It seems very strange to write that something might be too positive. However, I began to notice that many software development problems can arise from people who are too positive or in love with their work. Let me explain.
Burnout
Isn't it strange that a lot of young people feel burned out after just a few years of work? I often meet people who have had a breakdown after just one or two years. I have experienced burnout myself (even twice). The first time I had to take a break for six months. The second time, which happened quite recently, it took me a full year before I could return to programming.
I've talked a lot with non-tech people this year, and I noticed one thing: we don't really complain about our work. We complain about poor management and bad designs, but not the coding itself. We take burning with our work for granted. Are you surprised? Check out vacancies. Love for work is often one of the prerequisites. We are expected to love our work, moreover, that we will make programming the center of our universe.
But what about people who don't like coding but still do their job well? Try telling your coworkers or on Twitter that you are one of them and you will be immediately branded as a bad developer. However, is it really so? People who do their job and do something else after work can be amazing programmers too. Not everyone has to come home and work on hobby projects, write blog posts, record YouTube videos about coding, and read books about programming.
I was one of those people who try to work all their free time. For years, I felt guilty for not spending all of my time pursuing some kind of imagined productivity. Guess where this led me?
New shiny toys
Another aspect in relation to which the negative is perceived with hostility is the attitude towards new trends created by companies of the FAANG level. Try saying something against SOA or Docker. Try suggesting a more mature and mature language or SSR. This is analogous to a situation with a passion for work. People will instantly claim that you are a bad developer because you are "hindering progress."
Not everyone has thousands of microservices like Uber, and not every company needs K8S. However, it is difficult to resist the general enthusiasm, or at least not pretend that you share it. How many organizations failed to migrate to React or Angular? As a result, they got a codebase, split into old "bad" code that works, and new code that developers are trying to get to work.
This recent article shows the reality of many organizations: I Almost Got Fired for Choosing React in Our Enterprise App
Best Practices
When I was a tech lead, I often heard the phrase "because this is good practice." Then I started asking questions and noticed that the person who said this did not fully understand the solution. It was my litmus test for knowing when to dig deeper.
Which of these “universal” best practices are not really universal? DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) is often mentioned in the same sentence as KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), although they are often mutually exclusive practices. Simple means no optional abstractions, but starting with DRY code right away leads to premature abstractions.
Personally, I use the 3X rule :
« . , . , , .
…
— ,
— , , ». — Coding Horror
Of course, I do not consider this to be an absolute truth. Rather, it is a rule of thumb than good practice. But even here we face the same problem. People who dare to suggest using a singleton or any other hated anti-pattern are perceived as not very good developers.
Summarize
The expectation that the identity of real software developers, hackers and geeks should be determined by their profession is like an RPG. Your specialization defines you forever, and once you have chosen your path, there is no turning back.
We developers are expected to love programming. But why? The truth is simple: it's good for employers. How many horror stories have we heard from gamedev? Nevertheless, many young people dream of working in the gaming industry, although after a few years they will be replaced by a new shoot of naive youth.
We need to stop thinking that people have to “love” to code and make the right work-life balance the standard for the tech industry. We need people to be more open to share their opinions, even if they contradict the hype.
Don't get me wrong - I really love being a software developer and I love programming. However, I'm no longer sure if I want it to be the center of my universe.
I want to try something different and that's perfectly fine.
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