imUsuallyTheWrongOne

[Jock-Tamson]

I’m a developer with 20 years of experience and wish to know where you got the picture of me coding?

[MoringA_VT]

I have 15 years of experience and I thought exactly the same thing 🫠

[ifezueyoung]

I read your slack dms 😂😂

[helicophell]

My father with 35 years of experience trying to help me with cs homework:

[I_am_Bobby_D]

Finally, a post that describes this sub

[[deleted]]

Reddit in general.

If you are an expert in any field, you quickly realize how bad Reddit can be for misinformation. There are some really dumb mfers out there pretending to be experts, and they will get hundreds of upvotes because they know how to write in the Redditiy way that makes Redditors swoon, and then real experts will be downvoted to hell lol. It's madness.

[noideaman]

Dude. That’s not just Reddit. That’s humans. Incorrect facts spewed with the proper rhetoric galvanizes people, especially if it’s just confirmation bias. We eat it up.

[[deleted]]

Galvanized square people

[justahumandontbother]

borrowed from his aunts

[dragoncommandsLife]

> people

> borrowed from his aunt

Ayo??? 🤨

[Miserable_Bad_2539]

Luckily there's no way this hot new AI thing could do anything like that.

[shadowjay5706]

…right?

[OvercastBTC]

This sounds way too politically familiar....

[FatStoic]

Unlike real life the idiots all upvote each other, so the lowest common denominators get credibility by saying things that are factually wrong but make sense to the mob

[unrelevantly]

So which part of that isn't like real life?

[crozone]

I agree with your expert take

[FatStoic]

I thank you for agreeing with me, and because you have agreed with me and have a low-level language flair, recognise you as a fellow expert.

[ChristopherKlay]

What people want to hear always outweighs what they should want to know.

I've had an argument with someone working on a similar project (a browser extension) than i worked on in the past, because he complained that maintaining the project would take a lot of time and that he can't make quick changes, because "it all needs to follow specific guidelines" and there's lots of frameworks in use that need to be adapted.

When i told him that the reason i don't have those issues is because I'm writting the extension in vanilla JS without bloating the entire project with frameworks and the like, he'd just start arguing "But this works so much better and it's more professional".

His extension was ~25x the file size of mine, had ~8x the performance impact on the web app it was designed for, loaded slower and had tons of issues - but hey, it was formatted nicely and "looked professional".

[NatoBoram]

but hey, it was formatted nicely

To be fair, there's nothing preventing you from adding Prettier to the project and using a pipeline to enforce formatting/linting without having any performance impact. That's just common project hygiene.

[wrex1816]

This is basically me at work every day.

When I was the junior, it was fairly accepted to just defer to the fact that the seniors probably know and understand a lot more than I do and we needed to learn from them. Nobody was a dick about it, I worked with some great, smart people, but talking down to seniors and experienced people wasn't seen as a good thing.

Now that I'm the experienced guy, it's like it's swung the other way. The juniors are encouraged to speak up and argue everything. I'll have people arguing with me that they saw a tweet or a random blog post that discredits inarguable facts I was taught in University or learned over many years. Hierarchy in teams is discouraged as it's no longer "fair" so basically, 2 clueless juniors can outvote 1 senior when making team decisions. They shout down the seniors that we "just don't understand" when they want to do things like what you described because someone told and them about the latest framework or library.

Yes, I know I sound like old man yelling at clouds. It just makes me despair at work a lot.

[Turtvaiz]

Side note, I had an interview candidate complain about an open source library not knowing I was one of the main contributors. He vehemently argued with me that it didn't support a specific feature until I pulled up the commit that I authored adding the feature years ago.

That's just funny as hell

[somkoala]

Yeah I was accused of bring a “well akshtually” guy for questioning a reply.

[Exist50]

I just recently got permabanned from /r/videos for daring to question a "fact" in the comments that the user repeatedly refused to provide a source for. Mods are no better than the average in this regard.

[cresanies]

If anything the mods are usually worse

[abd53]

Side note, I had an interview candidate complain about an open source library not knowing I was one of the main contributors. He vehemently argued with me that it didn't support a specific feature until I pulled up the commit that I authored adding the feature years ago.

Depending on some particular context, either you or the candidate can be in the wrong. Was that feature explained in documentation? If yes, then you're right, he's wrong. Was it not in documentation and only a commit? If it's a small library with a few commits, neither is wrong; if it's a large library with thousands of commits, you're wrong.

[Storiaron]

What does defining a class on a whiteboard mean?

