Comment by steve8918 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steve8918 | Hacker News Reader

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I get what he's saying, but I think he answered it himself, when he questioned if he was being overly dramatic. He is being really over-dramatic.

I would love to hear about any occupation where the negatives aren't run into in a similar way that he describes programming.

That being said, the one thing that I dislike about programmers in general is that I think we believe we sound smarter if we figure out ways how an idea won't work. It's annoying when you come up with a new idea, and all you hear is a litany of reasons why it won't work.

The most important lesson I learned was soon after I had moved to the Valley, and I gave a suggestion to one of the senior engineers. Instead of shooting it down immediately like others loved doing, he simply said something like "Okay, I'm not sold on it but give it a shot." I had been prepared for a lengthy argument over why my idea was good, and I was taken aback at his immediate open-mindedness. It's something I've taken to heart since then.

The mindset between engineers looking at new ideas and resolving old ones are different. A good engineer with foresight can see when an idea or proposal is good but at the same time he's thinking of the challenges it poses. I know I do this daily and the linked post is actually pretty hard hitting for me.

When I was looking for new work everywhere I applied I looked at how beneficial it was for me but that was always balanced with questions about how it will shape my career and if it will take me to a place I want to see myself in 5 years or will it put me 5 years behind my ultimate career goals? No matter what company or person I talked to I managed to find the reasons why it might not be beneficial to me.

I spoke with my girlfriend a lot during this search. At one point she got fed up with me and said to "shut up and stop being so negative". It sort of offended me because in a sense I didn't feel that I was being negative but rather "just looking at it from all angles". The coder mindset reaches into our daily lives where we start weighing the pros and cons of every decision to figure if it is worth the effort instead of just enjoying things.

Of course, I may not be typical. I live in an area with very few hackers and engineers so its hard to compare myself outside of these forums.

I like this point. In one company I was told a couple of times that things I suggested couldn't be done. I got a raise by going off and making a proof of concept that it could be done.

With that said, identifying challenges that need to be overcome ahead of time can be a useful step in planning as long as its not always seen as a reason to do a full stop on thinking about the concept.

I'm not sure that specifying how things won't work is done to appear superior rather than giving feedback. There probably isn't enough time in a day to try everything and if you can save some time by pointing out why something won't work off the bat it's probably a good thing. As with everything though, it kind of comes down to how you communicate that something won't work.

It also comes down to being right about it. It's often much easier to write something off ("that won't work"), than to accurately assess the reasons why it may not work, and possibly be part of modifying it so that it will. That difference is also subtle (just as subtle as the presentation in many cases), but also very important.

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