Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 9:45 UTC (Tue) by niner (guest, #26151)
In reply to: Sharp: Closing a door by pizza
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

Here you claim that working with thicker-skinned folkes gives you a far, far more productive team, while just a couple postings above you are looking forward to leaving the industry, because of the hostile environments, you yourself choose to be in.

Doesn't this contradiction strike you as glaringly obvious? Have you considered, that maybe working with more sensitive people would create less hostile environments, that you and others could actually enjoy working in?

From personal experience, I can tell you, that software development can be a field that's fun and rewarding. And yes, that's true even if done as a profession in a corporate environment. It is quite possible to keep very high quality standards in code reviews without ever attacking the person and quite contrary, while being appreciative of a person's efforts. All it takes really is good examples. We don't have to teach newcomers on the team how to do that. They just pick it up.

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Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 12:58 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> Doesn't this contradiction strike you as glaringly obvious? Have you considered, that maybe working with more sensitive people would create less hostile environments, that you and others could actually enjoy working in?

Not at all, because having thick skin does not mean that you're an asshole or somehow difficult to work with.

It's no different than the truism for network programming -- be as liberal as possible in what you accept, but be as conservative as possible in what you put out.

> From personal experience, I can tell you, that software development can be a field that's fun and rewarding.

My experience agrees that it *can be* fun and rewarding. But poor management will ruin anything.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 7:46 UTC (Wed) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]

> It's no different than the truism for network programming -- be as liberal as possible in what you accept, but be as conservative as possible in what you put out.

Which is kind of bad analogy because this truism for network programming proved itself to be a recipe for a network made of crappy devices where problems are never fixed. Or maybe it's actually really good analogy... If you're liberal in accepting crap from others, they will never improve and the environment will remain toxic. So yes, I agree with you, but that not in the way you anticipated :)