
The Better You Program, The Worse You Communicate - ruddzw
http://secretgeek.net/program_communicate_4reasons.asp
======
pg
Boy is that not true. The key to miscommunication and bad programming is the
same: not to be clear in your own head about what you're doing.

~~~
swombat
I don't know... I'm frequently very clear about what I'm trying to communicate
and yet fail to comunicate it. Clarity certainly helps, but communication
skills are another thing altogether.

Another part of the problem that he doesn't go into is that in programming,
you have to "say" everything you want to say, and what you don't say is
irrelevant. In communication, leaving out certain bits can be paramount - and
the bits that you do leave out often say as much as the bits you leave in, to
an astute interlocutor.

~~~
mixmax
Commmunication is a layered cake, the first layer is being clear about exactly
what it is what you want to say. The second layer is knowing how to say it.
The third layer is knowing your audience, and how to communicate to that
particular brand of people.

Communication is an extremely hard discipline because it requires you to both
be knnowledgeable about whatever it is you have to say, being linguistically
proficient, and having a good knowledge of people and psychology.

~~~
crux_
I don't know if the layering is all that clear.

If you're a believer in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (or just agree with
Orwell's Politics & The English Language), then it follows that your ability
to think clearly is somewhat _mutually_ dependent upon your ability to
communicate clearly.

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k0n2ad
I think a lot of programmers mistakenly use this as an excuse when in reality,
they should just get out more :)

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wglb
I disagree with the headline.

The site, however gives me "Service Unavailable", which is either bad
programming or bad communication.

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dxjones
Some well explained thoughts. Overall, I agree with the "gist" of it. :-)

I have experienced something similar, after rather intense stretches of
coding, especially when it involved optimization or visualization, ... I
sometimes find it difficult to resurface and be verbally expressive and
articulate again.

~~~
tricky
Same thing happens to me. I just tell everyone I'm "code brained" and sit in a
corner until I snap out of it.

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neilk
It's true. The better you program, the worse you are at breathing. The essence
of programming is to not repeat yourself. The essence of breathing is
repetition. In, out, in, out. QED.

~~~
jganetsk
The essence of programming is to effectively get an automaton to do repetitive
tasks for you. In the case of breathing, that is exactly what the autonomic
nervous system is for.

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kragen
Well, it's true that they're different means of communication; programming is
like math. But if the title of the article were actually true, then super-
clear writers like Ka-Ping Yee would be terrible programmers, and good
programmers like Larry Wall or Linus Torvalds would be bad writers. In fact
all three of those people are expert at both forms of communication, and
that's typical in my experience.

------
philwelch
You'll find that philosophers talk to each other in much the same way that
programmers talk to compilers. Philosophers invent and define new terms all
the time, try to make the most general true statement possible, and spend an
interminable amount of time debugging each other's arguments.

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gnoupi
And here we have a massive movement from programmers saying "how come ? You
are wrong, I communicate well. If you communicate bad, you are bad
programmer."

Well, that sounds like healthy putting yourself in question, and healthy
communication "You're wrong, because you are".

About me, I don't think I'm an awful programmer, but I see many valid points
in this (mostly about the "i explained it to you once, how come you don't get
it !" :P).

Quite interesting read, not especially to take as a direct truth, more to
lightly smile about it. Obviously, the "better you program", the less you are
open to light criticism.

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Zarathu
I disagree.

I think that if the average programmer steps out once in a while to
communicate with humans and keeps social momentum, he can differentiate
between the two.

As a programmer, I don't talk to my friends like they're machines. I do,
however, speak pragmatically and logically. I also use common sense.

I do have a little unproven, silly theory that good programmers are able to
solve social conflicts easier because of good debugging skills. My life seems
to be rather drama-free. I could just be full of shit, though. :)

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Confusion
The argument supposes that people have a single set of abilities/tendencies
that they apply to everything they do. That is ridiculous: we adapt our
behaviour to the circumstances. When you're with friends, you behave and
communicate differently then when you are with colleagues or relatives.
Cooking requires a different kind of attention than fixing your bike does.

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jexe
Some interesting points, but obviously a coder bait topic.

I'd argue that the best coders express themselves to humans and computers both
pretty well: with clarity and brevity, and without introducing unnecessary new
concepts. And they cover their corner cases. :)

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jrandom
All green of skin. 800 centuries ago their bodily fluids include the birth of
half-breeds. For the fundamental truth and self-determination of the cosmos.
For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.

