The mind is a strange thing. It has so many coping mechanisms, as well as an ability to make itself blind to them. Sometimes you'll experience a flash of insight that makes you wonder how you could have missed it.
Think for a moment about something like a billboard. We ended up getting more of them back home. When it was novelty-new I heard the occasional gripe about the way the billboards cluttered up the view as people drove into town. Soon enough the discussions died down. A few short years later they barely register as I enter the town limits. Unless the message is really something eye-catching, it's like they're not even there. They've become visual static, noise that doesn't annoy or provoke brand awareness or an urge to purchase anything. Except perhaps the one that went up for the restaurant in a local casino, wherein the image the advertisers used is a waitress with looming 15-foot circumference boobs over the road. That does tend to draw the eye a bit more than something advertising a local bank with an awkward smile of a VP glaring at you in a creepy manner.
At work we have the honor of hearing all sorts of fire alarm tests. We've been hearing them for months. I'm not sure what they're testing for, but I do know that no one listens to them anymore. Just the other day I had my headphones on in my office when the garbled, staticky Peanuts-adult voice started belching from the speakers on the floor. At this point we just assume that unintelligible mess is a prelude to the wails of another alarm, and sure enough, the alarms go off. I don't think any employees pay attention anymore. Unless there is actual smoke and flames in sight, I'm pretty sure we're going to die from toxic gas buildup if there is an actual fire emergency. The constant annoying "tests" have made us immune to the alarm and announcements. It's static. Background noise.
What I'm trying to say is that when you get bombarded with similar stimuli all the time, the brain creates a kind of filter to make you numb to that stimuli. The only way to break through that awareness shield is to intentionally stop and analyze the situation, forcibly stripping the barriers your own brain put in place to protect you from overloading your senses with cruft and whatever is being sold on billboards.
How is this relevant to working in IT or programming? I have this theory that your brain makes certain assumptions based on experiences as to what should and shouldn't be filtered. You stop paying attention to the noise and instead look for the novel. Sometimes you experience the same problems enough that you learn to no longer pay attention to them, and in the process project them into the world at large. As if they learn and filter out the obvious as a source of problems. The obvious, though, is only obvious to you, and classified by your brain as a source of static to be selectively blinded from you.
This means that even though diagnosing a problem may be something elementary, because you have experienced it so many times that the repetition has made it the source of jokes, you may reach a point where you overlook the obvious because part of your brain tries jumping to the novel rather than the simple "most likely" cause. Sometimes you have to stop and reset your brain to see things from the beginning of the troubleshooting tree because it just doesn't want to check that the damn thing is plugged in.
Perspective. The best weapon against the brain's self-delusion coping mechanism.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
On The Importance of Vulnerability (And A Culture That Accepts It)
I came from a job that had several toxic aspects.
Of course if you talk to people running the system, they probably wouldn't see it that way. They may deny it. But in truth, there was always a series of elements that mixed together that seemed to undermine a person's confidence in themselves, in their abilities, and in their value as people.
It was an environment that, in some ways, crushed your soul.
Perhaps this is, to a degree, retrospective retconning. Perhaps this was all in my head. Perhaps I have a personality that actively seeks validation, and that job was one where I didn't get enough of it to feel as if I were needed in any valuable way. But this was...is...how I feel about that environment. I've found little evidence to dispute that perception.
But the purpose of this isn't to complain about the past. I bring it up to help segue into my present; a present where I was recently telling my manager that I still feel haunted by the feeling that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop or that I'm being set up for failure. These are feelings that I own up to and struggle with when I feel the urge to take the initiative on an issue or when I'm contemplating questions like, "Where do you want to go professionally in the coming months (or years?)"
That background contributed to my sense of awe when I came to work for my current employer, and the paradoxical feeling of inadequacy when in the presence of these professional giants. I mean, many of my new coworkers have companies on the side, or programming projects that are helping people in the real world outside the company. The head of the company travels the world giving speeches and can drive twitter traffic with a mere mention of a site. I work with smart people who have established popular credibility in the outside world, while my little blog is meaningless; the truth is that in all likelihood I could say horrible things while naming names and the people and businesses I talk about would probably never know it.
