How emotionally invested are you in your work?

[Paul M Watt]

Not much anymore. The first program that I learned how to develop Windows and C++ with took 2 years of my life. It was great, the whole project was my baby. I wanted to do things with the software, but management was shortsighted, and kept holding me back. In the end, I got screwed at that position because I wouldnt drop out of college for them. Leaving that job and that application tore me up. Since then, I take a lot of pride in my work, and I still take ownership for everything that I do, however, I try not to become attached unless it is something that I do on my own, and I have sole ownership of it. Getting torn away from that first project was like losing my first true love. I am sure another project will come along that will make that strong emotional tie for me again, but it will have to be something special.

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Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day
Light a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life!

[Michael P Butler]

Marc Clifton wrote:

Just that. No further explanation to that question.

Far too much for my own good.

Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]

[S Douglas]

I invest in the corporation what it invests in me. That's my standard answer come review time...

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I'd love to help, but unfortunatley I have prior commitments monitoring the length of my grass. :Andrew Bleakley:

[Siderite Zaqwedex]

Code is alive and I give it life. I am completely emotionally involved into coding. I sleep with code in my bed, kiss it good night and, of course, it kisses me back, since I programmed it to. Every time a bug slips in, nothing else matters except getting my baby healthy again. Then we ship it.

---------- Siderite

[WillemM]

It really depends on the project. Sometimes I stick my head above the crops and then I'm pretty involved in the project. But there are plenty of projects in which I handle things professionaly and don't care if project dies or something else happens to it that makes the management decide that we have to stop working on it.

WM. What about weapons of mass-construction?

[Stick]

I am very emotionally invested in my code. To me coding is an artform, and sadly one that often no one else ever sees or appreciates, except the poor MVPs on the forums that are forced to help me with learning that art. :rolleyes: Seriously, sometimes I think of code as a bit like owning a Mono Lisa that no one will ever see or appreciate, like a kind of hidden art developed by a bunch of us in the secret art of development. Stick

[Paul Watson]

I am more invested in the products the code creates than the code itself. Of course a product can be negatively impacted by ugly code but I am happier getting the product right than the code. Though I did spend three days on some code last week only to realise in the end that we wouldn't need it. It was a lovely block of code and I felt sad that it was to be left unused. I've kept it of course, under my pillow and next to my gun.

regards, Paul Watson Ireland FeedHenry needs you

Shog9 wrote:

eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.

[hairy_hats]

Enough to get teasy when users don't use my prog the way it was designed to work and then start whining that it doesn't work the way they expected it to. :sigh:

[lil_nicci]

As i'm really new to programming and a student on placement i struggle to get excited about it because i suck an am not used to being bad at something. I have a keen interest in programming an when its good it amazing but when it's bad i find it really distressing. I think i havent got passed the hard bit yet but once i do i think i would be protective over it, as i spend so much much time every day looking at it hehe. :)

to err is to be human but to really foul things up you need a computer!

[RichardInToronto]

Hi Marc, I love this forum; it shows that developers all over the world (Canada, US, UK, lots more) are all dealing with the same issues. I personally feel that software development is the trickiest profession - lots of hidden traps, and not much common wisdom offered by colleagues/companies. In regards to your frustration about code reviews, style guidelines, I can relate directly. In my last position, the quality of a programmers code was determined by one programmer, who was a brown-noser to management. Not only did he not have as much development experience as I did, but he also emphasized speed and time to completion! "Code Complete" by Steve McConnell? Who/what is that? Comments? What the !@#$ do you need those for? Extra functionality that would be a boon to user productivity, and that I dreamed up while implementing? Why did you write and test that code, when we didn't ask for it? Team code reviews? Only in one company I've worked for in Canada, and that was mainframe development back in the early nineties. I take a lot of pride in my work - I do think style and thought put into coding is still relevant. I hate it when management says that your code should be indistiguishable from other developers in the project, especially when there are often no coding standards at all. I personally believe that a programmer will produce better work when: - His/her name is in the code - He/she feels they aren't just writing code, but is involved in a group process and that the whole group needs to learn - There isn't just an emphasis on code, but an emphasis on thinking, and - Each developer is recognized as a unique person, that their contributions are diverse, and conformance to an arbitrary rule is ridiculous. I find it naive to believe that many companies who pay lip service to coding practices and forward thinking policies actually work this way. In virtually every company I've worked, there is a big gap between what management says, and what the programmers reporting to those managers actually are told to do. Management walking the talk? More like management enforcing coding practices that bolster short term financial objectives! If houses are all about location, location, location then code is all about minimal time to write, the least possible number of bugs, and definitely not about modularity, extensibility, simplicity to understand, performance, or elegance. In regards to how emotionally involved I am/have been at work, I offer these points as evidence: - Waking up at 4am in a cold sweat,

