Computer programmers behave like drug addicted

Jorge Guerra Pires, PhD
Geek Culture
Published in
8 min readMay 1, 2022

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

For a very long time, I want to write this piece. Why? I am going to discuss one here. I have arrived to the conclusion that:

computer programmers are like drug addicted, always looking for the next high. And they seem to have perceptrons as neurons when it comes to public opinions, emotions

See that, to be fair, computer programmers also have strong points, and they have lot.

I have two groups of courses I like to launch: academic and programming. They both have strong and weak points, e.g., academics do not buy course as frequently as computer programmers do; also computer programmers can be quite participative, and seem more responsible for their own professional growth, something I have learnt to respect and admire. Most of them are studying to work and live.

Some times ago, I have written a piece, based on a student feedback: Does Angular really suck: why I have to disagree! One thing I have concluded: the mentioned acidity is not specific from Angular, it is computer programming, in general; guys, it seems you need some emotional intelligence courses, it can be good for you! Life is tough, but you can handle your emotions, be a stoic!

Recently some sent me a feedback on a computer programming course, he said “did not like the course”, and they call it feedback, like a robot; that is all! 😂 other one has written “you have a bad didactic and repeat yourself”; on YouTube, the aforementioned are on Udemy: “you talk too slowly, I speeded up the course to 1.5.”

I am a non violent communication student, NVC, and it reminds me of a workshop where Marsha is talking to a couple, and the wife wanted his husbrand to guess what she wanted, when she wanted. The core idea of NVC is being clear about your request! On the science of feedback, the core idea is giving and receiving feedback well. Computer programmers, you are nice students and proactive, but on feedback to professors, a dog would do a better job! 😂

Not saying that to be aggressive and being condescending, saying because I do believe you guys are awesome, and can improve. Neither I hope to change things, but at least call the attention of someone, somewhere. Maybe it is you!🤙

On a psychology trick, a psychologist asks his patient to rank his sadness. Say the patient says 4/10. The therapist will ask: why not 3? most of the time the patient will increase the score. Mentioning it because they always refuse to give more feedback, maybe they are afraid of realising their feedback was not fair, and the course was actually good, or they are using feedback to process emotions, suggestion, diaries can be better!

“started writing actively about at 19-years old, started before with diaries, suggestion of a professor to handle emotions and to enhance my physical writing, pretty bad at the time. Unfortunately, the physical writing did not improve, but it helped me to handle emotions in a better way; I still write diaries from time to time, to handle emotions.I have just written 1.000 pages on Amazon Kindle Store, and it feels good!

Do not take public stand before thinking a lot, learning is more important than being superior, it is called growth midset. My course already have 5 stars:

how come some people see sun and others a grey sky ready to a storm?

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash

Some tips on giving good feedback to professors

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
  • if they provide a predefined form, use it! they can be based on researches on how to give feedback! I myself try to use research, on how to ask feedback, on how to active the best at people;
  • Give more concrete feedback. You can say: this part of the course is to fast because…; this part is to slow because…; when you explain this….remember to separate public to private feedback: public feedback will damage the image of the professor, private will help the course, and we all could gain from this joint discussion. Try to keep your anger to yourself, whenever possible;
  • Use all the resources, at least most of it, beforing providing feedbacks;
  • Try to talk before opining. It seems to me people tend to put every professor in the same box. If someone treated you badly, we tend to generalize. People are diferent, and the fact to be different is what makes the world better everyday. Be openned to find a great professor, forget the bad ones, at least emotionally;

Never forget, you are too responsible for your learning path, and you computer programmers are 10 regarding this, compared to academics, my second segmented-course market. You just need to adjust this strange sense that bad review is sign of intelligence, or may actually improve something, it is not! You can be better, be better!😍😎 We, online teachers and students, are on this together, we need to coexist in a healthy way, symbiosis is the word I am looking for now. The professor is not the enemy, there is no enemy at all; just another human trying to give his best, and pay the bills.

let’s try not to generalize individual experiences! We all have tendencies, backgrounds, and so forth, that makes our learning course slower or faster, pleasant or painful. And, should you need any help, no proud, I am here for you, as says Thich Nhat Hanh.” Angular really suck: why I have to disagree!

The image below is no longer true to the “innovating with biomathematics”, a computer programmer reviewed the course, damn it!🤣😂😂

Samples

Those feedbacks hurt, but we could all learn. Find here a collection from computer programmer online feedback, they are the worse!!!

Feedback: “You not know angular very well. First learn well and then teach” Detail: I have done a postdoc and published internationally.

Again, my dog can do a better review!

My answer:

Hey David, thanks for your feedback and thanks for taking the course 100%, your feedback is quite valuable. Also notice that you got my course for free, a little bit of appreciation is welcome!

Could you give me more sample about what you mean by “not knowing Angular very well”, let me know parts of the course that made you think that. The reason I gave the course for free was to receive feedback from students.

I did a postdoc, and published internationally, did a platform for medical application alone, built from zero; of course, I have a lot to learn, Angular is updated every six months, it is impossible to stay up to date. In computer programming in general it is impossible to stay up to date.

I do accept the course was a challenge to me, since I tried to put together Angular, Unit Testing, and Figma, and the more balls you have to balance, the harder it is, I do accept that!

Can you give me samples about what you mean?

Real samples, like parts of the course, lessons, what I said, that made you think that. Your feedback is appreciated, but too generic, hard to learn from it.

Please, keep in mind that the app taught was deployed and is working! You have access to the full repository on GitHub, I guess that may even be used to prove I know Angular! You may say I am bad teacher, but that I dot know Angular enough to teach the basics, this is another story!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDh4x6-WrVw

Looking forward to hear from you!

Thanks!

PS. if you know that much to make this call, why are you taking a basic course?

Why someone would take a course if they know the content, unless they want to expand their skills?

Remember the Dunning–Kruger effect: the more you are stupid about something, the more you claim to know.

I guess there are better things to do in life that messing up the course of somebody else, this course is basic, it is for beginners!

Comments: now I remember, got a similar review somewhere else, in that case was just a sample of the course. My interpretation is that the person is using emotions to create a public opinion, the person is thinking something like “I will make the world better”, similar to call someone bad names in traffic, an illusion of cleaning the world of bad instructors, or driver, based on weak assumption of cause-effect; it could be also something happening on the person’s head, at the moment, and the professor receiving the feedback is the “unluck bastard”. Just a guess of what might be going on the person’s head.

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Jorge Guerra Pires, PhD, site

Independent Researcher / Udemy Instrutor/ Superprof Star professor [PT] [EN] / Independent Writer at Amazon / CV Lattes

Member of the Center of Excellence for Research DEWS (University of L’Aquila, DISIM, Italy)

About me, short bio

I have been working with computer programming and mathematical modeling applied to biological systems since my bachelor of Engineering.

Currently, I am an Independent Researcher and Member of the Center of Excellence for Research DEWS (University of L’Aquila, DISIM, Italy). Love writing and reading!

Short-bio: B.Eng by Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (Brazil) in Production Engineering; double master degree by University of L’Aquila and Gdansk University of Technology: PhD on a collaboration between the Brazilian program Science without Borders in biomathematics at the University of L’Aquila/IASI-CNR/BioMathLab. Master of science and PhD degrees recognized in Brazil by University of São Paulo (USP) as bioinformatics. Postdoc by Federal University of Bahia and Fiocruz.

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Jorge Guerra Pires, PhD
Jorge Guerra Pires, PhD

Written by Jorge Guerra Pires, PhD

Independent Researcher and writer at Amazon | “I want thinkers, not followers!” | More: https://linktr.ee/jorgeguerrapiresphd

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