There are many metrics for which folks rank various programmers. You've likely seen these metrics manifest themselves in competition sites, commits to projects, productivity, turn-around of code, and good ol' gut feelings. We do it to ourselves and others. We compare our work against our peers and folks that we admire. But that can lead us to make comparisons that aren't objective or based on all of the data. I can compare myself against folks who do low-level programming and find that I don't measure up in that realm; never mind that I haven't done a whole lot of low-level programming. Or I can compare myself against folks who were mentored by programmers whose names are legendary in the field. Unfortunately I will likely find gaps between my knowledge and their knowledge. Comparisons like this tend to be unhelpful and lead us into punishing ourselves for not being the other person. We look at our projects and our history and find that we're not the other person, nor could we ever be the other person.
The major problem with ranking programmers (or really anything for that matter) is that ranking systems are based on one set of criteria. There is no real standard for ranking programmers. Sites that rank programmers based on the number of problems they've solved have only determined that there are a set of programmers who really enjoy solving these sorts of problems and will spend the time to do so. It tells us little about the programmer's abilities. Or we can look at how many lines of code a programmer used in order to solve a problem, or how "clean" the solution is (clean being another nebulous term). We can look at the Big O notation of the code that a programmer generates or how well the code adapts to various circumstances. Very little of this tells us anything about the programmer themselves. What it does tell us is that the programmer has had experiences that lead them to that particular solution. It tells us that the programmer has seen these sorts of problems before and has thought deeply about how to make them better. We learn that the programmer has devoted time and energy to practice these sorts of problems. What it doesn't tell us is an overall measurement of the programmer's skills or abilities. It's similar to the apocryphal tale of a brilliant professor. This professor was an absolute genius in his field and was one of the go-to people for answers about his subject. But despite his brilliance he was unable to understand how to change a tire on a car. Does that mean the professor was not as brilliant as folks claimed him to be? Hardly. It just meant that the professor had spent more time in his profession than he had changing tires. The same is true for programmers. If a programmer spends most of their time solving a particular set of problems they will eventually become skilled at those sorts of problems. But if they struggle with a different sort of problem it doesn't discount their overall skills; it just points out an area that they might want to work on.
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+## Measuring programmer output
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+There's also a tendency to measure programmer productivity via how many commits the programmer can make to a project. In an era of social coding sites like Github / Gitlab we can easily look at what other coders are committing and feel that we're somehow not measuring up. And unlike certain measurements of old (lines of code, which measures how many lines of code a programmer adds to a program) we can see the quality of their commits to a project. It can be daunting seeing a lot of quality work done by our peers.
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+This too can be a source of frustration and feelings of inadequacy. "Why can't I be as productive or useful as this other person" we might say to ourselves? Or worse, these metrics may be used by others to judge productivity and we may find ourselves being criticized for our output (or lack thereof).
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+Unfortunately commits and lines of code are the most visible measurement of coding productivity, but they don't show much about the actual practice of programming. We can't measure to any degree of accuracy the amount of time thinking about the problem. We don't see the mounds of reference material the programmer used in order to figure out a solution. And we certainly don't know just from looking at commits if this is the result of one person's afternoon of work or many days of work (unless they commit more often). We might find that this person is committing the work of multiple folks in their organization with the committer as the focal point for the other contributions.
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+Measuring ourselves on the quantity of others output is easy and seductive but it isn't useful for figuring out how to improve ourselves in relation to the other programmer (other than "generate more commits". That line of thinking can lea us to thinking that we're not spending enough time doing "actual programming" and lead to overwork, stress, and burn-out.
+
+## Traveling Companions
+
+There can be times when it is useful to compare ourselves with other coders. Sometimes we can learn about new technologies or new methodologies by looking at the work of others. But it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because we're not at the level of other coders that we're somehow inferior to them. Rather than looking at other coders as competition we should look at them as companions. We're all in this profession working to make our respective projects better. With Open Source / Free Software we have a unique opportunity to be able to look at how other folks do their work in public. We can learn from the code of others much in the same way that scientists can look at the papers of other scientists to see what worked (by replication and repetition). No coder is completely isolated from the work of others. Rare is the programmer that achieved everything they achieved without looking at the work of others to help their own coding efforts. We all learn from each other. But rather than be intimidated by the work of others we can instead take it apart and learn from it. And if we're lucky we can have the opportunity to ask others about how the code works and why they chose to do it that way.
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+There's value in being able to ask questions of our fellow coders. We tend to overlook asking questions for feeling like we're going to ask something obvious or ask a question that will make us feel inadequate for asking. Asking questions is very useful when we don't understand what is going on with a particular piece of code. There are coders out there tho don't mind answering questions, and my hope is that you find them. Granted there are some who are very busy; who might not have the time to answer our questions in a manner that is useful to us. But if we are truly stuck and have exhausted all other avenues perhaps we can ask questions of them that don't require much of their time and effort and we can both be happy for the interaction.
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+There is an art to asking questions and it can be frustrating when folks don't answer our questions, or come back with other questions / suggestions that are less than helpful. This can manifest itself in exchanges where person A asks: "I'd like to know how to do X" and persons B and C respond "I would do Y instead". It's easy to be angry at those folks and think "they're not answering my question!". It's also easy to get embroiled in exchanges with folks about the merits of doing Y where clearly I had inteneded to do X all along, thank you very much. But if we re-frame the experience as "this person is trying to help me; perhaps there is something in this recommendation that might be helpful." then we can have a better conversation.
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+Of course there are folks who don't respond with your best interests at heart and are only interested in pushing their own world-view upon you. And it can take a lot of energy to engage with these folks to tell them "no, I really, really intended to learn more about X". I don't have good answers for how to handle these folks outside of thanking them for their time and finding someone else to ask. But this is also part of our growth process.
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+If we look at other coders as our traveling companions on this journey; as peers in our coding practice, then we can realize that we're all in this together. Even if someone has many more years of experience than you they are your peer. You have knowledge and experience they don't have, and they have experience and knowledge you don't have. If we strip away the barriers of ranking and meritocracy we can better engage with each other and learn from each other.
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+The journey to becoming a better programmer is long and hard. We need the best companions we can find to help us along the way. And not just the technically-skilled companions but the companions that we can talk to when the day is done and commiserate about our struggles together.
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / blobdiff