this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Programming
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My thought is this: we often have to deal with people who are absolutely certain about a thing, that's... completely wrong. Disregarding the user's thoughts to fix the user's issue is quite common.
But that wouldn't explain all of it, because anyone in customer service deals with the same stuff, and they usually aren't that bad when they drop the customer service mask.
That may be part of it but I've also observed it among fellow programmers.
You give your opinion about something and your coworker has a smug, arrogant knee-jerk reaction based on some cargo-cult belief without actually thinking about the details of the problem. Then you need to walk them through why what you said is not what they meant step-by-step, and while it may be wrong it is still a valid opinion. If you succeed, they completely change and become cooperative, and you can have an actually useful discussion. But you have to be super patient, like when taming an irritated feral cat that wants to scratch you. If you're good, the cat becomes cuddly and cute.
This works but I'm extremely tired of having to perform this dance with 60% of the new coders I meet.
Man, that instantly reminded me of two people I know, one in webdesign and the other a professional programmer. It's a pain.
I mean, it's a scientific job, you have to prove your arguments... with that said they should help you to do so, if you feel them as arrogant, they are bad at their job....and since programming is a complex job, there are a lot of not so good people
You're right, they also have to prove their counterarguments, and those who don't do it are often bad programmers. But I've also experienced the same with some actually brilliant people.