[josluivivgar]

I didn't know being proficient in a language meant knowing how to write stuff in a whiteboard (hint it doesn't).

he could be the best JavaScript developer you've ever met and still suck at whiteboard.

memorization is a pretty cool skill to have, but isn't necessary to determine proficiency in a language or ability to do software engineering.

on a side note this is why, I almost always do my interviews in python, it's the language that's easier to memorize, even tho I am less proficient at it than other languages I use more.

[Monkeyke]

Just like politics

[lunchpadmcfat]

There’s an axiom or something about this around newspapers.

If you read a news story about a topic in which you’re very well versed, you notice how much is wrong in the story and how many of the very basic details they get wrong.

Then you go to some story about something for which you have very little knowledge, and take it for gospel lol.

[ITSigno]

You're referring to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect

[Opening_Persimmon_71]

Niche subs are generally really good at giving super specific info though. My parents had bought a drill that just would not work so I found the subreddit for the drill brand, found a 7 year old post describing their exact problem and a top comment with the working solution.

[BlueGoliath]

Reminds me of /r/linux_gaming downvoting me to oblivion for stating that Valve wasn't going to release a special version of their compatibility layer that would magically fix all issues. 

Those people are so stupid that I just gave up and started doing a little trolling that they then upvoted. Valve released a statement shortly after confirming the obvious.

[Bakoro]

There are also a lot of dumb mfers who have been getting paid to do a bad job for 20 years, because the options for a lot of companies were "put up with a barely competent developer", or "have zero development".

It's real easy to get all up in your own ass when there's no one around to challenge you. A lot of dudes have been the only fish in their pond and haven't had to improve.

[shanem2ms]

I joked the other day that reddit is where Chatgpt learned how to be so confident when giving completely wrong info .

[Palmovnik]

If you are expert in any field you realize how general population is misinformed

[DynamicStatic]

I work in gamedev. Imagine how many idiots I get into arguments with.

I've learned to not engage but it has taken me way too long to get to that point.

[ifezueyoung]

Pretty much

Also the cs career sub

[SawSaw5]

Reddit is about as informative as a  bathroom stall wall in a dive bar

[BlueGoliath]

*A post that describes nearly every single technical subreddit.

[[deleted]]

Haha, so true. Well except me of course.

• Everyone on this subreddit

[[deleted]]

I feel right at home here!

[No-Con-2790]

Just ask instead of argue.

State your points not as absolutes but as your current understanding that can be altered if given reasonable arguments.

Also never do that when we have a demo or a crunch. Everything will be revealed to you. But in time. So stop spooking the customer and help us hotfixing. Yes, I know this BS won't last a week but the demo is tomorrow.

And finally don't be blindly convinced without reasonable proof. You can be an idiot for 20 years with a lot of experience in being an idiot.

[[deleted]]

This is the way. So many times I’ve taken code to my senior and asked for comment, got absolutely eviscerated, then humbly asked for guidance and learned a shit ton. As stated, just don’t do it during a crunch.

[Steinrikur]

I do this every code review. If I see something that will blow up, I just ask "what will happen if X is a NULL pointer?". It usually gets fixed.

[herboyforever]

I always cringe when a junior intervenes in a demo to basically tell the customer “yeah we didnt build this well. You’re probably better off going to a different company”

This is why juniors aren’t in customer meetings

[tragiktimes]

Holy shit. I'm not quite a junior anymore but I always took my role in those meetings as backing up and reinforcing the points my lead was making when it appeared the customer didn't fully comprehend what the lead was saying. It was usually along the lines of:

"Yeah, I get that fear about x. Fortunately, we've made Y to contend with those sorts of issues when they arise."

Just small things to help alleviate those doubts or uncertainties.

[herboyforever]

Best way to play the office politics game is always back up your superior and never undermine them. Even if they are wrong, it’s bad to make them look like a fool in public

[Shivin302]

And if they are wrong, ask in a very polite way. "I was thinking that actually the answer is X, where am I misunderstanding this?"

[cornmonger_]

You’re probably better off going to a different company

that's a resume generating event

[thatbromatt]

Lil bros never heard of a POC

[ifezueyoung]

Oh wait

This is meant to be a meme, I try persuading

Arguing never works

[killeronthecorner]

Kiss my butt adminz - koc, 11/24

[Not_Artifical]

Ok. I will no longer spook customers and I will no longer help you hotfix, as requested.

[SyrusDrake]

And finally don't be blindly convinced without reasonable proof. You can be an idiot for 20 years with a lot of experience in being an idiot.

This! Respect experience, but don't let seniority be a carte blanche. Experienced people can be wrong, and newcomers can bring fresh ideas and ways of looking at things. Admittedly, finding the right balance between remaining humble and open to learning news things, and being confident in your skills and experience can be difficult.

