Be Respectful and Kind

Disclaimer: These are based on my own personal observation and anecdotes.

As a developer, I have gone through multiple phases in my career. And the only lesson I learned after going through those phases, is I should be respectful and kind with others regardless of my position.

The lesson is people will remember your personality and how you were kind and helpful with them, but not the obscure linux distro and terminal text editor you suggested.

Superiority Complex

Most developers have developed superiority complex inside them, because of their obsession with programming and computer science. They will try to humiliate each other, based on their personal preferences.

I was one of those people, who used to humiliate people for using windows system instead of linux for development. The self-claimed tech elitists has defined a hard rule to be a great programmer. And they are defined based on the text-editors, operating system, and how fast you can write code from scratch without using any libraries. And the contemporary word for that is “Cracked”, which has replaced the term “10x Engineer”.

This kind of humiliation is more common in twitter (X). You will find different kind of Pokémons there.

Pokemons of Twitter

Its been like 3 years, since I have become active on twitter. I lurk there, and I have seen new programmers with anime profile picture coming out of nowhere with the worst opinion on tech. My opinions of these pokemons are based on the twitter interactions, not from nepal tech community.

• New Undergrads: These pokemons will discover data structure and algorithm on second or third semester of their university. They will discover leetcode, and other platforms for competitive coding. Once, they are capable of writing the binary search algorithm from scratch in C, without taking any references from the internet or books, they will think, how C is a goat language and superior above all other languages. They will see other new developers posting on twitter, boasting about writing a http server from scratch in C, and farming likes which inspires them to do the same thing.

  The most popular “engineers” on this platform have not done literally anything. It is so hilarious that you are literally worshipping nonames with anime pfp.
  
  Every time I open someone’s popular profile and seeing there at least SOMETHING THEY MADE it is like a true gem.

  — Dmitriy Kovalenko (@neogoose_btw) March 16, 2025

• Dropouts: These pokemons are mostly from first world nations with first world privileges. They are self taught, they start coding early from the age of 13 or 15, because they had an early access to computers and programming. Because of their privileges, it doesn’t matter if they go to uni or not. They can easily get a new job without any degree. These pokemons will then boast on twitter how cs degrees do not matter, and why should you care for tiny fraction of performance for your web server with only one user.A

• AI AI AI: These pokemons will always tell you how AI will take your job, and how CS will become obselete. They will talk about AI replacing the developers in few years, because of LLMS and Agents. They will themselves subscribe to pro plan of LLMs, and to prove their credibility, they will show the basic programs developed by LLMs.

Real Programmers

The self-claimed elitists looks down on the developers who use libraries and abstractions in their day job. These anime guys will then teach you, that you can only become a real programmer after writing everything from scratch. Its funny because if we look at their portfolios, they only have programs not softwares — “Meme finder”, “Http server in C” bla bla bla.

Developers vs Users

However, in real world, there is a distinction between devs and users, on how they use the software. Its hard to make a software simple for users, because you will have to take care of all the edge cases as a developer. And for that, you have to think like an user, and how will they use the software.

For instance, as a developer, you know that you can show the password by toggling the type from dev tools, but as a user, they will look for a show icon to make their password visible. And these are the little things, that developers will have to take care, to become a great developer.

Conclusion

Do not be like those people from twitter. Programming is a skill, and you will learn after practicing, and everyone can learn it. With given time and resources, everyone can learn to make a new kernel from scratch. Everyone can learn obscure tools and languages, but it is not acceptable to make fun of others because you do not like their preferences.

I have been there, and humbled multiple times. I used to use linux — tried different tiling managers. I was getting more addicted to finding new tools, and softwares. And I was as productive as my coworker with windows machine. I own a mac now, and i do not worry about breaking my operating system again.

Being humble and kind with your coworkers will get you a long way in your career, even if you have mediocre programming skills.