Developers, Learn to Receive Criticism
Learning to give and receive criticism was the best way to progress my career.
When you have worked on a project that you have been excited about for so long, or a project where you have put all of your heart and soul into building something you think is amazing, receiving criticism can suck.
This doesn’t just go for developers, it goes for all industries such as designers and copywriters. But I often find that developers find it the hardest to take criticism. Why?
When I first started as a developer I thought the work I produced was cutting edge… it really wasn’t. I was 10 years old, I didn’t really know what I was doing and this was back when you built websites by structuring them with tables. I thought that I was producing great work because to me, it was all new. So just being able to solve a problem that had been bugging me for ages, or getting that button to look just right was a big deal.
Getting older through my teens, I’m not ashamed to admit I as notoriously bad for receiving criticism. I know now that other developers were helping and giving advice to make me better, but at the time it felt like an attack… and I think that too many developers still think this way.
“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”
So how do you learn to take criticism? For me I found the best way was to actually learn how to give criticism.
Too many developer communities criticise eachother for all manor of things, such as the IDE they use, the frameworks they use or even what languages they choose to learn.
Moreoften than not, this kind of criticism is usually along the lines of “That’s rubbish” or “real developers don’t use frameworks”. There are plenty of other phrases that get tossed around, but I won’t go into those.
This kind of criticism is bad. Don’t be one of these people.
Instead, you need to learn how to give constructive criticism. Rather than just say something is bad, explain why you would do something different. Talk about the benefits of your suggested method and how that might be better than their implementation.
By doing this it makes you much more appreciative when you receive criticism. It puts you in the correct mindset of allowing other people to critique your work. It’s this mindset and taking in feedback that helps progress your career.
Remember, the majority of the time the criticism you will receive is from someone who is highly knowledgeable and has more experience in your chosen field.
Learning to take criticism will prevent you from stagnating and instead allow you to progress as a developer.
Sure there will be times where people will give you bad criticism, but in those cases you need to learn how to just let it go. Don’t be too disheartened, they just haven’t learned how to give it yet.
