<story><title>Professional Programming: The First 10 Years</title><url>https://thorstenball.com/blog/2022/05/17/professional-programming-the-first-10-years/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>civilized</author><text>A lot of really good stuff here, for example reaffirming YAGNI and a focus on customer value. One part I think falls short:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Negativity begets negativity&lt;p&gt;I think this is coming from a very common and fundamentally misguided premise - the obsessive focus on emotional valence, on whether we&amp;#x27;re being positive or negative. The real problem is not whether we are being positive or negative, it&amp;#x27;s the rush to attach emotional valence to things we have not adequately understood or described. As C. S. Lewis said, &amp;quot;the human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value.&amp;quot; This rush to emotional endpoints is the root of both toxic negativity &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; toxic positivity.&lt;p&gt;Instead of taking positivity and negativity as endpoints, take them as prompts to better understand your surroundings. You are feeling bad about something - why? What about it makes you feel that way? Would improving it cost more than it would benefit? Is it the least bad of the alternatives?&lt;p&gt;A willingness to feel and acknowledge and investigate your negative emotions is a superpower. It gives you x-ray vision into things that very few other people have. They look away from problems and let them fester because they&amp;#x27;ve been taught to be allergic to negativity. The ability to look at problems is inseparable from what the author points out is a very important trait, the ability to roll up your sleeves and get stuff done.</text></comment>
<story><title>Professional Programming: The First 10 Years</title><url>https://thorstenball.com/blog/2022/05/17/professional-programming-the-first-10-years/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>derekstride</author><text>&amp;gt; Look at that little program go, holding the internet together, despite the 17 TODOs in it.&lt;p&gt;This hit a little too close to home.</text></comment>