31 July 2014
I’m a [kinda] nerd, with a passion for programming. The good thing is, by living in London, it’s very easy meet other nerds via meetups. Unfortunately, the contact between devs is not as good as we could think. It might happen that the ego is a problem. It’s not related to being a dev, but being a human. CommitStrip made a very nice post about it : when you meet a fellow coder (btw, if you don’t know CommitStrip, just go right now and follow them).
At the same time we are not all like that (I hope), some of them need to put on their ego on the side. After many meetups, I’ve created a stereotype about these kind of developers : the DevTwats.
Simply because it’s what they are, just fuckin twats. Exactly like in ‘The Social Network’ movie, when Sean Parker met Zukerberg. This scene is the perfect example.
Here is the main points:
His tools are the best, and if you don’t use the same, you’re just a fuckin’ retarded. The typical example is when you use PHP and the DevTwat is using NodeJS. Ok, PHP is maybe not the best, but extremely popular, easy to use, accessible, with a massive community and frameworks, and might be perfect for what you need. So what’s wrong with that?
Always use mention a lot of hype and fresh tech. It can be anything: a new way to code tests, a new task runner.. but he mention them like if everybody know and use them. So if innocently, you ask what it is, he will look at juge you like the noob, and will explain (and he won’t feel his pants during few seconds).
Monopolise the conversation. The DevTwat is egocentric, and need to monopolise the attention. He needs to show how awesome he (think he) is.
Always work on a secret project which will be the next Google. Of course you cannot know more about it, but it will be big. Even if you’re a noob and you don’t care about it, not able to create it by your own, and not interested by stealing his idea: he won’t say one word. But he’s persuaded that’s gonna be huge. Don’t worry, even if you stay in touch, his project will never reach a point of something demonstrable.
Not open to dialog. Their choice is the best, how dare you to purpose another solution or just think your point of view is relevant? Even if you can prove your idea could be a good alternative, they will always find a way to refute your argument. I repeat: their point of view is the only one relevant and right.
So when you meet one, just shut up, look at them, don’t interupt them, and give all you have to look interested. No, actually fuck that shit and go away, there’s better to do. Like teach a noob who want to learn something new, open to dialog, happy to share and communicate. That’s a better way to spend your time.
By the way, never forget, you can be a fucking master in a domain/tech, but even a noob can teach you something. As long as you’re not confortable with this idea, you definely are a fucking DevTwat. Congratulations buddy :-)
PS: I admit it, I have been a bit like that about some points. I hope I’ve changed, especially about people using PHP.