Death by Lisp Fever: On Paul Graham’s Revenge of the Nerds

That’s not an original title, by the way; I am referencing Alex Bell’s Death by UML Fever, albeit not going into the details on how to treat this disease of the mind by self-diagnosis as much as that genial article.

So, yes, managers are, I think most cases stereotypically, the natural enemies of computer engineers. I can see where that comes from, for these fields require vastly different tools and needs. Even so, given the current economic rules, managers have an authoritative power over computer programmers since their roles are more strategic to organizations; but that is more a consequence of the competitive economic game than anything else. I totally get it.

Still, we should not antagonize any role. Instead, what we should antagonize is arrogancy. Indeed, it is the arrogant sin of the manager who believes he knows more than anyone else that dooms the workspace with a toxic precarious work environment. But the pointy-headed academic is not exempt of this fault. Worse yet, both managers and computer engineers do not operate in the same field, the former keeping projects in check, schedule, and on time to meet estimations, and the latter performing the creative work of design, implementation, and testing of the software deliverables. Of course they are destined to be in friction; the former is ordering and the latter more chaotic! So, as mature children and adults often do when encountering hard-to-solve differences between ideas and individuals, we must embrace juxtaposition, negotiation, and dialogue, instead of differentiation.

When choosing this blog’s title, I chuckled for a bit. Akin to Alex’s article, I imagined myself describing this Lisp fever: that disease of cognition whose casualties are those computer engineers who believe they know better than managers, somehow, even though they both operate on different levels. In fact, they may turn violent, commonly gossiping how terrible and stupid their boss is. Haha, how funny! Our boss thinks that JSON is a computer language! How stuuuupid! Anyways, how do I read this Gantt chart? There is nothing more unattractive and toxic than someone who commonly talks badly about other people, so, naturally, people avoid them. They turn resentful, and consequently begin devising their plans for revenge: A Revenge of the Nerds. Yes! Like that film where frustrated nerds invade the privacy of women, to say the least, because they just feel entitled to it! Indeed, they always use Lisp, because Lisp is everything and is great, and whoever doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or doesn’t understand it is just sooooo stupid! Unknowingly, they endanger other people and their organizations. Entitlement feels good, so there is a high chance of epidemics by super-spreader events. Without regular check, your organization may be in danger of becoming a toxic wasteland, or outright dying since these spreaders are not fond of communicating what they are doing, adding uncertainty to the tightly knit business processes of which many livelihoods rely on. Seriously, though — do I have to continue?

It has come to my attention that we have become overly utilitarian. We think of creativity in terms of just doing things, intelligence in terms of calculated perfection, and authority in dictated hierarchies. Neither is humane. Good news is, you don’t need to be intelligent, perfect, or a dictator to achieve great work environments, and hence great results. You just have to be articulate enough in your thoughts, and have a willingness to dialogue, collaborate, and speak your needs, fears, and ideas.

Long gone must be the myth of order through authority. The myth of the solo genius computer engineer, working in the great intelligent projects, despite most successful ones being not the most intricate or sophisticated, but rather the most accessible, must too. Just as the engineer should think of developing his soft skills, so does the manager have to be open to understand the technicalities of his project. Juxtaposition, instead of differentiation.

 

Bell, A. (2004, April 16). Death by UML Fever. Queue, 2(1). Retrieved from: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=984495

 

Graham, P. (2002, May). Revenge of the Nerds. Retrieved from: https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~decker/courses/280f07/paper/Revenge.pdf