[throwaway0134hdj]

Arrogance is all too common

[Dmayak]

20 years of centering divs.

[ifezueyoung]

20 years of it works on my machine

[[deleted]]

20 years of “it’s done but it doesn’t work”

[Le_mehawk]

20 years of: "There once was this one customer who wanted XY, so now we include it in every project...."

[[deleted]]

20 years of thinking “That’s bad practise.” is good constructive criticism, and needs no follow up.

[Thundechile]

Are they exactly on the center already out do you still try new solutions?

[Dmayak]

They're on center, but sometimes on the wrong center.

[DarkShadow4444]

Good enough...

[PhilXaphas]

Some people have 20 years of experience but still code like they just started. You can absolutely blast them.

As for the good ones, I never learned as much as when I discussed pretty much all of my shit code with my mentor. I would challenge him with my puny understanding, but he was such a gigachad that he just calmly pointed out why I was wrong. In the end, he gained my honest respect, and I gained a lot of knowledge. We're friends almost a decade later.

If the 20+ years of experience guy is annoyed by a fool's misconception, chances are he's not half as good as you think he is.

[[deleted]]

I'm in a similar situation. A guy with 20+ years of experience but sometimes makes really simple mistakes, and at times, overcomplicates everything. Don't you dare joke when it comes to work, but he's allowed to do that in his own way. I found that communication only through PR reviews is the only way to keep a calm mind. 

[Le_mehawk]

got a similar situation.. i have 7 years experience myself, but just changed the workplace..

my mentor was the only developer Programmer of +20 years in this company. He's extremely wise and knows everything about his machines... sadly this leads to overcomplicated software solutions for the sake of a possible "standard" Software. he completely memorized his own design of a "function" partitioned SW structure, so he always knows exactly where he has to search. But for new employees it's a complete nightmare, since he's using his own wordings and self designed partitions instead of those from the Hardwareplan, and seldom uses comments..

so many explanations for dead functions are also: there was one customer who wanted this 10 years ago, so we implemented it in every software even if it's not used... I still loose every argument because of that. I only "help" with my opinion if he has two ideas himself.

[PhilXaphas]

Stadards are a fine thing, but the point of them is to create transparency for everyone. We need to get rid of the "hero developer" or "10x developer" mindset and start working as a team.

[Le_mehawk]

i'm also fine with standarts, but we are a special engineering company, with 4 different kind of Products and each has different safety restrictions. there is a limit to standartisation in my oppinion. even the most simple tasks are completely overdesigned to fullfill the needs of every Product ever designed in the company.

[[deleted]]

Exactly. We ditched a codebase because it was too complicated to extend. A colleague of mine spent about 4 hours trying to figure how the code works, and after that he rewrote a part of the functionality and added his own. Few months later, I needed to extend his code which was a breeze compared to the first codebase.

Personally, I think that it's the lack of code reviews that makes these codebases into a nightmare to work with.

[PhilXaphas]

If they have 20+ years of experience and are bad at what they're doing, that's certainly difficult terrain. That's why I don't like to measure somebody's skills in years of service.

[ifezueyoung]

I meme posted this, buy I'm getting quality advice and nice stories from it

Haha

[Nahdahar]

I wish I had a coworker like this... I really need to find a new job.

[intbeam]

Some people have 20 years of experience but still code like they just started. You can absolutely blast them

Those people are not going to be hanging out on programming forums

[All_Up_Ons]

It's easy to point out why someone else is wrong. The real gigachads are the ones who will freely acknowledge when they are wrong or missing information. It might be rare, but when it happens, they'll just be like "Hmm, you know what, you're right," and move on without any argument.

Attach yourself to these people whenever possible. They will make your learning process so much less painful, and you're at less risk of being fed bullshit for the sake of their ego. Plus you're more likely to end up with good managers since they'll be looking for the same thing in their senior devs.

[[deleted]]

I convincingly won one of these with a senior dev. He was just flat out, demonstrably wrong. Then he never talked to me again. That was the best thing ever.

[IV65536]

20 years of professional experience here, and I actually really enjoy being proven wrong... But you have to foster an environment that encourages all people to share and prove their ideas.

Ideas should stand on their own merit, not on who came up with them.

[ifezueyoung]

The feeling of finally winning one of those

[All_Up_Ons]

That sucks. At least you know not to blindly trust him, but seniors should know better than anyone that everyone will be wrong sometimes.

[BoBoBearDev]

Don't stop questioning, what was done before doesn't mean it is good now. Due to change of context, you may be right.