Of course the longer I work in this environment the more I see the cracks in my projected sainthood delusions I imposed on these people revealing the flawed human beings underneath. I'm not complaining. It's simply a matter of acclimating. And for someone with a severe inadequacy complex, it's also a relief.
Recently a coworker whom I hold in high esteem was shocked to learn that ports on Unix-like systems are treated differently, depending on the port number. See, due to outdated security models, ports below 1024 need root access if you want to bind to them. It's a legacy thing that is of little use today but still sticks around to act as an irritating hazing for new admins, I guess.
But the coworker, with a great number of years of experience under his belt as a programmer, didn't know that. And I was surprised to know that he didn't, as I kind of assumed...as people with imposter syndrome are wont to do...that he knew this.
Of course he knew that. I knew it. I didn't just know it, I knew it like "give a look of incredulity if any tech person asked me about it because they should already know this information" kind of know it. But he didn't know it. And he let people know he didn't know it, like it was a strange gem of trivia. He was all, "Hey, did you guys know this? That's weird!," waving this flag of not knowing like a child discovering gummy bears for the first time.
He was someone I had on a pedestal. Still do. He's very good at what he does. But for once I felt I knew something that could be useful to one of these people. I try to contribute every day in some way; sometimes I feel I succeed, other times I don't. Sometimes I feel like I just can't. Being on the low end of the usefulness totem pole is a rough headspace to be in.
The point is that it's good to have people who are good at what they do screw up sometimes, and it's good to show that it's okay to not know something. It's good to show a vulnerability. Because maybe they, in a way, are leaders. Or examples. Other people hold them in esteem. And sometimes if they're on too high of a pedestal it feels to these admirers that their idols are unreachable; they aren't human so much as the embodiment of an unreachable ideal. Seeing their human side (and working in a company culture that accepts and embraces those flaws) means that yes, you can aspire to be more like them and perhaps become skilled like them.
You know...if I may nerd out for a few moments...there are people who look up to Superman. They aspire to live to his ideals, the embodiment of what is good in people. But no one thinks they could ever be Superman. He's not human. He's basically a god. A big, bulletproof god that is apparently doing well for himself financially despite working for a newspaper in this economy.
But Batman...you could, technically, train yourself for years to reach the pinnacle of physical fitness and become something close to Batman. There's a fraction of a percent of a chance that you'd do it. But in the back of your mind you know he's a regular human with no superpowers that can kick just about any bad guy's ass using a combination of intellect, skill and physical training. You can't train yourself to be a sun-absorbing alien able to lift trains, but you could become the peak-of-human-limits athlete in an armored suit.
When you are in a position where someone may look up to you as a mentor figure, it's good to be more a Batman and less a Superman.
Of course if you talk to people running the system, they probably wouldn't see it that way. They may deny it. But in truth, there was always a series of elements that mixed together that seemed to undermine a person's confidence in themselves, in their abilities, and in their value as people.
It was an environment that, in some ways, crushed your soul.
Perhaps this is, to a degree, retrospective retconning. Perhaps this was all in my head. Perhaps I have a personality that actively seeks validation, and that job was one where I didn't get enough of it to feel as if I were needed in any valuable way. But this was...is...how I feel about that environment. I've found little evidence to dispute that perception.
But the purpose of this isn't to complain about the past. I bring it up to help segue into my present; a present where I was recently telling my manager that I still feel haunted by the feeling that I am waiting for the other shoe to drop or that I'm being set up for failure. These are feelings that I own up to and struggle with when I feel the urge to take the initiative on an issue or when I'm contemplating questions like, "Where do you want to go professionally in the coming months (or years?)"
