Since you have expressed your criticism, could that mean you care?
I’m aware that I lack good communication skills, but I’m planning to improve this.
Feel free to give some advice on this matter. That is a challenge, isn’t it?
3 thoughts on “Thank you for your criticism”
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Just a quick message to let you know that I’ve never find your blog boring or too elitist. I just felt that your blog really deal with software engineering problem. Maybe a lot of developpers already know those problems and their solutions, but I really see your blog as the diary of the developement of Tinymail, not a way to prove your skills.
Thanks strass. Also thanks to the few positive reactions from other people I received in my private mail. They convince me that a lot of the people that really matter, don’t view whatever I write as if I’m trying tell people I’m a better human being.
My main reason for blogging about tinymail has been explaining all sorts of people (both experienced *and* beginning software developers) how *I* view software development and what *I* think are the best techniques. It has been about describing what works for *me*. Obviously that doesn’t have to be true for *all* software developers. Diversity is, in my opinion, a vector for human intelligence. I say: be diverse, experiment, do things totally different. And please, please tell us about your experiences. This is exactly what I’m trying to do myself.
I’ve reread my own older posts. I have to agree that, at some points, I might confuse people or make it look like I truly believe I’m this better person. Being myself, I can (and did) try to identify what happens: I’m often being extremely enthusiastic and forget about trying to use sentences that are difficult to get emotional about. It looks like this Robert did get emotional about it (he writes he gets sick of my weblog posts). I regret this and hope he’ll survive the illness I caused.
Being a technician but not really a socially guy, it isn’t very surprising I was going to make empathy mistakes. Nevertheless I’m planning to improve the situation. As I once blogged, criticism can be enlightening and as I believe being technical isn’t an excuse, I believe it’s a bug in my personality which can be fixed. Just like how I can fix everything, if I just want to fix it.
Roberts criticism didn’t influence my willingness to improve myself. My girlfriend yesterday told me I will therefore make the same mistake again. I know it’s something I’m not good at. Agreeing with the criticism and planning to improve myself is like saying: I’m better than you, because I have the capability to accept criticism and to improve myself.
However, it’s part my philosophy and way of thinking. It’s a chicken and egg problem. My philosophy about recursiveness is that it’s an interesting phenomenon that we should definitely study. But for practical reasons, we must define a root or starting point. It’s difficult to improve if I’m never allowed think that I *can* be a better human than somebody else. I guess I really have to study Socrates *in depth* before I might find some vague answers on how to do it. I fear I’m probably not wise enough to understand or find the answer. Maybe if I really want it …
I might have been a little bit cynical. But I truly hope Robert will explain me how to improve my communication skills.
Thanks Philip for blogging about your experiences. I very much appreciate understanding other peoples development processes as it helps me evolve and refine my own. I’m not sure what others expect to read on a p.g.o syndicated blog, but I know my favorite posts are the ones about Gtk/Gnome development such as yours.