> ...I am clearly worse than almost everyone that emails me along all of these dimensions. I only have a dim understanding of how my 3-4 years of experience coming from a strong background in psychology has rounded to "senior engineer", I've only ever written tests for personal projects because no employer I've ever seen actually had any working tests or interest in getting them, and I wrote the entirety of my Master's thesis code without version control because one of the best universities in the country doesn't teach it. In short, I've never solved a truly hard problem, I'm just out here clicking the "save half a million dollar" button that no one else noticed. I'm a fucking moron.
comes off to me as false modesty in the context of an essay that characterizes the majority of industry colleagues as "drowning sleepwalkers." Take it as a criticism of your writing persona, not a personal insult. You are right that I can't read minds, only the text in front of me.
I am glad you are mentioning specific books about software here in the comments. The essay had a very thoughtful and detailed discussion of books about drawing. If it had kept that energy when it turned to discussing software, instead of retreating into taking potshots at "the average developer", consultants, etc., it would come off to me like a persuasive essay rather than a self-congratulatory smugpiece.
> ...I am clearly worse than almost everyone that emails me along all of these dimensions. I only have a dim understanding of how my 3-4 years of experience coming from a strong background in psychology has rounded to "senior engineer", I've only ever written tests for personal projects because no employer I've ever seen actually had any working tests or interest in getting them, and I wrote the entirety of my Master's thesis code without version control because one of the best universities in the country doesn't teach it. In short, I've never solved a truly hard problem, I'm just out here clicking the "save half a million dollar" button that no one else noticed. I'm a fucking moron.
comes off to me as false modesty in the context of an essay that characterizes the majority of industry colleagues as "drowning sleepwalkers." Take it as a criticism of your writing persona, not a personal insult. You are right that I can't read minds, only the text in front of me.
I am glad you are mentioning specific books about software here in the comments. The essay had a very thoughtful and detailed discussion of books about drawing. If it had kept that energy when it turned to discussing software, instead of retreating into taking potshots at "the average developer", consultants, etc., it would come off to me like a persuasive essay rather than a self-congratulatory smugpiece.