That background contributed to my sense of awe when I came to work for my current employer, and the paradoxical feeling of inadequacy when in the presence of these professional giants. I mean, many of my new coworkers have companies on the side, or programming projects that are helping people in the real world outside the company. The head of the company travels the world giving speeches and can drive twitter traffic with a mere mention of a site. I work with smart people who have established popular credibility in the outside world, while my little blog is meaningless; the truth is that in all likelihood I could say horrible things while naming names and the people and businesses I talk about would probably never know it.
Of course the longer I work in this environment the more I see the cracks in my projected sainthood delusions I imposed on these people revealing the flawed human beings underneath. I'm not complaining. It's simply a matter of acclimating. And for someone with a severe inadequacy complex, it's also a relief.
Recently a coworker whom I hold in high esteem was shocked to learn that ports on Unix-like systems are treated differently, depending on the port number. See, due to outdated security models, ports below 1024 need root access if you want to bind to them. It's a legacy thing that is of little use today but still sticks around to act as an irritating hazing for new admins, I guess.
But the coworker, with a great number of years of experience under his belt as a programmer, didn't know that. And I was surprised to know that he didn't, as I kind of assumed...as people with imposter syndrome are wont to do...that he knew this.
Of course he knew that. I knew it. I didn't just know it, I knew it like "give a look of incredulity if any tech person asked me about it because they should already know this information" kind of know it. But he didn't know it. And he let people know he didn't know it, like it was a strange gem of trivia. He was all, "Hey, did you guys know this? That's weird!," waving this flag of not knowing like a child discovering gummy bears for the first time.
He was someone I had on a pedestal. Still do. He's very good at what he does. But for once I felt I knew something that could be useful to one of these people. I try to contribute every day in some way; sometimes I feel I succeed, other times I don't. Sometimes I feel like I just can't. Being on the low end of the usefulness totem pole is a rough headspace to be in.
The point is that it's good to have people who are good at what they do screw up sometimes, and it's good to show that it's okay to not know something. It's good to show a vulnerability. Because maybe they, in a way, are leaders. Or examples. Other people hold them in esteem. And sometimes if they're on too high of a pedestal it feels to these admirers that their idols are unreachable; they aren't human so much as the embodiment of an unreachable ideal. Seeing their human side (and working in a company culture that accepts and embraces those flaws) means that yes, you can aspire to be more like them and perhaps become skilled like them.
You know...if I may nerd out for a few moments...there are people who look up to Superman. They aspire to live to his ideals, the embodiment of what is good in people. But no one thinks they could ever be Superman. He's not human. He's basically a god. A big, bulletproof god that is apparently doing well for himself financially despite working for a newspaper in this economy.
But Batman...you could, technically, train yourself for years to reach the pinnacle of physical fitness and become something close to Batman. There's a fraction of a percent of a chance that you'd do it. But in the back of your mind you know he's a regular human with no superpowers that can kick just about any bad guy's ass using a combination of intellect, skill and physical training. You can't train yourself to be a sun-absorbing alien able to lift trains, but you could become the peak-of-human-limits athlete in an armored suit.
When you are in a position where someone may look up to you as a mentor figure, it's good to be more a Batman and less a Superman.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Does Stack Overflow Not Teach People to Fish?
Disclosure: I work for Stack Exchange, but this is my own blog, my own statements, my own opinion, and is in no way an official company view. If the company has an official stance they would put it on their own blog outlets using writeups from people with far better writing skills. For some inexplicable reason they let me have my own opinions to fling into the Internet like a money throwing poop balls at the zoo. As far as I know no one I work with is even reading this blog.
Michael Richter wrote a blog post criticizing Stack Overflow, in part, for giving fish to users instead of teaching them to fish. From his blog post:
Mr. Richter's primary complaint in this regard is that people are asking for specific answers to specific problems in terms of "Give me teh codez!" instead of receiving instruction on how or why a solution works (or is more or less proper). Indeed, I believe his post is saying that the point system used to gamify Stack Overflow actually encourages the quick shotgunning of a pithy "here's teh codez" response to a question.