[Chris S Kaiser]

Chris Austin wrote:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - -Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love

Absolutely one of my favorite quotes. This has sat with me since I first read this book. But then I also share their love for cats.

This statement is false.

[Chris S Kaiser]

Quite a bit. Too a fault even. Something I need to work on. In essence, its not mine. Its the client's. Work's for Hire. But taking ownership of something doesn't mean much if you don't really care about it. But when I'm told to do it in a manner that isn't up to my own standards it grates on me. But this bleeds into process as well. Here's my take on it. We spend most of our waking moments working on code. More than any other activity, so in effect, coding is our life. So if we didn't work to make that experience worth it in the vein of "life is too short to..." then we're just cattle banging away at the keys. To feel that we have meaning aside from collecting a paycheck, (I mean really, that's just maintenance; but somehow we've elevated maintenance as the ideal), in comes passion for what we do which often translates as emotion. We're personal beings, not robots, despite some philosopher's claims. So I have a hard time not being emotional about my code as I need to care about what I'm doing. If I'm just living for maintenance then I've sold myself out.

This statement is false.

[Snorri Kristjansson]

I was recently put to the ultimate test on that subject. Namely my laptop was stolen in Barcelona containing last three months work on a project I have been working on for the last four years. What I found strange after that experience is that I did not miss the code I had written all to much, rather I took this as an opportunity to improve on the work I had already done. How strange is that!

[mitchell50]

Under the heading of "what's wrong with the industry", you just listed the two top dogs: politics and management. Politics: The art of stuffing your own pockets and getting your own way without getting people so pissed off that they actually say something about it. Management: The science of making all the right decisions for the wrong reasons. When you mingle both together in one human being, you have created a total sh**head! Unfortunately, without both of these branches of business, most coders wouldn't have a job. Beam me up, Scotty!

[mitchell50]

Unfortunately, I'm way too invested. Rather than sheding a tear for each bug, I break a keyboard and invent a new cuss word. I have been accused of chanting demonic invocations at times. Makes sense. My computer is possessed most of the time.

[Ashley van Gerven]

Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:

work's getting less and less of my priority

Yeah, some things in life are a little bit lot more important than work. :-D

"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza

~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.

[Ashley van Gerven]

Varied, depending on the project. But mainly those projects where there's some creative freedom to implement new ideas and they're appreciated.

"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza

~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.

[Andrew Eisenberg]

At the beginning of my career, 21 years ago, I was very emotionally attached. I would take every bug report or criticism as a personal attack. As time has gone on and I've gotten older and, hopefully, wiser; I have learned some to take it for what it usually is, at attempt to get things working. I still struggle at times but I am better at not reacting externally even when it still affects me innternally. Also, I've gotten less attached as I've seen large amounts of code I've written never used, become obsolete, or thrown away because the company went out of business. My emotional investment is now more of doing my best, learning how to do it better, and to contribute to the company whether or not I get recognized for it.

Andrew C. Eisenberg Nashville, TN, USA (a.k.a. Music City USA) (Yes Virginia, there are rock and roll stations in Nashville! :laugh:)

[Charlie Zero]

The first time a client changed their mind about specifications three months into a project, I admit it, I cried. :(( Now I'm used to it.