Is positive feedback (other than possibly yearly appraisals) not useful? I don't think the point is to replace compensation with pats-on-the-back, but rather,

Is positive feedback (other than possibly yearly appraisals) not useful? I don't think the point is to replace compensation with pats-on-the-back, but rather, get in the habit of personally recognizing the positives. Too often it's only the negatives that are recognized, and though most of it is probably on the technical side of things ("hey, we found a bug you wrote that crashed prod"), there's still very little in the way of positive encouragement or reinforcement coming from a human. Of course, some will respond better to it than others, but I think it's a worthy practice. Too often, especially in stressful atmospheres, only the negatives are spotlighted, and this can hurt morale over time.