A Hard Practice

In a conversation yesterday, a friend recalled a pretty intense argument we once had (this would have been about 35 years ago). I straight up admit that back then I almost certainly would have dug my heels in and argued with everything I had -- that I would have had to be sure I "won."

I know there are still situations that get my back up and make me defensive, but I also feel that I've been lucky enough to have some experiences that have helped me learn to listen and accept criticism better than I once did. One of them is the practice of working on a modern software development team.

Part of releasing code involves peer review. In practice, what this means is more or less every day I am actively seeking out people to find the places where my logic fails, where I have missed a possibility, and where I am flat out wrong. And more or less every day my co-workers ask the same of me.

It doesn't take long to start learning a bit of humility.

Still, when I've worked for a day or more on a problem, it's pretty easy to get attached to my solution. So language matters. Conversation has to be crafted to attack to problem, not the person. Comments need to be as informative as possible, built to probe and explain. The person seeking the feedback needs to seek to understand the concerns, not refute them.

It's a hard practice. But a good one.