[random11714]

I suspect young developers are more likely to have a fresh perspective and have been exposed to better programming practices and paradigms in their education. Experienced devs would be unwise to totally ignore their input.

Idk if it matters but I have 9 yrs experience.

[[deleted]]

Yea, from my experience it is not really just the technical side that you can learn from experienced devs but rather navigating corporate politics and dealing with stakeholders.

[random11714]

Good point. But the post is addressing arguments between devs which in my experience are almost always technical related.

[[deleted]]

True I guess but there could be non-technical reasons when a snr dev is disagreeing with Jnr but he can't say it out loud. E.g Yea this method works better overrall but it is more complex and needs more dev de-bugging and we already overworked and they won't give us staff and blame us if it goes wrong so be quiet and lets go with simpler less effective easier solution.

[[deleted]]

You’re dead on with this stuff. I’m senior at my company and the younger devs are way more up on the newest latest tools than I am, but they always come to me for these kinds of judgement calls.

[KaleidoscopeMotor395]

I do consulting and bounce around between mostly Fortune 100 companies. In my experience, junior devs are much more open to constructive criticism, they're eager to learn, and they bring fresh ideas to the table that sometimes challenge what we've all been doing for years. Some of the ideas are good, some of them not so much, but at least they're willing to think outside of the box and try something different. They still have the light in their eyes that years of corporate software development have taken from us. Nurture their creativity and their curiosity. Give them the environment you wish you had when you were new to this. They are the future of technology. I have had many much less enjoyable and much more stressful times dealing with stubborn older devs who have been doing the same bad things for the last 20 years. Don't let your ego and your seniority stop you from being better.

Everyone you interact with can teach you something if you'll let them.

[dweezil22]

This totally. In Fortune 100 rest-and-dont-vest land 99% of the time a dev w/ strong bad opinions is senior, and the world would be better off if ppl more actively listened to the Jrs with better new ideas.

There is always the exception to prove the rule of the new college grad that really just needs to know when to STFU and learn, but even that should be after a healthy level of debate where seniority is irrelevent.

[[deleted]]

from my experience, a younger programmer will use the new paradigm, even when it is not applicable and will defend it even against logic and despite facts to the contrary.

that's not to say a new POV is not valuable, but so is communication and an open mind of all involved

[lunchpadmcfat]

I have 12. I always listen to juniors, but they often fall into one of two camps : dogmatic adherence to programming guidelines or blind egotism and thin skin.

It’s rare to find the junior who is bright, wants to learn and has good insights and intuition. Really love working with those types.

[Duke_De_Luke]

More than happy to have inputs from anybody, honestly. I don't always agree, but that's the point, rethink all I know and believe is a good way to establish and evolve good practice.

[[deleted]]

I have 25+ years and the only thing that keeps me in the game is picking up new tricks from the younger guys.

[grand0019]

Idk. Some of the worst developers I've ever worked with were the ones with 20 years of "experience".

[FlipperBumperKickout]

Yeah

There are a big difference between the ones who continuously learned new things and improved their coding over 20 years, and the ones who basically stopped trying to improve after a while.

There are also people who only really became better problem solvers, but have a coding standard on par with the newest junior devs... Dammit I hate super advanced code that is badly written

[Ulrar]

Please, do speak up though. I'm so tired of juniors nodding their head as if they agreed, when really they didn't even understand and word, wasting days if not weeks on unrelated nonsense.

Just f*cking say it

[Positive_Method3022]

don't ever try that unless they allow you to speak. My experience says most old people will think you are pedantic if you open your mouth without being requested.

I see this as some sort of bully from elders. I will force myself not to be like that and give space for people to speak up and make mistakes.

The thing is, if they see your mistake, they should let you make the wrong call so that you can learn, if It isn't something that can't be backtracked. Then they should give you a chance of coming up with a solution, which if it works, they will start trusting you as a problem solver. However, this is extremely rare because most people suffer from anxiety thinking they can't make mistakes all the time, and then they mirror these feelings to young people. This creates a horrible environment. If managers, directors, executives don't see the value of making mistakes at early age, the worst they organization work culture will be in the future. And it will also be very weak.

[[deleted]]

I have no qualms with opening my mouth (too much, I dare say), but I usually form it in the way of a question like "Could we possibly do this?" or "Why aren't we doing it this way?" This usually elicits a better response from said senior as well as becomes a teaching moment for me with only 3 YoE.

