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I pride myself on not being a nerd. I can communicate with customers and I don't dismiss aesthetics, marketing, delivery dates, and legal considerations as completely inconsistent and arbitrary.

But still, when clients complain about my predecessors, I start to feel for them and imagine when past developers
- preferred to rewrite the legacy system
- were reluctant to use Microsoft software
- needed much more time than estimated
- and failed to understand implicit requirements.

I know that there are a lot of developers in the world, but you need a decent or good one who is available and willing to work on your project.

As (web) developers, we should behave more like craftspeople, stay calm, and ignore entitled clients' and managers' moods and micro-management attempts unless there's really a critical issue.

Comments
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  • 7
    > and failed to understand implicit requirements

    If it's implicit it's not a requirement.
  • 2
    I don't know what this post is about. But okay.
  • 2
    @Jabb03

    > If it's implicit it's not a requirement.

    Nerd
  • 1
    @Demolishun

    > I don't know what this post is about. But okay.

    Nerd
  • 2
    @ingosteinke Entertaining implicit expectations are a good way to succumb to unrecoverable scope creep and never delivering on anything meaningful. How am I supposed to know what someone I hardly know is thinking?

    Deliver precisely what is asked of you, especially if it makes no sense and you've requested clarification several times.

    As for the rest, that's why we have marketing people - to deal with people. I'm here to interact with machines, not the aimless whims of people I don't know. I consider it a perk of the job not having to deal with the outside world.
  • 0
    @ingosteinke

    > Nerd

    Totally, I don't have time to read minds. That's what the PO (or project manager) is there for.
  • 0
    I like customers who have an open mind.

    You don't need to know precisely what you want. Leave it to the experts, embrace their ideas and accept their decisions. And, yes, project managers should be experts in communication. But some aren't.
  • 0
    @cuddlyogre customers don't understand software, logic, behavior, or requirements.

    Our job is to figure out their requirements. They're all implicit until we make them explicit.

    We also need to be flexible enough to change the requirements, and expect that to happen. Because never, in the history of software development, has the first attempt on requirements been complete and fully understood.

    Aim to fail as fast as possible so you can get there faster. Don't waterfall a 3 year plan. Jfc
  • 1
    @lungdart I work somewhere where people that can tolerate human interaction do that, fortunately. I’ve been in the industry way, way, way too long to really be allowed around clients and that’s ok with me.
  • 2
    "I pride myself on not being a nerd" - do you also brag with how boring you are, or what skills you don't have?

    also, in my experience, non-nerds _always_ make shitty developers.
  • 0
    @tosensei

    Their point of view: "That guy is a 10x developer!"

    Our point of view: "Is that guy retarded? Has he used a computer before?"
  • 1
    @tosensei actually there is a movement called "boring web development", boring in a positive sense like in the principle of least astonishment
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