The developer who was there when I started my last job believed that libraries should be avoided at all costs. He wrote a CSV reader from scratch in python. It didn't work in many edge cases. He didn't like it when I pointed that out. Nor when I showed him that his "better way" in another case was more than 10x slower using a profiler... At least he was using git, but the git history was full of long series of identical commit messages unrelated to code changes, because PyCharm has an option to reuse the previous commit message on a new commit...

He eventually quit and I spent 3 years refactoring his garbage before we finally had a tech team who could take over (I'm a scientist, with self taught coding skills). Pretty sure even after we had a tech team of 7 if was still a better coder than most, purely because I was interested in how coding works, and trying to understand underlying concepts.

[–] Zink@programming.dev 23 points 3 months ago (6 children)

because I was interested in how coding works, and trying to understand underlying concepts

Ah, yes. The secret to being better than most people at at most things. Curiosity and giving a shit.

[–] someacnt@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

My impostor syndrome is saying that I suck at everything, I just got curiosity to get over some of it..

[–] Zink@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago

I am convinced that impostor syndrome is just the other end of the spectrum from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

That doesn't necessarily mean that having impostor syndrome means you're an expert, but that you have the curiosity to look under the surface and get a glimpse of the long path ahead of you. You don't just assume you "got this" because one piece of many clicked into place.

I guess my strong impostor syndrome has mellowed over these past 5 or so years while I have been working on myself (as in mental health, not job skills, lol). Some of it is confidence gained by knowing better who I am and what I want out of life, accompanied by elimination of a lot of "I should be learning this / doing that / building my career XYZ" thoughts. And part of it is leaning into what makes me different from others at work versus the others, using that stuff as strengths rather than seeing them as deficiencies where I don't match up.

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