this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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There was a guy I worked with that tended to want to unilaterally make sweeping changes.
Like, "we need the user to be able to enter their location" -> "cool. Done. I also switched the dependency manager from pip to poetry".
Only a little bit of exaggeration
Some people, like me, are not built to be developers. I can sculpt code in any language I need for whatever problem I need to solve, but maintaining code over a long period of time, with others, is not my thing.
The drive to do additional changes is just too high and the tendency for typos or obvious logic errors is too common. (There is one little improvement. It's right there. One line up. Just change it now while you are in there....)
I am not stupid and regard myself as a decent engineer but my brain is just wired in a more chaotic way. For some things that is ok. For developing code on a team, not so much.
Security is the field I am most comfortable with because it allows for creative chaos. Rule breaking is encouraged. "Scripting" is much more applicable and temporary.
Do you have ADHD?
I do. Also, I am old(ish) so I have had many years to come to terms with what I can do well and where I struggle.
In this case, I didn't want to use it as a crutch or an excuse. After reading the number of awesome replies this morning, I realized I should have probably framed my comment differently.
People here put some real time and effort into giving some solid advice and I didn't expect that.
Edit: As a pure example, this is the third or fourth edit of this comment. Words are challenging, and programming is very similar in that regard.
Thank you so much for your reply. Your comment was so recognizable to me, and I'm in the process of being diagnosed with ADHD.
Edit: I want to say that I do feel sorry for asking such a personal thing about you. I'm not young either, but just now coming to terms with it and figuring out that this is the reason why everything I do goes as it does. To recognize it in the wild is absolutely weird.
No worries! I am generally very open about it. (Your comment was recognizable to me, actually.) There is a very specific non-malicious bluntness that comes with the condition, actually.
But yeah, you have been practicing dealing with it your entire life. Treatment just helps a ton.