'Syndromes' Drive Coders Crazy

[Jazzy]

Being a software programmer is one of the best jobs these days for your pocketbook and your job security, but it can be incredibly bad for your mental health.

Two things are going on that are literally driving programmers crazy.

One is something known as the "imposter syndrome." That's when you're pretty sure that all the other coders you work with are smarter, more talented and more skilled than you are. You live in fear that people will discover that you are really faking your smarts or skills or accomplishments.

These people tend to apply extremely high standards to themselves and not to others. Imposter syndrome is common in professions where the work is peer reviewed. Writing software is just such a field, particularly open-source software where anyone can look at the code and change it.

The trap of imposter's syndrome is that programmers think they need to work harder to become good enough. That means spending more time coding — every waking minute — and taking on an increasing number of projects.

That feeling is called the "Real Programmer" syndrome as named by a post that went crazy on Reddit last week. The Real Programmer lives only to code.

Full article

Are any of you software programmers or studying to be one? If so, what are your thoughts on this article?

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

I think we all think someone else could do our jobs better than we can sometimes. Nothing to lose sleep over though.

 

[Evil Eye]

Nothing to lose sleep over though.

My thoughts exactly.

I have things I still want to finish and it bugs me that I haven't yet, but I don't really blame myself, I blame the small amount of hours in a day