" prescribes the opposite. That is: if you arent passionate enough to overcome discouragement, you arent passionate enough to excel. Of course, we dont need excellent programmers en-mass. However, it is interesting to observe that this "egotistic troupe leader" is a fairly common form of small-group excellence-seeking human organization -- and appears to work. It gets more-and-more common when looking at how the best "troupe-sized" groups in the world are organized. I'd be interested in research on this area.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Well, it also has a lot to do with whether or not you want good teams, or good individuals. The "Marine Bootcamp" methodology is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, and is how we make good teams. Teams are how we make awesome stuff, but individuals are how we conceptualize awesome stuff. I've found that the best products come from hybrids of the two.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  I think this is a really helpful remark. If you look at where this works, the team simply needs to execute -- largely not think creatively. I can see, then, why this is a comparatively rare form of organisation in programming teams. I wonder if there's room for it in programming training. Imagine being drilled to produce the same algorithm in a variety of languages over-and-over. Would this be useful? (I use to drill myself in writing dynamic dispatch MVC frameworks as a teenager; I could produce a whole framework and app in a 1hr technical interview -- is this useful? I dont know). I raise this because I've become increasingly interested in rationalising the Ramsey-esq autocrat, as its always been a part of myself I have been most self-critical of; because I am at once very sensitive to upsetting people but also "brutally attentive" to their (and my own) failure. I have recently been asking myself: is this brutality actually useful? How much? Does it really require the humiliation a Ramsey or drill-sarg engages in? Recent western cultural mores are aimed at ameliorating ego-injuries. Is there value in causing ego-injuries? Is there value in humiliation? Clearly there is -- it works in some cases. Its a weird question to ask though: our culture is so preoccupied with preventing ego-injury... it seems immoral and absurd to suggest causing them.
  - pm90 5y ago
    I don’t think there is value in humiliation. I feel like it will attract a certain kind of personality. Maybe you want that in a group of Marines who make life and death decisions. Most programming jobs luckily don’t involve those kinds of choices (the exceptions may be medical devices, manned rocket software etc). Importantly you are discouraging a whole bunch of folks who might have much to contribute but have been chased away by the distasteful practices in the industry.
headmelted 5y ago
So I’ve thought about this in the years since. Here’s the thing though: the person in question was already struggling, as a new person in an office of people with experience, without assistance from their manager. For their boss to tell them some variant of “you’re not cut out for this” in that vulnerable of a position when you have no frame of reference (and when it’s from the same manager that was supposed to have been helping you) is wildly different to hearing that from an impartial peer.
closeparen 5y ago
In several of those contexts, quitting is going to be even more painful than perseverance (in terms of both social shame and punishment). You don’t need to worry about alienating captives.