In other words, "Here's the fish. You don't need to know how to get them yourself."
There are perhaps several aspects of Stack Overflow (and the Stack Exchange network) that can encourage that kind of succinct answer. Many users have bemoaned the points awarded for being the first to submit a working reply to a user's question. But in thinking about it, are users asking how or why something works in the first place, or are they asking how to solve a particular problem they're encountering as they're working on a project?
I think that it's more the latter. When a user runs into a roadblock, they turn to Stack Overflow to find a solution. They're focused on the problem at hand, not the learning behind it. Not unless someone tries to engage them in steering towards a better way of doing things, and if it doesn't answer the question or encroaches on engaging in a discussion, there is a risk of flags being thrown.
They're not coming to SO to learn as much as they're coming to have a problem solved.
Is this the most beneficial approach?
I frequently find myself thinking to one of my favorite quotes from Star Trek II; Kirk says to Saavik, "You have to learn why things work on a starship." To better master the craft...the art...of programming, you should understand why the "right" way is the "right" way. I suppose it's the difference between a cook and a chef.
I think not all programmers want to be chefs.
Learning how and why things work isn't something that can be done quickly or in easy to digest chunks, not when you have a project that has to be completed in a reasonable timeframe. A question and answer site is not necessarily the best framework for learning the kind of knowledge that comes from a virtual apprenticeship.
There are resources for the kind of learning that gives you understanding more than a packaged answer. There are websites like Codecademy to teach programming. There are bloggers who post information on various quirks in a programming language. There are books on the philosophy of programming and application design.
And if there were specific questions about these resources, questions that elaborate or clarify what one of these resources is trying to teach, I'm sure that Stack Overflow (or the Programmer's site) would be willing to answer.
In other words, Stack Overflow can teach you to fish, if you ask how to fish instead of for the fish. Perhaps the complaint that SO is full of people handing out direct, contextless answers is more a reflection of what the community wants rather than what the site can give.
In most cases just getting the answer is enough to fix a roadblock someone encounters, and SO is a great resource. When a programmer is interested in learning why things work, there are other resources, and they need to take the time to dive in and investigate the puzzle.
No one will volunteer to mentor you. It just doesn't seem to happen.
There were times when I ran into issues during my project. In one case I was opening a text file and reading lines in to add to an array. It contained a logic bug; while the input "<> nothing" apparently choked on an empty line in the middle of the file, so it would stop reading input partway through without warning. I had to change the test condition so that it would look for the end-of-file mark. The examples I found for working with text files had the former (how else would I have hit upon that syntax?) in the code samples.
In retrospect testing for the end of file makes more sense than testing for "nothing." But then again, it was working. Or it seemed to be working. What the hell does .NET consider "nothing?" Where is this appropriate as a use case?
At the time I didn't think much of it. I was working against my self-imposed deadline and I wanted to fix this bug. At some point I might revisit this seemingly non-useful "nothing" used in my file test to find out what the language actually considers "nothing."
This is probably a silly example. At the time I didn't think anything of it, and now I'm probably overthinking it. But sometimes the things we think are inconsequential or have trivial answers are actually misguided. The thing is this isn't the only weird thing that I hit along the way, and the fact that other people were using this particular syntax in their coding examples means that others could hit the same glitch I did.
Sometime I should ask about the problem on Stack Overflow. Or I should troll around searching for some clarification. I'll have to invest time, actual learning time, into understanding what happens.
But for now, I fixed the initial bug. Sometimes that's good enough.
Michael Richter wrote a blog post criticizing Stack Overflow, in part, for giving fish to users instead of teaching them to fish. From his blog post:
I'm not a Java programmer. I've only ever briefly programmed in Java professionally. I hated the experience and I hate the language. I certainly don't consider myself a Java expert. Yet I managed to get the bulk of my points from Java. How is this possible?I thought this was timely, given that I was working on a sample project for the past month or so, and finding myself having to learn (or re-learn) several bits and pieces of the programming language I was using.
