Also I re-read some of my old achievement psych classic papers on performance-avoidance orientation and I was like oh yeah there's a reason when I took my first tech job at a FAANG I was like holy shit this place is a performance-avoidance case study
I wish this area of psych stuff had been picked up more than "psychological safety" I think y'all would've found it more useful
@grimalkina
As someone ignorant on the topic, I’d be curious to hear you play out this thought a bit!
@inthehands @grimalkina I hadn't heard of it either (or at least not that I remembered). But I found this just now, which helped a lot.
https://edpsych.pressbooks.sunycreate.cloud/chapter/goal-orientation-theory/
I don't think I could function in a performance oriented organization anymore. I did once, in school. It just sounds so stressful.
Not that the mastery goal doesn't have its own stressors. I can give 110% for a while because I know how to manage myself into it and have learned the skills. Because I really want to make something work and improve. But it costs me too.
@faassen @jenniferplusplus @inthehands indeed -- and I think it's important to consider a dimension where the mastery goal stuff isn't always about "I must become the best" but rather intrinsic motivation and caring about the effort of it, not just the output of it, perhaps that is my personal buddhist philosophy speaking here but I think the research aligns as well. I personally might not have chosen to call this "mastery" if I had named it
I am very much talking about intrinsic motivation. I enjoy learning new stuff, doing stuff I couldn't do before, write code I am proud of, find good ways to express and share my experiences and insights with others. And indeed deliver something others appreciate.
"Best" implies comparison. I look at others who impress me, as examples to learn, or just to marvel, though I admit sometimes it's nice if people are impressed by what I can do.
@faassen @jenniferplusplus @inthehands A great point on competition. The mastery orientation side tends to emphasis progress within the self instead of comparison with others (indeed in some ways, says there can be multiple diverse "bests") while the performance orientation side is where we get competition cultures. Where we locate the measurement of progress is very interesting (within the self, vs constantly about others), and it is very freeing to realize there are alternatives to competition
@grimalkina @faassen @jenniferplusplus
The idea that there are multiple diverse “best”s is one of the things at the heart of my teaching approach, and is so powerful for students when they come to believe it. And it’s certainly one of the things that makes a great software team great.
@inthehands @grimalkina @faassen @jenniferplusplus Its for this reason I don't like the term "best" and prefer "good".
E.g. "Good practices" rather than "Best practices".
@inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus
Not a fan of the term either. "Best practices" can also devolve into dogma to be applied in all contexts.
@faassen @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus Agree, to me it implies, if taken literally, that there is no room for improvement.
@nshephard @faassen @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus I think it shouldn't be taken quite so literally, but my understanding is that's kind of the point. "Best practice" is supposed to mean that, to the best of your ability to determine, you are doing the thing in the best way it can be done.
The alternative is that you know of a better way it could be done, but you're not switching because you think the existing way is good enough, or because you don't have time, or don't care, or whatever. And I think that can sometimes be okay, but it's also not hard to imagine how it could go very wrong. Whereas if you're using the best practice, it can't really be argued that you should have been using a different practice instead which would have prevented the thing from going wrong. If that argument can be made, then it's essentially saying you weren't actually using the best practice.
(Of course the definition of "best" and "better" is often very sensitive to context)
@nshephard @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus
When people say "X is a best practice" any context is at best implied.
> Whereas if you're using the best practice, it can't really be argued that you should have been using a different practice instead which would have prevented the thing from going wrong.
"Nobody ever got fired for using the best practice"?
If something goes wrong, and this can be solved or prevented, improvement is possible, isn't it?
@faassen @nshephard @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus It depends. In some (many?) cases, yes, improvement is possible in the sense that you can find a way to prevent the thing that went wrong without significantly increasing the risk of other things going wrong, and thus the best practice evolves (what used to be the best practice is no longer the best practice because you found a better one). In other cases, it's not possible to change the practice in a way that would prevent whatever went wrong without making it easier for other things to go wrong, and that tradeoff may not be worth it. Although I suppose those latter cases are more rare than people often think they are.
@nshephard @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus
In the first case labeling a practice "best" may prevent learning or change for the better.
For the second case, if there are trade-offs that depend on context, then you pick a practice that fits them to the best of your ability, and I see little value in labeling it "best".
You may have practices to follow as a requirement - say, for space hardware. One could call this a best practice.
@faassen @nshephard @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus I would say if labeling a practice as "best" prevents learning or change for the better, then that is a gross misuse of the term "best practice".
