Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Openness, Shame, and “Not Knowing”

  • Many appreciate the author’s vulnerability; several say openly admitting gaps (“I don’t know”) has been a career superpower, increasing trust and making others eager to help.
  • Others stress that confession alone isn’t enough: it should be coupled with a visible effort to close gaps. There’s criticism of holding others to standards one hasn’t met oneself.
  • Multiple commenters confess their own gaps (basic main() syntax, string length APIs, SQL joins, calculus, functional languages) and argue this is normal in a broad field.

Looking Things Up vs. Memorizing

  • Common theme: constantly re‑googling language/library details is seen as fine; “knowledge is knowing where it’s written down.”
  • Many now lean on IDE autocomplete or LLMs, especially for shell scripts and obscure syntax, and say this is a big productivity boost.
  • Some push back that not understanding fundamentals (e.g., SQL) can seriously hurt projects; they distinguish harmless lookup from never learning core concepts.

Testing, Uncle Bob, and OOP/Polymorphism

  • The author’s shame about tests and OOP triggers debate:
    • Some say Uncle Bob–style dogma (TDD everywhere, 100% test coverage) has done real harm, producing pointless tests and over‑abstracted code.
    • Others defend high coverage as a forcing function for quality, and argue excuses about “bad tests” usually mask indifference to quality.
  • Polymorphism and patterns: some celebrate “discovering” them; others warn that aggressively refactoring switches into class hierarchies often worsens readability and is context‑dependent.

Remote Work vs. Office: Deeply Split

  • Many strongly reject “remote work sucks,” citing remote as life‑changing: no commute, better family time, health, and the ability to live away from expensive cities.
  • Others, including the author, report real downsides: loss of ambient awareness, harder mentoring and pairing, more conflict/misunderstanding, loneliness, and home–work boundary issues.
  • Several argue the real variable is culture and tools (IRC/Slack norms, public vs DM chat, surveillance/HR fears, notification overload), not remote itself.
  • Repeated insistence that preferences are highly individual; trying to universalize one mode (RTO or remote) is seen as unfair and often politically charged.

Cyberharassment / Lobsters Incident

  • Commenters dig up the referenced thread about an undisclosed AI‑generated PR.
  • One side views the response as legitimate shaming of deceptive behavior that burdened maintainers.
  • Others find the ban and tone excessive or at least puzzling; whatever the intent, the episode clearly had a strong chilling effect on the author.

AI, Career Anxiety, and Industry Culture

  • Some fear we’re “engineering ourselves into obsolescence” and feel unsafe even voicing AI skepticism at work.
  • Others are unconcerned, seeing future roles as “tech leads for AI agents” or simply willing to pivot careers.
  • Broader complaints surface about cargo‑cult Agile, metrics gaming, shallow management, and the pressure to appear encyclopedic rather than openly ask “stupid” questions.