[lhnz]

This 'brilliant technologist that is impossible to work with' mythos needs to die. The majority of us are normal people and don't deserve to be stereotyped in this way.

A broader, more liberal education isn't a waste, but I don't think that such a thing would lead anybody to call out nerds for social deficiencies while singing one's own praises. If it does, then yes, that is a shocking waste of an education.

Not being able to see this and trying to throw people under the bus with unfair stereotypes in order to get ahead is just as bad as having strong hard skills but being devoid of empathy. (It is practically a mirror image: having strong soft skills but being devoid of empathy.)

[rosser]

You're misconstruing my position. Yes, the rockstar asshole is rare, but I've worked with enough of them to know how destructive they are to the morale of the team. I was also once tasked with rewriting years of a rockstar asshole's code in months because said rockstar asshole left in a huff over not being treated the way he wanted, and no-one else had ever touched his deliberately impenetrable code. (All function and variable names were one or two letters, &c. But up until that point, he was just so productive, the employer put up with his behavior, and ignored the turnover on the rest of the team — which, miraculously, changed dramatically after he left. Go figure.)

So I'll freely own that I may have a small chip there. But at the same time, while the plural of anecdote isn't data, an existence proof is an existence proof.

[lhnz]

I don't think we disagree but I do think you're absolving the sins of social assholes because of the sins of asocial assholes.

I've met rockstar asshole programmer's before, but I think it is overblown -- I do not think there are as many as everybody thinks there are. Far more often I've met great engineers that were well-rounded, kind and decent people. And yet the myth persists...

[rosser]

I'm not absolving anyone of anything, and I'm curious what I might have said to suggest I am. I've met far more, as you say, "social assholes", and been thrown under buses by them far more often than by technical folk, of whatever caliber socialization they had to offer.

[lhnz]

  > I'm not absolving anyone of anything,
  > and I'm curious what I might have said
  > to suggest I am.

The whole 'hard and soft skills in tech' conversation depends on uncritically swallowing the belief that technically-minded people are naturally less empathetic.

This perspective is utilised by people that want to raise their own position in relation.

I'm not suggesting you're purposefully letting people off the hook -- I guess the term 'absolving' made it seem conscious. What I'm saying is that people in tech are normal, and so the whole conversation about bringing empathy and other soft skills into tech is fundamentally disrespectful and abusive, and that people are doing this for selfish reasons.

Honestly, to me, the whole conversation about people in tech feels corrupted by ridiculous caricatures: 'The Tech Bro', 'The Socially Unaware Autist', 'The Rockstar Asshole', etc. This isn't a normal state of affairs: it's an effect of the constant tech tabloid media cycles. We're basically left with a mess of unreflective stereotypes that distort everything they touch.

[quotemstr]

Absolutely right. Tech people have always been soft targets: just look at the awful nerdface of The Big Bang Theory. Most tech people are, in reality, just ordinary people doing what they love. While of course there are programmers who embody the "brilliant asshole" stereotype, there are managers who embody the Patrick Bateman and Bill Lumbergh stereotypes.

Let's agree to just treat people as people and stop with this idea, implicit the whole conversation, that we need to value people who aren't technical more because they automatically possess skills that these technical nerds lack.

[rosser]

> The whole 'hard and soft skills in tech' conversation depends on uncritically swallowing the belief that technically-minded people are naturally less empathetic.

Well, sure. If that's a premise you bring to the discussion, your position makes sense. And to the extent it is, I reject it (as a generalization), too.

It's also, however, the first I've ever heard of its being a premise to the discussion, so I hope you'll understand why I wasn't discussing this as if it were.