Do Successful Programmers Need to Be Introverted? | Hacker News Reader

Do Successful Programmers Need to Be Introverted?

pistoncloud.com

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How can anyone in this day and age seriously write an article like this, when programming is cooler than it ever was. Wherever I look related to tech nowadays, it's always a very social, well spoken and trimmed young man in his late twenties. All the Googles and Facebooks pride themselves on their laidback, social and party attitude. People don't IRC or use handles anymore, instead, it's linkedin and facebook, showing off your social standing.

If this was written ten years ago, I might understand, but now, clueless.

If anything, it's harder than ever to be an introvert.

"it's always a very social, well spoken and trimmed young man in his late twenties"

This does not means extrovert.

The real question is, after being social and well spoken, does he feels exhausted and ready for a nap?, or does he feels ready for a party? Introverts can be social and well spoken, but it cost them energy to do so; extroverts on the other hand, gain energy being social.

And neither has to do anything with being a good programmer. Correlation does not implies causality

I do agree that is unpopular as ever being an introvert, but then again it was not a choice to be one, it is just the way you were born wired

Is it necessarily a dichotomy? I gain energy from both:

1. Getting into "the zone" and coding for hours

2. Hanging out with a bunch of friends, playing jazz, chatting with members of the audience, etc.

Not at all. It is more black and white, where most people falls in one shade of gray or another, and there is a 50-50 mix too.

A detailed Myers-Briggs test will give you what percent are you on. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator, in particular "The test is scored by evaluating each answer in terms of what it reveals about the taker. Each question is relevant to one of the following cognitive learning styles. Each is not a polar opposite, but a gradual continuum."

I do believe though that there is no correlation with your quality as programmer. Being a good quality programmer is more related to the ability to sustain and simulate detailed abstract models in your mind... but that is a blog post on its own.

No, it's a continuum. Most people need both; introverts go stir crazy after a while and have to interact with people, and extroverts get tired and want a moment to themselves.

It's more what drains you faster, what can you handle an excess of more easily. I consider myself an introvert because I very quickly get tired of people and shut down; it takes a day or two of being on my own (or otherwise not interacting socially with others) before I begin to crave it.

Or put another way, as an introvert, solitude may recharge me, but once recharged I need to expend that energy (else I get depressed and antsy). When actually in social settings, I may at first blow through a good chunk of that energy by being amiable and outgoing, once I start getting low I tend to be judicious in how I expend it, as it drains at different rates (crushed in a crowd it drains very fast. Alone with a single friend, talking, eating, gaming, whatever, it drains very slowly).

Few if any people can handle days on end of either solitude or company without tiring of it and needing the other at least briefly.

I think the idea is more that following (2), introverts lose energy whilst extroverts gain energy. (1) doesn't really come into it. You are probably extroverted.

But no it isn't necessarily a dichotomy, rather a rough label of how someone responds to social situations. Their actual character will be much more complex :)

"All the Googles and Facebooks pride themselves on their laidback, social and party attitude."

Ugh. Great, now that such people invaded programming, where do the rest of us go? :D

'Googles and Facebooks' are only a subset of software.

That made me think, are there any IT workplace where programming is really considered a "team work", just like sport ? I sometimes felt like this with some coworkers, when we were under extreme pressure and someone needed help to fix some mess, or to design something complex, and frankly that's some of my best memories. But apart from that, doesn't it seem that software development is such a solitary activity that it can only push forward introverted behaviors ?

Pushing forward : imagine copying professional sport behavior : software teams would have some "training sessions" in the morning, where they craft technical algorithms together, just to practice. And "games" in the afternoon, where each people would complete its tasks in a very extrovert way, shouting "i'm done here, who needs help ?" with a dynamic voice, high fiving every 20 minutes whenever some minor milesstone has been achieved. You could even imagine people programming standing up instead of sitting behind a chair, to encourage physical motion. Has anyone heard of some workplace like that ?

I work at SMC, Italy. This is the way we want work to be done, and that’s the goal (sport-pun intended) every one of us has every morning. There are exceptions, both solitary peers and solitary periods, but that’s what they are: exceptions. This is the #1 reason I’m not going to easily leave this company.

A while ago, I did one of these horrific team training things with a large group of people I work with day to day.

We were asked to self assess whether we were introverts or extravert's, and then the group assessed each person by secret vote. There was very little match up between how people thought they were, and how everyone else saw them act.

Actually, a couple of the loudest, most aggressive, difficult people assessed themselves to be introverts. They were very proud of it, because they had read on the internet that it made them good programmers.

I wondered at the time, if the introvert/extrovert division is a real thing, then perhaps they were genuinely introverted, and worked badly with people because they were uncomfortable. Or perhaps they had always tended to be loners because they were not good at people, and had come to believe it was what they preferred.

The article is a bit off the mark. Teamwork is orthogonal to focus. Professional sports teams spend a significant amount of time learning how to drive out distractions and focus under high pressure. Wanting to focus does not make you introverted. It is important for high performance regardless of team size.

Again, practices like agile are orthogonal to introversion. Some of the most communication heavy projects I have worked on have been waterfall based.

Pair programming is team based work. The problem with it is the constant communication is distracting for everybody else in the office. This is easily fixed by having proper offices instead of an open floor plan.... but I've yet to work at such an amazing place.

Everyone thinks Jimmi Hendrix was great guitar player.

But, I think we are confusing focus with introvert. AS an example Jimmi practiced close 90% of waking hours daily and yet I do not think anyone that knew Jmmi would claim him as an introvert.

Introversion and Extroversion aren't about what you like or how you act in certain situations. It's what energizes and drains you.

After being in a crowd and around people are you energized (extroverted) or drained (introverted)? After being alone for a while are you energized (introverted) or drained (extroverted)?

And just about everyone will say "Depends, sometimes this sometimes that." because it's a sliding scale and varies throughout our lives.

ADDED: Many introverts are thought of as extroverts because they act outgoing, are public speakers, etc. We all act and adjust our outward appearance and actions based on our developed soft social skills. (Psst, you can be extroverted or introverted AND have good or bad social skills!)

I was just thinking that the one thing missing from the frontpage was a blog post about gender and diversity in tech. Because that's one topic that just can't be discussed to death.

I use to do Audio Engineering for about 3 years at around 20-60 hours a week. (My own studio)

Then I started meeting other engineers and guess what I wasn't like them personality wise and I got burned out.

My rule do something where you fit the personality of those successful. I am now a Pre-School teacher :)

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