The software craftsmanship movement seems to be completely divorced from reality. For one, I can't for the life of me work out why they would list "The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp" as a reading. That book was terrible.
It basically seems to just be a short list of tautologies. No one in their right mind would disagree on what is on the list, but they leave off basically anything about software that might actually help you achieve anything or improve the way you do it.
It seems to be some zen-like meditation based method of improvement, completely devoid of substance.
hopefully you can be honest about it -- if you are discriminated against because of this then that company is not a good fit for you anyway.
I personally would be honest about why you took the break including calling it what it is but framing it as managing stress and looking after yourself, and move on to how that terrible and isolating experience for you might actually increase your value as a co-worker. Eg, perhaps you now have better skills for managing stress, know exactly how much overtime you can handle, have a better idea of what sustainable pace you can work at, be willing to stand up against ridiculous deadlines that you know can't be met even if just for self preservation, will be more caring and compassionate and tolerant to co workers and perhaps recognise symptoms of burnout/depression in them before they do.
Yes, that sounds pretty normal for someone your age. My advice would be stay fit and healthy (eat, sleep, exercise properly) and think about smaller goals that you can realistically achieve rather than dwelling on the big picture too much. For what it's worth I think a lot of people find their teens and twenties a pretty hard time (I certainly did) so don't think you are alone in that. You don't have to know all the answers right now.
About the false friendships thing -- perhaps they are and perhaps not, I suspect it's a combination of not having met people you really click with, over thinking things, and a general effect of your particular age that you're still finding where you fit in.
If you can, keep open communication with your parents/grandparent/siblings and close friends about what you around going through, or a counselor or other trusted adult if you need (there's no shame in getting some good advice about life and help to sift through your thoughts)
Maybe don't frame it as "figuring out what to do with my life" as a whole but rather many smaller experiences which will eventually add up to the whole thing.
Most people can't estimate and plan a 3 month IT project particularly accurately, let alone entire lifetime!
That may be it. Maybe I need to find friends who I really click with,aside from the current ones that I have.
Focusing on small things/projects is what I will start doing. The last thing you wrote reminded me of something I had already long forgotten.
Sincerely thank you.
We emphasise the actions of white men as being more important those of other groups. We write out of history the acts and perspectives and contributions that other groups have made and somehow manage to convince ourselves that we are not biased.
You describe a meritocracy that we aspire to and yet is almost completely detached from reality.
I don't understand the down votes happening here. This is clearly an ingrained facet of Western politics and society.
Why else would minority groups be over represented in prisons and below the poverty line, generally lower educated, generally compensated at a lower level than white male counterparts of the same skill and education level.
Coincidentally because of an inherent superiority of white males? I don't fucking think so.
>Why else would minority groups be over represented in prisons
I find that interesting. And it's also interesting that certain minorities are overrepresented in prisons outside the United States as well.
> Generally lower educated.
Well the cat is out of the bag that the poor performing minority schools are actually getting more funding per-pupil than majority white schools. So what's the problem, is it because of white males in the U.S. somehow?
> Compensated at a lower level
Do you know how easy it is for an average-skilled black man or woman to get hired in their trade? Do you know that if you're say an electrician's union, you will get placed on vastly more projects than white workers just because of skin color and project demographic scoring? Do you know that once even a private company grows to a certain point they begin getting hounded by the gov't and private groups over their demographics? The structural racism is not only a lie it goes in the opposite direction. Anyone who works in gov't, education or private trades knows this full well.
you seem to be arguing that the necessity for controls to counteract systemic racism are evidence that the racism does not exist. That's a total contradiction.
You're also holding up the trades as the potential high point that black folk can aspire to, which (no disrespect to the trades as they are extremely important) seems more than a little racist itself. Electrician is a great job, but isn't it curious that you didn't mention top level management executive, lawyer, knowledge worker, doctor, engineer...
Okay, let me pull out some post-2005 fiction that does the same thing:
James S. A. Corey writes beautiful socio-political commentary in The Expanse series.
Max Brooks' World War Z was biting in its own special way, more (admittedly positive) social than political commentary.
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice shows us a world where the only pronoun is "she", and what it might mean for a ship to love her crew.
There are lots of people who write social and political commentary through the vehicle of fiction. It has kind of been one of the defining features of fiction for all of its existence, no?
> Just read more. You'll get it eventually.
This is reasonable. I get that some things can't be communicated too well, and a lot of my favourites I could recommend only in the same way.
Why didn't the article simply begin and end with those two phrases?
With respect, The Expanse is fluffy and very average. World War Z is well structured but hardly amazing. Ancillary Justice is just... boring. The characters are awful given the excellent concept behind the book.
That said, I find Le Guin quite dull, though the characterisation is excellent.
In suspect we're in that ambiguous area in which people have different opinions but I do find it a little absurd to reference those three books in response to a comment which implicitly disses Vonnegut.
I didn't want to put up those titles as "amazing", only as "pretty darn good (with the caveats: to me, for now, until something else blows it out of the water)". I won't be writing articles extolling their virtues, and I certainly don't think they are timeless.
Maybe you are pretty meh on those books, because something else has captured your fancy much more. I would be interested in knowing what captures your fancy, because we have a common ground we're working off of (in terms of what we've both read).
> In suspect we're in that ambiguous area in which people have different opinions but I do find it a little absurd to reference those three books in response to a comment which implicitly disses Vonnegut.
I wouldn't dare diss Vonnegut, or even Le Guin, or any writer, for that matter---it's not my place, but when I come across articles that evangelize them in the way the OP does, I can't help but think "but what's so great about them?". For instance, Vonnegut established tropes and themes that writers today riff off of constantly, so he's a pioneer. I get that. In some distant sense, I can appreciate that too. I just can't enjoy his works the same way I can with stuff that has come out more recently, because his stuff doesn't seem novel to me anymore.
yeah the article is a bit fluffy. And I probably didn't answer your specific question very well (ie given that you can find the same themes elsewhere, why read Le Guin)
I just think Le Guin works are still worth reading in themselves without having to justify why they are better/more novel/more correct etc than any other particular work.
> I just think Le Guin works are still worth reading in themselves without having to justify why they are better/more novel/more correct etc than any other particular work.
I strongly recommend that people think about workplace diversity when considering job offers. Explicitly ask about during recruitment phases and think seriously about passing on roles where the teams are dominated by young white males.
I'm currently in a dev team 60:40 females:males and with a good mix of skills/ages/cultures and it's really great.