It's possible because I did what many of the people whose questions I answered (and got points for) should have done for themselves: I saw a simple Java question, hit Google, read briefly, then synthesized an original answer.
Mr. Richter's primary complaint in this regard is that people are asking for specific answers to specific problems in terms of "Give me teh codez!" instead of receiving instruction on how or why a solution works (or is more or less proper). Indeed, I believe his post is saying that the point system used to gamify Stack Overflow actually encourages the quick shotgunning of a pithy "here's teh codez" response to a question.
In other words, "Here's the fish. You don't need to know how to get them yourself."
There are perhaps several aspects of Stack Overflow (and the Stack Exchange network) that can encourage that kind of succinct answer. Many users have bemoaned the points awarded for being the first to submit a working reply to a user's question. But in thinking about it, are users asking how or why something works in the first place, or are they asking how to solve a particular problem they're encountering as they're working on a project?
I think that it's more the latter. When a user runs into a roadblock, they turn to Stack Overflow to find a solution. They're focused on the problem at hand, not the learning behind it. Not unless someone tries to engage them in steering towards a better way of doing things, and if it doesn't answer the question or encroaches on engaging in a discussion, there is a risk of flags being thrown.
They're not coming to SO to learn as much as they're coming to have a problem solved.
Is this the most beneficial approach?
I frequently find myself thinking to one of my favorite quotes from Star Trek II; Kirk says to Saavik, "You have to learn why things work on a starship." To better master the craft...the art...of programming, you should understand why the "right" way is the "right" way. I suppose it's the difference between a cook and a chef.
I think not all programmers want to be chefs.
Learning how and why things work isn't something that can be done quickly or in easy to digest chunks, not when you have a project that has to be completed in a reasonable timeframe. A question and answer site is not necessarily the best framework for learning the kind of knowledge that comes from a virtual apprenticeship.
There are resources for the kind of learning that gives you understanding more than a packaged answer. There are websites like Codecademy to teach programming. There are bloggers who post information on various quirks in a programming language. There are books on the philosophy of programming and application design.
And if there were specific questions about these resources, questions that elaborate or clarify what one of these resources is trying to teach, I'm sure that Stack Overflow (or the Programmer's site) would be willing to answer.
In other words, Stack Overflow can teach you to fish, if you ask how to fish instead of for the fish. Perhaps the complaint that SO is full of people handing out direct, contextless answers is more a reflection of what the community wants rather than what the site can give.
In most cases just getting the answer is enough to fix a roadblock someone encounters, and SO is a great resource. When a programmer is interested in learning why things work, there are other resources, and they need to take the time to dive in and investigate the puzzle.
No one will volunteer to mentor you. It just doesn't seem to happen.
There were times when I ran into issues during my project. In one case I was opening a text file and reading lines in to add to an array. It contained a logic bug; while the input "<> nothing" apparently choked on an empty line in the middle of the file, so it would stop reading input partway through without warning. I had to change the test condition so that it would look for the end-of-file mark. The examples I found for working with text files had the former (how else would I have hit upon that syntax?) in the code samples.
In retrospect testing for the end of file makes more sense than testing for "nothing." But then again, it was working. Or it seemed to be working. What the hell does .NET consider "nothing?" Where is this appropriate as a use case?
At the time I didn't think much of it. I was working against my self-imposed deadline and I wanted to fix this bug. At some point I might revisit this seemingly non-useful "nothing" used in my file test to find out what the language actually considers "nothing."
This is probably a silly example. At the time I didn't think anything of it, and now I'm probably overthinking it. But sometimes the things we think are inconsequential or have trivial answers are actually misguided. The thing is this isn't the only weird thing that I hit along the way, and the fact that other people were using this particular syntax in their coding examples means that others could hit the same glitch I did.
Sometime I should ask about the problem on Stack Overflow. Or I should troll around searching for some clarification. I'll have to invest time, actual learning time, into understanding what happens.
But for now, I fixed the initial bug. Sometimes that's good enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)