4 ms·

> This is why star performers at one company, turn out to be duds in another and vice versa in my experience this is nonsense. a good developer will be able t

> This is why star performers at one company, turn out to be duds in another and vice versa in my experience this is nonsense. a good developer will be able to produce anywhere except the most fucked up of workplaces. if they can't, then they're not good. in fact, this is a moot point, because good developers don't stick around to try to produce work in fucked up companies. and a bad developer is going to suck no matter what. it's not a question of finding the magical company for him to magically become good at.

UK-AL 12y ago
Having personally been in this position, i'd say your wrong. I've been close to being fired at some companies, and others promoted within months. Mainly because of the different culture. I'm happy for it, finding a good company or position with the same values is really nice.
- beachstartup 12y ago
  um, your point doesn't logically refute mine. in response, i would posit that maybe you're not as good as you think you are.
  - UK-AL 12y ago
    I don't see the world as flat out, good or bad programmers. So I don't see myself as a good programmer or a bad programmer. It is highly dependent on what skills you ask me to use. I will gladly admit i am not good at lots of things in software. But I know what i am good at. Don't ask me to build slick User Interfaces for example, but I can build a reliable distrubuted fault tolerant backend if you want. I'd imagine Linus might not be that good at building slick angular apps, but you don't judge him on that. I care about being able to thrive in my role, doing good productive quality work, and getting well compensated for that. I am not ego maniac how likes to think he is awesome 1% programmer. I have realistic ideas of what i am good at, and try to find positions that use them.
  - rifung 12y ago
    It's honestly a shock to me that instead of trying to be more open minded you accuse the person of being "not as good as [he/she] thinks [he/she] is"; let's try our best to remain civil here please. In any case, I believe you two just have a misunderstanding. It sound as if you believe a "good" developer is one who is consistently capable of producing quality work, whereas the person you are responding to considers a "good" developer to be one who is capable of producing quality work. In my experience most people also share the second definition but that's besides the point. I can't imagine it's hard for you to believe that if we consider someone is "good" if they are capable then being good has nothing to do with their level of motivation which is directly affected by their workplace. That being the case, obviously any developer will produce to varying degrees depending on how well they fit with their company, or probably more accurately their team. "in fact, this is a moot point, because good developers don't stick around to try to produce work in fucked up companies." Why? There isn't some discrete separation of good companies and "fucked up" companies. There are good companies, bad companies, and companies of all levels between. And even in companies there are good and bad teams. Just because a great developer doesn't perform on one team doesn't mean it's the team's fault; it could just be a poor match.
    - beachstartup 12y ago
      you are not going to convince me to change my definition of 'good developer' away from > one who is consistently capable of producing quality work if you disagree with that, i don't even know how to respond. for what it's worth, i never considered myself a very good developer. i was not capable of consistently producing good work. that's part of the reason i co-founded a startup and do a lot more than development now. i don't see how this is so shocking for me to suggest. most people aren't that great at things.
      - UK-AL 12y ago
        I believe your developer does not exist. I've never met a developer consistently good at everything in development. Development is so vast. You can be doing embedded systems, mainframes, aircraft software, or web software.
      - 12y ago
_delirium 12y ago
In my experience this isn't the case at all. There might be some developers who are good everywhere, but most excel in a subset of all possible roles/cultures. For example compare the environment of a "ship it now" web startup to that of an engineering company focused on safety and product support cycles. Some people can do well in both, but many programmers used to one environment will be frustrated and less effective in the other one, at least without quite some time to adjust.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
How many different kinds of environments have you been in.

UK-AL 12y ago

Having personally been in this position, i'd say your wrong. I've been close to being fired at some companies, and others promoted within months. Mainly because of the different culture. I'm happy for it, finding a good company or position with the same values is really nice.

beachstartup 12y ago
um, your point doesn't logically refute mine. in response, i would posit that maybe you're not as good as you think you are.
- UK-AL 12y ago
  I don't see the world as flat out, good or bad programmers. So I don't see myself as a good programmer or a bad programmer. It is highly dependent on what skills you ask me to use. I will gladly admit i am not good at lots of things in software. But I know what i am good at. Don't ask me to build slick User Interfaces for example, but I can build a reliable distrubuted fault tolerant backend if you want. I'd imagine Linus might not be that good at building slick angular apps, but you don't judge him on that. I care about being able to thrive in my role, doing good productive quality work, and getting well compensated for that. I am not ego maniac how likes to think he is awesome 1% programmer. I have realistic ideas of what i am good at, and try to find positions that use them.
- rifung 12y ago
  It's honestly a shock to me that instead of trying to be more open minded you accuse the person of being "not as good as [he/she] thinks [he/she] is"; let's try our best to remain civil here please. In any case, I believe you two just have a misunderstanding. It sound as if you believe a "good" developer is one who is consistently capable of producing quality work, whereas the person you are responding to considers a "good" developer to be one who is capable of producing quality work. In my experience most people also share the second definition but that's besides the point. I can't imagine it's hard for you to believe that if we consider someone is "good" if they are capable then being good has nothing to do with their level of motivation which is directly affected by their workplace. That being the case, obviously any developer will produce to varying degrees depending on how well they fit with their company, or probably more accurately their team. "in fact, this is a moot point, because good developers don't stick around to try to produce work in fucked up companies." Why? There isn't some discrete separation of good companies and "fucked up" companies. There are good companies, bad companies, and companies of all levels between. And even in companies there are good and bad teams. Just because a great developer doesn't perform on one team doesn't mean it's the team's fault; it could just be a poor match.
  - beachstartup 12y ago
    you are not going to convince me to change my definition of 'good developer' away from > one who is consistently capable of producing quality work if you disagree with that, i don't even know how to respond. for what it's worth, i never considered myself a very good developer. i was not capable of consistently producing good work. that's part of the reason i co-founded a startup and do a lot more than development now. i don't see how this is so shocking for me to suggest. most people aren't that great at things.
    - UK-AL 12y ago
      I believe your developer does not exist. I've never met a developer consistently good at everything in development. Development is so vast. You can be doing embedded systems, mainframes, aircraft software, or web software.
    - 12y ago

_delirium 12y ago

In my experience this isn't the case at all. There might be some developers who are good everywhere, but most excel in a subset of all possible roles/cultures. For example compare the environment of a "ship it now" web startup to that of an engineering company focused on safety and product support cycles. Some people can do well in both, but many programmers used to one environment will be frustrated and less effective in the other one, at least without quite some time to adjust.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

How many different kinds of environments have you been in.