[HN Gopher] How to criticize computer scientists (2001)
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How to criticize computer scientists (2001)
Author : fuzztester
Score : 57 points
Date : 2024-03-25 19:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cs.purdue.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cs.purdue.edu)
| fuzztester wrote:
| From https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/comer/
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Weren't these insults honed years ago at Xerox PARC?
| defrost wrote:
| I'm pretty sure PARC repackaged straightforward extensions of
| old results of Lobachevsky.
| vsnf wrote:
| > Am I missing something here?
|
| A colleague of mine at a company I worked at, very intelligent,
| would often hurl this verbal weapon out at anyone delivering any
| kind of technical presentation. He was a very deep thinker and
| always had incisive insights. It was both a treat, and also
| terrifying to see him essentially interrogate the presenter. I
| only had to go before him one time, and it was both a test of
| one's knowledge of the material, and a measurement of one's
| emotional fortitude.
|
| As for the question, the answer was almost always "No, you are
| missing nothing. The rest of us simply do not exist on the same
| level as you do".
| sublinear wrote:
| I'm hoping when you say "interrogate the presenter" it led to
| some constructive collaboration and not just meaningless
| nitpicks or dick waving.
|
| I'm also hoping the people you worked with could tell the
| difference. If not, I hope you ran away from such a place. It's
| rare for someone truly that much smarter than everyone else to
| stick around without management siloing them into more focused
| work.
|
| Also, I hope you meant presentations about theoretical or
| engineering work and not some vague business goal. If it's the
| latter most of us reading this would have similarly ripped it
| apart (constructively), hence the need for management
| especially at bigger orgs. The best way to handle vague
| business goals is to present it to upper management and let the
| implementation details be filled in by their team if they agree
| to proceed with work.
| vsnf wrote:
| He was very strict, valuing correctness and rigidity, but
| entirely well meaning. It was never about showcasing
| superiority, nor was it ever nitpicking. Being in the
| spotlight though, it could certainly feel like an attack. And
| in some cases it was, but it was an attack on the idea, not
| on the person. He was _ruthless_ , but rarely ever wrong.
| szszrk wrote:
| Unfortunately one person is sufficient to spoil "a place".
|
| I am currently in this exact situation in my team. While I
| love everyone and really like what I do now, it became "the
| team vs that one guy". Which is ridiculous as he's supposed
| to be the pillar of the product.
|
| So here we are, the strongest part of the team became the
| biggest risk.
|
| Listening is a skill hard to master. Especially when you have
| no plans to try.
| sublinear wrote:
| > Unfortunately one person is sufficient to spoil "a
| place".
|
| I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds
| like you have a lot of inexperienced people spoiling the
| place, not "that one guy".
|
| > So here we are, the strongest part of the team became the
| biggest risk. ... he's supposed to be the pillar of the
| product.
|
| The big risk is management dropping the ball not willing to
| coordinate your product better and depending too much on
| one person. If it really is such a long bridge to cross
| between your SME and everyone else you have to accept that
| the product will be as bad as the dumbest person on your
| team. The product has to be well understood by everyone,
| not just one person. You might lose your only talent here
| if you can't hire better people to fill in the rest of the
| team.
|
| > I love everyone and really like what I do now
|
| Not to be too harsh but this should be the lowest priority
| business goal. Joy at work is just one tactic to retain
| employees. If your people can't get acceptable work done in
| the first place you can't expect anyone to be happy.
|
| How can I say this more bluntly? Don't abuse your smartest
| people to keep lesser people employed and happy?
| szszrk wrote:
| > How can I say this more bluntly? Don't abuse your
| smartest people to keep lesser people employed and happy?
|
| There is absolutely nothing in situation described by me,
| that fits this sentence. I'd like to explain that but you
| (?) already gave downvote to my comment, so it will
| likely just make me feel worse that I wrote a wall of
| text that no one will read.
|
| I actually still agree with points you made, as a general
| advise.
| sublinear wrote:
| I can't downvote replies and it's possible I projected
| some of my more frustrating experiences onto your
| situation.
|
| If you don't have much control over hiring, company
| culture, etc. it wasn't directed at you, but someone
| definitely does.
| jmholla wrote:
| > Not to be too harsh but this should be the lowest
| priority business goal. Joy at work is just one tactic to
| retain employees.
|
| I whole heartedly disagree. Happiness is more than just
| about retention. It's also about efficacy of your
| employees. Happy employees do better work and produce
| more.
| sublinear wrote:
| Paying employees more works wonders when you're making
| them pick up slack.
|
| Maybe I was too subtle in implying that the path to
| success in such a situation is to pay the SME more and
| crack the whip and refuse raises on the ones dragging
| things down until they quit. I'm pretty sure they have
| been with the company too long and/or have managed to
| avoid work thus far only hurting themselves and the
| company long term. Treating them well won't do anything
| if they take it for granted. The next round of hires
| should keep these lessons in mind.
|
| You can absolutely have a great workplace full of happy
| people, but you need to build that on a foundation of
| competence and respect. Happiness is a lot of little
| things done right. It's the result, not the cause.
|
| > Happy employees do better work and produce more.
|
| Employees who do better work and produce more are happy
| when they're working with peers who do the same.
| j7ake wrote:
| Am I missing something here? Aren't these ideas hashed out
| already 20 years ago by Tichy?
| Supermancho wrote:
| I know what camp I'm in. I have engaged in discussions around a
| difficult problem I solved, only to have one crowd come out and
| explain the algorithmic simplicity.
|
| "How would you do it?"
|
| "Oh I don't know about that."
|
| Always a pleasure from the armchair theorists.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _How to Criticize Computer Scientists (2001)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26609492 - March 2021 (101
| comments)
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