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Comment by not_knuth | Hacker News Reader

While I can agree with some of the points made while gritting my teeth, the way this is written somehow puts me off.

It feels as though the author has taken an authoritive, slightly condescending stance towards his readers. The message it sends is that the author is out to invalidate his readers, judge them, not take their hand and teach them. I assume the intention was otherwise, but it is not presented as such.

It reeks of a junior with strong opinions rather than an old software jedi that intends to teach us the mastery of the art.

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No matter who gives this observation, the presentation will always have a patronizing tone.

It’s really the discussion here on HN that’s curing it, which is fine. Someone had to get us the meat before we could cook it. There’s a lot of consensus here and good counter points that aren’t all damning (half it can be chalked up to inexperience, or effort vs value debates, eg TDD, impressionable developers, etc).

I think this starts with the title, "Signs of an Immature Software Developer". This immediately puts the reader on the defensive, because nobody wants to be called or considered immature. If a junior developer were to read this and see some of their own mistakes, I think they would be unlikely to be in the right frame of mind to take the feedback onboard and try to address it. The article doesn't appear to be following its own advice, to hone your communication skills. I would suggest having a(nother) read of How to Win Friends and Influence People. A better title might be "5 Growth Areas for Junior Developers", with a corresponding flipping in phrasing of the subheadings (e.g. "Being a Tech Zealot" -> "Being Pragmatic", "Lack of Team Focus" -> "Team Focus").

It does have a whiff of ego in the style. It's already odd to have a 'company' domain show 'My Blog' on the home page.

Even to call the signs 'immature' isn't helpful, as it implies that a dev is not as mature as they 'should' be. An illustrative quote is "Immaturity is something that comes with age." Junior would be a more fitting description, as that's only referring to their current progress rather than a judgement.

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