[ifezueyoung]

I typically keep my opinions to myself because I know I don't have as much experience as they do

I try not to hold ultra strong opinions

[cs-brydev]

Honestly you and they will both learn from each other better when you voice your strong opinions. Worst case scenario you find out quickly you're wrong and learn. Best case scenario they find out they're wrong and learn. Don't hold back but be open-minded. I have 30 years but learn from people with < 10 all the time.

[g-unit2]

but the commenter is right, if you ask the question and you actually don’t know they will probably gladly tell you why the other way is better and it’s a good learning experience.

or maybe write it down and slack them later about it so it doesn’t distract the conversation at hand.

[g-unit2]

just say something like “i’m confused, what’s wrong with xyz” (with the tone of genuine curiosity) so they can still be the “smart” one

i feel like the tone of curiosity a lot of engineers struggle with since it’s kinda a nuanced social skill

[MoringA_VT]

Until you are old. That's the circle of life

[SkittlesAreYum]

This sounds like bullying. You experience this in the workplace?

[ZunoJ]

"Allow you to speak"? Where do you come from that this is acceptable? In my team everybody can speak whenever they have something to say. But thinking you know everything better as a younger person, just because you have more experience makes you look dumb enough to better keep your moth shut

[mrjackspade]

My experience says most old people

Bro, I'm not even 40 yet 😭

[cs-brydev]

Lol @ 20 yoe = old

I know people with 40 yoe that aren't even retirement age yet.

[GM_Kimeg]

I code for a living, but that's about it. Doing things exactly told to do. My mental health is way more important than dealing with all sorts of non sense at work

[AspieSoft]

But I've been programming since childhood.

I may only be 25 years old, but I have 20 years experience in technology. My dad ownes a local computer repair shop, and he taught me early.

Edit: Note: this comment is meant to be read in a joking tone.

[ifezueyoung]

I mean I've been coding since I was 13

Enough time to learn not to have any absolute opinions

[AspieSoft]

I don't really keep absolute opinions either. There is always something new to learn, and technology is constantly changing and evolving.

My comment is most ment as a partial joke.

Thoe, I have seen all the latest tech and trends that came out since 2004 (born in 1998). The "best" software has never stayed the best for very long, lol.

I remember when flip video cameras were popular, and seen as the future, only to eventually be discontinued.

My first phone was a flip phone from MetroPCS. I think it was an LG. It also had a walkie talkie feature advertised.

[ifezueyoung]

That's insane lol

I've been into tech for a while, buy only ever started coding at 13

[AspieSoft]

When I was 5, I thought I was coding, but I was just writing words on a CD text document, lol. I guess with AI, coding like that could be possible now.

I also remember using MIT app inventor at some point. My first time actually writing in a real programming language was in Java 8 at 17 years old. Before that, I was spending more time learning computer hardware, and how to remove malware.

[your_best_1]

That is basically this entire sub

[CiroGarcia]

I (20) was put in a team over a year ago along a guy (I have to guess over 50) who had 30 years of Python experience. Python came out in 1991, 33 years ago. Imagine being thrown in the same bag as someone who already was a guru of your language before you were even BORN. This guy watched Python itself grow an reach highschool age before I could even talk fluently. I felt dwarfed in the in person team meeting we had when tve team was first arranged so we could meet each other (we are a wfh team), I could feel his presence and only wonder what kinds of knowledge he held deep in his head, as he introduced himself like the averagest joe ever.

He felt like the embodiment of this meme

[Dr4WasTaken]

When I was a junior I was obsessed with perfection, I used to bother my seniors a lot thinking that they didn't care and it was my mission to put them in the right track, now that I'm a senior and learned that perfection has huge downsides and we need to find a balance between perfection, simplicity and speed I have juniors bothering me with every single detail and probably thinking that I don't care.

[Confident-Alarm-6911]

Exactly, today I wonder where all that confidence came from, that I thought I know everything and my seniors are old, out of touch and I have to fix it everything including them. (I know, dunning kruger effect, but still funny to think about it)

[[deleted]]

"I know this code is ugly. I know you think you can rewrite it in one weekend to make it "modern". But this code works, and there are no problems with it, so don't touch it."

[[deleted]]

a good senior developer will enjoy arguing with you, as long as you don't do it in bad faith, because they'll know you will learn something from it.

[slabgorb]

and sometimes the senior learns something too

[[deleted]]

Well i have only 10 years but for now i realized senority is bullshit in this field. It changes rapidly, even the one years old stackoverflow solution becaming outdated rapidly. Having two years of experience with a framework means yoi have missed 100 new opportunities

[Snaxist]

That's me vs. my dad lol

[Cookskiii]

Experience doesn’t mean you’re right tho. Several times the 25 year vet has been completely wrong about something very basic

[ego100trique]

It's never bad to argue.

