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Why Your Programmers Just Want to Code

posted by martyb on Monday December 04 2017, @05:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-easier-to-deal-with-computers-than-with-people dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

The Do's and Don't's of Managing Programmers:

Why are some programmers such jerks?

Too many managers believe the problem lies with [the disgruntled programmer]. If he was a better employee, dedicated worker, or at least cared more, then this wouldn't happen. Right?

Unfortunately, no.

The first suggestions matter a lot
How you handle ideas from new programmers sends an important signal. Good or bad, it sets the stage for what they expect. This determines if they share more ideas in the future... or keep their mouth shut.

Sure, some ideas might not be feasible in your environment. Some might get put on the back burner to be discussed "when we're not busy". Some ideas seem great, but they run against unspoken cultural norms.

No matter what the reason, dismissing or devaluing your programmer's ideas — especially in the first few months — is a bad move.

Damaged by all the naysaying, he'll try a few more times to present his ideas differently, aiming for a successful outcome. If he continues to feel punished, though, he'll realize that the only way to win is not to play.

Which is exactly what you don't want your programmers learning.

He will stop presenting ideas, asking to meet customers, and genuinely trying to understand the business.

Ultimately, it's a lose lose.

If you want programmers to become mere code monkeys, treat them like code monkeys.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @06:40PM (#605184)

    70% sociopaths, 15% psychopaths, 14% narcissists 1% people that have at least minimal value proceed acordingly

  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday December 04 2017, @10:02PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Monday December 04 2017, @10:02PM (#605337) Journal

    Humans are a bit more complicated than that, Troll. Quoth Steinbeck:

    Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.