Don’t Be A Whiny Developer
Posted by Davy Brion on December 15th, 2009
Ever had to work with a developer who continuously bitches whines about everything? It’s one of the worst possible things that can happen to a team of developers. I have one golden rule when it comes to bitching: if you are willing to put in the effort to improve the situation, then i don’t have a problem with it. In fact, i bitch a lot too but at least i try to improve whatever it is that i’m bitching about. If you’re merely bitching but not willing to put some effort into improving things, then you would really do everyone a favor by simply keeping your mouth shut.
Let’s examine for a second how a whiny developer can come across to his/her coworkers:
- you might be very lazy because you don’t want to solve problems you’re complaining about
- you might be incapable of solving problems that you complain about
- you might just be unwilling to actually solve problems
- you might just expect other people to solve your problems all the time
- you might just be completely out of touch with reality
- you’re probably not a good teammate
- you probably only care about what you need to do
- you are definitely a huge pain in the ass
Either one of those isn’t very good, is it? Not to mention when people think more than one those things of you.
I think a team of developers is always better off without the whiny developer. It’s what professional sports coaches often call “Addition by subtraction”. Sometimes you have a talented team that isn’t going anywhere. They aren’t winning the games they should be capable of winning and the team gives the impression that they’ve simply stopped caring. In many cases, these teams suddenly start performing better once the rotten apple in the group has been traded or simply cut from the team. No matter how talented you might be, if you aren’t translating that talent into actual value and are just wearing down your team mates, then you don’t belong on the team.
If you’re a developer who complains a lot, please think about what your presence on a team really means. Are you really contributing anything positive? Could it be possible that the team is better off without you? Would you really not care if your team members would rather not work with you? Can you understand why your team members complain about you?
December 15th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Sound advice, surely, but the unfortunate thing is, whenever I see one of these posts, the writer usually has a specific person in mind.
December 16th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Money, that’s the basics and the cause!!
December 16th, 2009 at 8:40 am
MoneyEnvy, that’s the basics and the cause!there… fixed that for ya
December 16th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I continuously whine about everything including:
Why didn’t you write any unit tests?
Why is your code so hard to test?
Why is your code so resistant to change?
Why do I have to write all this SQL by hand?
Why don’t your bits deploy consistently?
Why can’t I use client side transactions?
Why did you write your own queuing framework?
Why do we make things more complicated than necessary?
Why do we code for six weeks before giving anything to the testers?
Why do we wait so long before we try to integrate with partners?
Why do you think we will get it right this time if we are doing the same thing we did last time?
…
-Bill
December 16th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Food for discussion.
This opens up another question, though. How do you cope with this? I think no-one (well, there’s always exceptions) is ‘whiny’ on purpose. I strongly believe that in most cases, all of these issues can be resolved by simply having a nice heart to heart talk. Quite possibly, the whiny person thinks exactly the same about you.
I can’t help but wonder, since you’ve probably been in this situation yourself once or several times (probably being the inspiration for this post?), how, and if, did you deal with this? And what was the result?
Dealing with difficult people is always, well, difficult.
December 17th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Do you know how to get a smart developer ?
Please pay him more money or hire other developer with high salary !!!
Whiny developer get low salary !!
Smart developer get high salary !!
Of course, whiny’s output result is not as well as smart developer.
December 17th, 2009 at 9:01 am
@Pho
i haven’t had to cope with this since i was not a member of that team. if i was, i certainly wouldn’t have put up with it and would’ve had quite a few talks with him.
i know there have been talks, but they didn’t really seem to help.
December 17th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Moral hazard anywhere, anytime !!!
December 18th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Interesting post … I think that almost every developer goes through a ‘whining’ phase, soon or later. Personally, there are 2 sentences from Eric Evans that really helps me putting things in perspective “Not all of a large system will be well designed” & “Precision designs are fragile”.
Focusing on the key points, whether it’s in terms of technical design and/or methodology, is what’s important. Use incremental refinement anywhere else.
So indeed, complaining almost never helps