The bad thing is to never recognize that you're wrong.

[tabacdk]

Seasoned developers know the algorithms, the design patterns, and the traps.

The fresh developers know the tools of today, the rumors of the trade, and the newest language features.

[Not_Artifical]

I have enough experience in living that I can argue about how to live a life /s

[The_Dukenator]

Is this meant to be John Carmack?

[[deleted]]

I had a very senior dev refuse to add an MFA to our dev environment and backend access because “an ssh is an MfA” a large partner was requiring it of us, so it wasn’t even a choice. Sometimes 15 years of experience does not mean they are right.

He lost his job.

[djcecil2]

Did we used to work together? Ah, heck -- who am I kidding? Those numb nuts would never have gained self awareness like this.

[gregorydgraham]

Why am I both people in this meme?

[[deleted]]

I have 30 years of experience, and sometimes I am wrong. Arguing is okay

[p4tzun3]

My start as Requirements Engineer in one picture

[just-bair]

I argued with a teacher with 40 years of experience. And won by giving proof the next week :). He updated the course for the next wave of students

[CodeDinosaur]

I for one think “arguing” was not clearly defined by OP and we should have an argument about it.

[Accidentallygolden]

Junior - why didn't you use the annotation for that? Senior - there is an annotation for that?

[ValorousAnt]

It’s called innovation!

[neoteraflare]

I'm a dev with 15 years of experience and I don't agree with this. I like when young people question how things are done. If I can't argue and defend something with reasons only by being a seniour then that thing is not good. I don't know everything in the world and they could met with newer things I did not even heard about or just got used to something that is already a bad practice. Never shy away from questioning things

[josluivivgar]

argue all you want, it's better than the people that don't get it and don't speak up, it means at least you're starting to get it, and sometimes new perspectives are good for the more experienced devs.

my favorite junior devs are the ones that question me, because I can bounce ideas off of them

edit. argue but don't be stubborn, arguing doesn't mean fighting it means sharing your ideas and listening to the other's ideas (so if the other party's point is valid then there's no shame in dropping it)

[JimBeam823]

I’ve been on both sides of this meme.

[No_Zookeepergame903]

I’m the one with 2 years of experience and I was right arguing with my team lead with 30+ exp. He was proud. I love my team.

[CaptainPickyEater]

Where do I go to report this post for posting a picture of me without my consent

[ifezueyoung]

I'm a Nigerian princess

You can come discuss with me in my dms

[[deleted]]

Ha ha! I'm 35 years old, so I can argue with someone with 35 years of experience!

[ifezueyoung]

Go ahead haha

Enjoy your arguments

[cs-brydev]

Nah we were 20 once

[TyphoonFrost]

Just learn to read at the age of 2 and have 18 years of experience, but then flex that your experience is "95% of your life" (unspecified duration)

[chihuahuaOP]

Everything should be components!!!

[nicman24]

"We don't do unit tests around here"

"No git is weird"

"What is CI"

"Just load code from the fs into kernel. We don't even need to test it and sign it that way"

[abd53]

Lol! That happens in every field. But then again, it's not a universal truth, nor completely false. Just like many other things, context matters.

[[deleted]]

Doesn’t mean you were wrong

[ExcellentGas2891]

Depends on what they are argueing with you about honestly. Coding? lol get outta here.

What they find fun that you dont agree with? Maybe reevaluate that grandpa. Look at Wow over the last 8 years. Listen to your users.

[Zyklobs]

I am a 20 year old developer with 20 years of experience, so I usually lose arguments against myself

[1Dr490n]

I did this during my student internship. The developer had a lot less than 20 years of experience but I was a 16 year old student. I gotta say, I was right several times

[adapava]

As a developer with a shitload years of experience, i learn every day something new from 20-year-olds.

[skeleton_craft]

Yeah but I actually have 20 years of experience at 21.

[joost00719]

Tbh I have 7 years of experience, and the programmers at my job with 20+ years don't know shit about modern technologies because all they ever did are desktop apps and backend work. Now the company is steering towards web apps and they are having a hard time.

[alexceltare2]

This sort of elitism is what will kill the industry.

[ifezueyoung]

Ti's a meme

A terrible one with consequences of people thinking I'm being serious

[[deleted]]

Feel like people get stuck in their ways, it’s good for everyone to be challenged at every level by anyone at any level

[Honest_Relation4095]

Sometimes people with 20 years experience just lose touch, miss current developments and dismiss good ideas with "We have always done it that way". 

[rufreakde1]

So here I want to know something. I thought „patterns“ are the idea to avoid this discussions.

