[the_snooze]

I'm in the same boat. I want my computing tools to feel like a musical instrument: stable and predictable, very capable but requires skill and learning to use well, and serves me instead of drawing attention to itself. Let me get into a flow state and focus on the task at hand. Working in a terminal is that.

If UIs are constantly shifting or if there are popups telling you about a "cool" new feature, then that software feels less interested in serving the user and more serving its developers. I don't want the manic Silicon Valley hype-of-the-month when I have other more important things to do than fight with technology that's supposed to be helping me (and me exclusively).

[mystified5016]

A craftsman becomes a master largely by mastering his tools.

When your tools change every damn week because some faceless soulless middle manager wants a promotion, you can't master the damn tools.

I don't know how anyone is supposed to become a master at programming when the industry standard tooling requires waiting around for tooltips to show up because meaningless icons are "clean"

[godelski]

Not only that, but a master craftsman modifies their tools and builds their own.

But it's not even that tools change every week. When you look at things like VSCode it's hard to make your own. Is hard to shape into an environment for you and instead you should shape to it. I see this in a lot of tools and it's destructive. Everyone is different and there's nothing that can be made for everyone. So a good tool needs to be modifiable, so that people can turn it into the thing that works for them.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

It rings true, but on the other end of the fence is management class, who wants and prefers that coders are not craftsmen with custom tooling, but interchangeable gears that can swapped at moments notice. In a sense, they want the same modularity, but at the organization level.

[godelski]

You get what you pay for. Unfortunately it appears many are happy with shit and those that are unhappy are unwilling to pay for more. I'll admit, it can be quite difficult to differentiate shit and quality these days prior to purchase. But at a certain point I think you have to stand up to the management class and take pride in your work. It's their job to manage you but it is also your job to make the best product you can. It's becoming pretty clear a lot of tech has been filled with "yes men" and we're seeing the consequences of this. The bigger problem is that I think a lot of people don't even know they are yes men. Probably doesn't help that we build things that are so technical that the public isn't accurately able to distinguish quality from shit until they are able to feel the two side my side.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

I hear ya. In fact, I will go as far as to say that it is only more recent that I call out my direct manager, when what he says something that does not quite make sense ( and it does not help that he keeps changing his mind ) for one reason or another. I think it takes not just experience and confidence, but decent degree of political skills ( and I certainly do lack confidence and political talent ). Not to mention, I distinctly remember feeling ( way back when I first questioned stuff and got punished for it ) that it is just 'easier' to be a 'yes man'.

[godelski]

Yeah, I definitely do not think it is easy, but this is a thing that has been part of (at least) American culture for awhile but it seems we've been losing it. I personally think it is a big part of American success as we all know there are just things you can see "on the ground floor" that are hard to see from higher up. Hell, we even used to have the show Undercover Boss[0] haha. Obviously it is TV but I think anyone can reason through the truth of this.

I'm still working on how to do this right. But I think it is important that all parties recognize the pushback isn't about "us" but since we're on a team trying to make the best business possible. Part of why I struggle with this is 1) I just generally don't care about authority (maybe a bit too autistic lol) and 2) we're all wrong, so being wrong shouldn't really be seen as that bad of a thing. We're talking about pretty complex problems and we're only human with two eyes that must be in the same place at the same time, so it is pretty obvious that we're going to miss some stuff. It's about being less wrong, and if someone is giving you new information from a perspective you don't usually have access to, you sure want to check that it fits your current working model. If not, you're more wrong by not updating.

There's an information asymmetry here that makes things difficult, but a good manager will always listen to their employees BECAUSE they want to better the business. A good culture will allow "arguing" as everyone should be on the same team. As long as the "arguments" can end on good enough terms like everyone is willing to have a beer together at the end of the day. We get heated with our best friends and partners, right? Confrontation isn't destructive, it /can/ be very constructive. But the culture has to be right. Both management and employees need to be happy to share credit when success is made. This is definitely something even low level employees can do to help cultivate these good cultures. Management can do it by not just encouraging this but also watching to make sure it happens and do their best to make sure that success is properly allocated. Otherwise there's a natural incentive for "bad actors" to oversell their possible contributions. That's how you get "Loud Laborers." I think people think just because you're "a small cog in a giant machine" that this means you can have no impact. But the truth is that every cog is critical to the machine. It's just that the small cogs need to align and the problem is that a bad cog can upset the balance of everything. Success is unstable equilibrium.

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442553/

[devdri]

Totally agree that the constant churn of new tools which come and go makes adapting to them and truly mastering them feel pointless. But there’s also the well established old things which (according to Lindy’s Effect) will be there for a long time still - things like Vim, Emacs, efficiently using shell. Investing time in truly mastering them seems like a good long term bet.