>> I just had an long and very frustrating conversation with a young programmer who recently discovered functional programming, and thinks it can solve every problem in the world.
I'm struck by A) the arrogance of such a statement, and B) how completely unsurprised I am by it. The fact that the rest of the article is nitpicky stuff of no real consequence, with a heaping helping of strawmen and goal-post moving, only supports this. This is a person who fears being wrong and is defending their turf.
For the proverbial "you", because this is an endemic problem in our industry:
It's not necessary to defend turf, both if you are right and if you are wrong. Obviously, if you are wrong, it saves you time to have someone else figure it out for you and then you can adjust accordingly (you're going to adjust once proven wrong, right?).
But if, in some weird happenstance that has yet to be demonstrated in history, you're right, you have expended no effort to defend your position. Sometimes, you have to let people learn their lessons the hard way. Let the youngsters run in their enthusiasm and trip and fall on their face sometimes. It's the only way to build a healthy fear of novelty-for-the-sake-of-novelty, and instill some critical thinking as a matter of course.
It's not necessary to be "right" all the time. Just because there are people in the world who are "Doing it Right" versus "Doing it Wrong", doesn't mean you have an ordained duty to inform them.
Because I'm really getting sick and tired of being asked "why didn't you use <whatever I like> for that <whatever you wrote>?"
I'm struck by A) the arrogance of such a statement, and B) how completely unsurprised I am by it. The fact that the rest of the article is nitpicky stuff of no real consequence, with a heaping helping of strawmen and goal-post moving, only supports this. This is a person who fears being wrong and is defending their turf.
For the proverbial "you", because this is an endemic problem in our industry:
It's not necessary to defend turf, both if you are right and if you are wrong. Obviously, if you are wrong, it saves you time to have someone else figure it out for you and then you can adjust accordingly (you're going to adjust once proven wrong, right?).
But if, in some weird happenstance that has yet to be demonstrated in history, you're right, you have expended no effort to defend your position. Sometimes, you have to let people learn their lessons the hard way. Let the youngsters run in their enthusiasm and trip and fall on their face sometimes. It's the only way to build a healthy fear of novelty-for-the-sake-of-novelty, and instill some critical thinking as a matter of course.
It's not necessary to be "right" all the time. Just because there are people in the world who are "Doing it Right" versus "Doing it Wrong", doesn't mean you have an ordained duty to inform them.
Because I'm really getting sick and tired of being asked "why didn't you use <whatever I like> for that <whatever you wrote>?"