But ultimately actions matter more than labels, and if a particular organization believes they're better off by not labeling things "best practice", then yes, they should go with that. (Their best practice is to not use the term "best practice"
@diazona @faassen @inthehands @grimalkina @jenniferplusplus
I think its the risk of "best" -> dogma that @faassen highlighted that is problematic with using "best".
I've seen many people who don't have an attitude of continual reflection on their (working) practices and just want to get a job done, working by rote and not looking for improvements.
@nshephard @diazona @faassen @inthehands @jenniferplusplus
I have my scientific work labeled as "best practices" a lot by others. There are many possible effects from this, I feel, and they range across the spectrum from good to bad! Sometimes it feels like marketing when others do this, and like it oversimplifies a really complicated set of findings. Sometimes it feels validating and helpful though, because it makes the point that this is coherent evidence tested in multiple contexts...
@nshephard @diazona @faassen @inthehands @jenniferplusplus ... Ultimately I think broadly used phrases always end up signaling a lot of different things, and I understand why it feels like you must use the term "best practice" to get people to pay attention to the huge amounts of effort that go into gathering and synthesizing evidence! Even though there may not be a single best, there can be large patterns. But as someone who likes to always ask about context it's not my favorite label :)
@nshephard @diazona @inthehands @jenniferplusplus
And that's even assuming there is sufficient evidence before it's labeled best practice. Often it's culture, tradition or someone who sounds convincing. There is value in those, but I would rather have the option to examine that value carefully. Or listen to people like you who are doing that.
@nshephard @diazona @inthehands @jenniferplusplus
Meta stuff leading to improved processes and people are indeed more likely to be generally applicable good practices. Like "get enough sleep" or "fix the system rather than individual".
But "do code review when an individual submits changes" is way dodgier already. So is "use microservices". And I am pretty sure many people consider both best practices.
@faassen @nshephard @diazona @inthehands @jenniferplusplus yeah it's wild how opinionated people can be about the smallest choices in software and act like it's a dogmatic best practice. Honestly I think it's a coping mechanism against lack of control
@nshephard @diazona @inthehands @jenniferplusplus
Yes, I think so. And against uncertainty, which is related.
@faassen @grimalkina @nshephard @diazona @jenniferplusplus
And also a cudgel for ego.
Lack of control + need for control is always a volatile mixture. As is lack of certainty + need to always be right.
@faassen @grimalkina @nshephard @diazona @jenniferplusplus
Thought touched off by mention of microservices:
Many (most?) “best practices” are truly •are• best-we-currently-have for a •specific problem• or situation — “in case of X, try Y” — but the X gets dropped and people just hear “always do Y.”
Like microservices, for example: can help address certain incarnations of Conway’s Law; pretty bad for a lot of other things.
@grimalkina @nshephard @diazona @jenniferplusplus
Yeah, it bugs me that some people seem to think micro services are the main way to do modularity, whereas I think it should be the last resort if you really need to delegate responsibility or scale separately.
I once had someone proposing restricting who could commit to main in an organization with less than 10 devs because an organization like google did it. PRs weren't even a thing yet, this was in svn
From childhood I was focused on computers as a way to do cool stuff. Of course you look at stuff others made to learn and admire, but it was never about somehow besting them or being in a ranking. So the idea that I should perform better than others wasn't really in my outlook.
A fascinating irony is that Ayn Rand of all people expresses intrinsic motivation compared to performance orientation quite well in her novel the Fountainhead. Her philosophy is full of very inhuman ideas, and ugliness, but Howard Roark demonstrates intrinsic motivation versus Peter Keating who is about trying to be better than others
What I meant to say is that intrinsic motivation as a goal can also tax mental resources. Maybe even more at times, because intrinsic makes you care, and makes you look for new challenges may be more demanding, as you gain the skills to tackle them.
@faassen @jenniferplusplus @inthehands I think that's also very true. There's some great work lately about how passion can lead to burnout and the toll of meaningfully connecting to your work, when not counterbalanced with enough rest and good boundaries, or when it competes with other important things like family and fun. We have many different needs and just because we might truly love and value a form of engagement with the world doesn't mean it's all we should do!
@jenniferplusplus @inthehands
Exactly. I am taking a break from work right now and am weeding my garden. I get enough sleep. I still reach the edges too often, especially in the darker months of the year, or after a lot of social interaction.