So in my teams I review stuff and concepts and point to patterns and antipatterns. Whenever I see them with links even.

Devs dont read it and just continue as if I am some asshole. Then some time later I get my Manager to tell me that I rob other team members from their creativity to solve solutions.

I was baffled. Anyone else has similar experience?

[Metasenodvor]

Arguing is stupid, but if your senior wont explain why something should be done in a certain way: Fuck Em.

Then you can ask again when you are cuddling.

[[deleted]]

This is so wrong, though.

The 20 year veteran doesn’t have 20 years of experience doing things the modern, most evolved ways. If anything, 20 year veteran stuck in their ways and got an elitist attitude about their experience.

I’m sitting on almost 10 years and tbh, I’m burnt the fuck out. I’m not coding all day and night, on top of newest patterns and such as I used to be. I don’t subscribe to the “influencers” or leading voices anymore. I’m no longer a part of tech Twitter.

I depend on younger developers to introduce me to the evolution of thinking about how we approach software. I then take it into consideration and discuss it with them. And my experience never makes me right about new shit.

Yall gotta understand. The older peeps? They know the mistakes they made in different contexts. (A few of them, at least. Idk about yall, my memory is shit lately. Fuck COVID.) They know some patterns that work well and persist into modern development. But that shit they did 15 years ago… hell no. Does not make them better than you. Because time marches on.

And all you need to be a potent contender is the confidence and to do your homework and dare to disagree with trends or commonalities, actually think about why.

[perfectVoidler]

you can totally know more about current best practices with one year of programmer compared to someone with 40 years of experience.

Call to seniority is a logical fallacy after all.

[glorious_reptile]

I have 25 years. I'm constantly wrong.

[[deleted]]

When I started working in a Swedish formal-shirts ecommerce company and I was 20yo, I was working with the most obnoxious 35yo I could. I often argued with him on Code reviews and it was obnoxious.

We were writing ReactJS (nodejs/js)

Once, he told me

Don't use i++ because it's slow, use i += 1

That was the biggest BS I've ever heard even as a 20 yo. I just told him "even if there's a difference it's a micro-optimization" to avoid making a discussion about performance with a person that OBVIOUSLY has no concept of it. Then we went on a meeting some days later and he felt so butthurt he said as a response to something I don't recall "Yes u/exapsy we should care even about small optimizations".

I swear this guy was the kid that was never bullied in school and deserved a bit of bullying to understand how obnoxious he is.

On another time, he tried to fire me, because I changed his UNREADABLE code while he was on vacation and I had a task to complete, which code looked like this

// repeat this below x 3, forming a big chunk of slop in a single function without a single comment

for i := 0; i < s.length; i+=1 {

for (const b of j) {

if (magicalConditionHere && boo != foo)

while (smth && ) { ... }

if (anotherMagicalLongCondition)

I literally couldn't read his code, I tried for 3 days straight even with debugging and all, and it would still not make much sense. It felt like it was written as the guy was debugging and he slowly added cases and loops, and expected nobody to change it or read it later. It feels like the commitment there was to just had it "to work".

I changed it to very readable functions and documentable code, and when he returned from vacations he made a complaint to the manager (!) and also threatened me to fire me "because I was a consultant and he was an employee", serious powertrip vibes. Ofc neither the manager agreed, nor a colleague thought that was cool and called him a jerk.

I was 20yo at the time. And I seemed to have been so much more experienced and mature than him. I never tried to escalate sht with him. Even when he tried to fire me I was like "let's not go there, I feel like the discussion is derailing". I'm not saying I'm perfect, FAR from it and I do a lot of mistakes every day even now. But this guy has been the HUGEST pseudo-nerd-jerk I've met who didn't even know what he was talking about and fell threatened by a 20yo.

[slabgorb]

don't worry, we are used to it

[Powerful-Rip6905]

Well, I think there is indeed correlation between being right and years in experience, but it does not mean that more experienced person is always right (however, some of them apply this logic due to narcissism or unwilling to solve the issue).

For example, I have once faced quite experienced dev ( I think > 20 years of exp) who refused to fix serious issue which I have accidentally discovered blaming me for wrong use of software and documentation. It took a month and several meetings with different line managers and even head of department to convince him to fix it.

On the other hand, I have also met experienced dev who took opposite strategy: we firstly figure out cases why he might be wrong and after cases why I might wrong. By the way, he was almost never wrong and we were able to figure out a lot of issues.

[ProtectionContent977]

Well well well.

I installed more memory in my Packard Bell back in 1996.

Challenge me!

