Three Rules for Developers

Ever since I was young, I am now an older man, I have experienced repeat detrimental and common behavioral patterns among programmers and at tech companies in general. Here I would like to outline my observations, in the form of three simple points, in hopes that it might help some developers and tech companies improve their work evironment:

1) You don't need to validate yourself by diminishing others. If you are criticizing operational code then you are doing this. If you are gossiping about others then you are doing this.

2) Clinging to a particular style of coding, a particular methodology, or worse a particular technology/tool doesn't make you a good programmer. The value of what you create is what makes you a good programmer. Keep your mind on getting work done. At the end of the day take pride in what you have done.

3) When doing performance evaluations of developers remember that the nature of our work makes it very hard to do fair evaluations. If you are not consciously trying your best to judge fairly then you are probably not judging fairly at all. This goes for judging peers and subordinates alike.

I'd like to believe that if these things are taken to heart then development environments can be fun again. For the past 15 years I've noticed that development environments have gone from fun and creative environments to competitive and toxic environments full of bias and different forms of pride, chauvinism, and prejudice. I hope we get back to our fun-loving, collaborative roots.