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We Are Our Own Worst Problem

Us software engineers are told we are smart, earn lots of money and are so important to the company.  We also allow this to go to our heads, forget that we have just as many issues as anybody else (maybe more) and are the root of many of the problems with software development.

We want to use language X because we think it's cool.
We interpet requirements for our benefit, not the clients.
We work to convince others that our logic is better when issues arise.
We create the bugs for QA to find.
We make the software hard to understand, modify or install.
We are the problem.

This is a part of being human and something that we all face to some extent.  Being a Buddhist means to know what our issues are and confront them every day.

The sad part is that you can see this problem behavior with many developers.  When things go wrong (as they often do), you can see the pattern of denial and defending of actions that caused the problem in the first place.   This all takes place on a personal level and the amount of pain that a person can inflict on themselves is great.  There are times that staff will leave a company rather than understand and accept what has been occurring within themselves.  Most companies want to retain these staff members and understand that projects are never perfect.

When I see this suffering in a developer, it makes me feel sorry, not for them, but for how they are thinking.  It's pain that others can not resolve for them but they must resolve for themselves.

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