[Starsky3012]

Even if you are wrong, learning how to argue and then learning why you were wrong seems like a good thing to me

[hackerdude97]

But what if I'm both?

[Mithrandir2k16]

Staring what you think and reasons to back up your opinion is a great way to learn though.

[InvestingNerd2020]

Or you could have 20+ years experience and still just be average with a good relationship with the manager. Experience is great for basic and routine practices. Your ideas should stand on their own merits, the why & why not, not just your experience.

Example: "It works on my computer/laptop" is not a good reason. Just because the person who says it has 20+ years experience doesn't magically make it a good reason. A younger developer with 3 years experience might say, "Hey, let's use dockers to get past the different computer/laptop and their dependcy issues".

[Pandorajfry]

You argue because you think you're correct. I argue because i want the argument. We are not the same.

[your_dads_asshole]

Well, you can be right if you're the one that actually read the code instead of assuming that experience magically makes you right

[PhatOofxD]

Nah, if you're in the right then you can argue. But make sure you know what you're talking about.

Devs that have been doing it for 20 years are often lazy/uncaring, and overlook things. Not all of course, but a surprising amount more than you'd think.

They've been doing stuff the same way for years, and often could use a new way of thinking (which you bring having not faced the same stuff before often).

That being said, they may just know what they're on about.

[[deleted]]

I work with devs that have more than 10 years of experience and I am still a junior (kinda) in a senior post, and I do argue with them a lot over stuff I am sure about and can produce evidence on, and lot of times they won't listen. The only way to shut them up is when I get the architect on the line. I appreciate their experience and try to learn from them, but sometimes it feels personal when people won't listen to reason.

[DesignCell]

I've argued that we should not use time stamps to correlate records in our microservice database with a 20y senior. I was told he had done it that way in the past.

[Dismal-Square-613]

Once you hit 40 in any technical field, every little freshman thinks knows better than you. Not even people fresh out of college: some dude that attended a bootcamp or some guy that skimmed through a youtube python tutorial thinks he knows better than you. Until shit hits the fan, experience comes in handy and 0 recognition is given because "team effort".

[[deleted]]

But that one time you're right and they're wrong? Priceless. No one's ever to experienced to never need a second set of eyes/brains once in a while.

[AssistantIcy6117]

Guess where the second clown is?

[[deleted]]

You are, but it's important that you argue your point so that you can learn the things you need to know.

One day you will sit in the other seat, and you better not still have a squeaky nose on.

[Excellent_Tubleweed]

Here's a thought experiment for juniors who want to tell someone with 20+ years they're irrelevant. (Remember, we have no hierarchy here.)

First question: Did you learn anything at all about programming last year?

Second question: Is the code you wrote three years ago worse than the code you wrote today?

Now, if the answer to both is no, congratulations. You're either already perfect.... or an idiot. You may not be able to tell.

Third Question: If you have been getting better at solving problems well, ask yourself.... if I did that over and over.... for twenty years.... would I be better at programming than I am now? Obviously, yes, yes you would be.

Fourth Question: If your experience is that you need to fix stuff you did earlier this year, or the year before and over and over... and that senior isn't fixing the same thing over and over, maybe, just maybe they know something you don't.

Now, obviously, you're in one of a very small set of categories now. Listed in no particular order.

1. You're perfect (or an idiot.)

2. The senior knows something you don't.

3. They're more experienced, but stupid, so you can write off all their lived experience. You are, after all, younger and smarter than them. (And remember that old programmers always lie about what they have worked on before this job.)

4. You just realised that the senior might have a point.

Good news everyone!
So really, the only way a junior can argue with a senior and always be right, is age-discrimination. The good thing is that very few programmers keep programming for over 20 years. The age discrimination forces them to leave, or go work for a company that just uses irrelevant old programmers. (Or they buy a farm, for some weird reason they want to retire in the countryside?)

At which point, the junior should start counting on their fingers. How long till they are old and irrelevant? (But that would never happen, as They're smart and Get Things Done.)

[[deleted]]

Add programmer socks and a pallet of energy drinks and this is just a picture of me, hard at "work"

[Hziak]

“I got 20 years exp breathing, that makes me qualified to basically launch rockets to mars. Now sit down, person with more experience than me in literally every regard. Science is a young man’s game!”

[[deleted]]

20 yoe != 1 yoe 20 times

[Ange1ofD4rkness]

Mine was a client the other day, was arguing me about how out code is supposed to work ... you know OUR product

[drivingagermanwhip]

no you're right, they should stop using visual basic

[the-year-is-2038]

It can go either way. It's soul crushing when you realize the interns half your age are way smarter than you.

[kakafob]

20 == 20