Hadi Hariri on Developer Community and Conference Conversations | UGtastic Archive
The talk discusses the concept of 'antisocial geeks' and the negative impact of a culture that isolates developers and hampers communication. It highlights the importance of empathy, emotional intelligence, and effective communication in the developer community.
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Hi, it's Mike Hall again here with UGtastic. Today I'm coming from the GOTO Conference in Chicago, GOTO Chicago. I'm sitting down with Hattie Hariri who is a well you're a developer evangelist with JetBrains and one of the talks he was going to be giving today is on "I'm being an antisocial geek is harmful" which I think is actually very thematic for what UGtastic is and it's trying to support people who participate in community and get out from behind the desks. So you know thank you again for sitting down with me. What is an antisocial geek if we don't already know what it is and why is it harmful?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
So there's an easy way to get a talk. It's not that we're antisocial. I mean if you define antisocial as someone that wants to disrupt and be aggressive towards others and their rights, we're not antisocial. We're antisocial in the sense of we're not really into socializing as as much as other people. It's not misanthropic. It's not misanthropic. It's just going in the heart. A little bit.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
So the talk is more about communication and interaction between developers, right?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And it's more about the experience that I've had over the twenty plus years We're not antisocial. We're antisocial in the sense of we're not really into socializing as much as other people. It's not misanthropic, it's just going in the court. A little bit. So the talk is more about communication and interaction between developers. It's more about the experience that I've had over the 20 plus years of interacting with different developers, with different teams, having run my own company, and seeing the problems that communication or lack of it causes between developers and teams. And it's, you know, often you find, like, in our industry, it's become common to say that, you know, developers are introverts. Developers, you know, don't mind him, you know, Steve is great at developing, but you can't really talk to him. And I think that we are ignoring this and we're kind of accepting that you can't talk to Steve as opposed to trying to find out why you can't talk to Steve. Find out why you can't talk to certain people or why there's so much friction when you're talking to certain people. And what happens is that we end up with teams where certain people, certain individuals are isolated. And that, I feel, that impacts the team, it impacts the code, it impacts the company, it impacts the goals, everything. And just happiness. Happiness. That you're kind of pigeonholed into this, you're a developer, therefore, you don't want to talk to anybody. You're a developer, therefore, you just want to sit in a dark room. And I've seen this culture of we all sit in a dark room and nobody talks. And then we all go out to lunch and then everybody just chat, chat, chat, chat. Which kind of leads me to believe is that people actually do want to talk and they do want to share. But we have this stigma or this preconceived notion of the way we're supposed to act. Yeah, I mean we're great, I mean it's not that, you know, it's a myth that developers are introverts. They're not introverts. What we don't like, and I've discussed this in my other talk, the prima donna one that I talk about, is that we don't like small talk. And when I, the first time I said that to me, gave that talk, someone said to me, "What do you have against the language small talk? " No. It just proves my point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
It's like, yeah, hold on, right? Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
We don't like small talk. So, we love to debate, we love to just sit there and, you know, debate things on end and bring out points and make sure that we have the last point and we're right. Sometimes we don't realize that it's time to back off. Sometimes we don't realize that it doesn't matter of, you know, making a concise point about something.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
It's, we miss the big picture, right?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And it's, I kind of feel it's these skills that often we're lacking.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Because we, you know, like I, I think that it's very good for developers to work in technical support.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Okay.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Because you learn to deal with customers. You learn to know when to back off, you know when to concede, to say, "Okay, well, you're wrong, but I'm not going to tell you you're wrong because of this. " Right. Because it's, in the end, it's just not worth the battle. It's not worth the battle. And what happens is that with teams, when you're with someone that is constantly trying to prove his point, it ends up that you're like, "Okay, well, just do whatever you want. " You know, and that, do whatever you want, can impact your product. It can impact your, whatever you're developing. But you're like, "Well, it's not worth the friction to, to dispute or debate with this guy. " Okay. And there's a lot of people that don't realize that at some point, it's better to back off, it's better to, you know, again, not miss the point that we're trying to do, right?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Well, what is it that we're, we're here for? Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Recently, myself, I've had to work in a non-developer role in getting to see, mostly dealing with HR people, and getting to see how different, because what you described about the way developers tend to talk when we're amongst other developers. And then going into a human resources, where it's very much, not as, as rigid as developments. They have rules, and they have their protocols, but the, the mode of conversation is much different, much more, I don't want to say casual, but it, it is different. And I'm, I'm struggling to figure out how to... It is, because, you know, we are, we, we, we try and apply our coding principles to our conversations.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah. Like, dry, yes, I, why do I have to repeat myself?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Or, say the minimum possible for it to be efficient, you know, like, ultimate efficiency when we speak.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
And sometimes it's not about efficiency, right?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Sometimes it truly is about talking about the weather, or some nonsense, or whatever, to break the ice, to, to try and understand the other person.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And, and that's one other thing that I feel that is lacking a little bit in the developer world, which is conveying emotions. Like, you know, we don't have a lot of empathy often.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right? I mean, you've seen, no doubt, you've been involved in open source, right?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Mm-hmm. And, recently, there was some, some lady that had put up some code on open source, and there was such a backslash, backlash on it, on Twitter.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Like, who would put up rubbish like this? Right.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And when you get high profile people putting things like that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
It hurts people. And we don't think about these things. You know, we don't think about how our actions in the goal of saying that something is right or wrong can end up hurting other people.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And it's kind of interesting how you, how you are describing the, the, I don't want to say lack of empathy, but it sounds like more of a underused empathy muscle.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
That, you know, we, we can relate to each other, but we haven't, many of us haven't developed that, that, that skill dealing with other people. In, in, in a, in a, in a more benign way, I'm thinking of, in the HR role I've had, is working with developers as they're onboarding. And trying to get people who've only been at a company under seven months or so, to talk to somebody who's starting today. And when I'm talking to the person who's, you know, only six, seven months there, they think, well, I don't know enough to be able to give useful information to this person. And I don't want to say it's a lack of empathy, but they, they don't remember how to empathize with what it was like to be that new person and realize that they do have a lot of experience that they could share that could be useful for that, that person. And it's, it's, they can't put themselves back in that role of not knowing. And it's like, like as adults, we forget what it's like to be a child. It's, if you're a parent, it's, it's hard sometimes to remember. Um, but it's, it's, it's an, it's a, it's an empathy deficit.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
It seems like, um, now as a developer evangelist, you have to deal with a lot of people, I'm sure.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
So, uh, you know, dealing with communities, has your, has that, has this view that you have now that, and where this talk came from and, and even the pre-Madonna's talk you, you, you mentioned earlier. Is that coming from your experiences, largely dealing with so many varied communities, .
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
NET, Java, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Python?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Well, I, yeah, but I mean, I'm, you know, I'm not gonna badmouth the developer community, far from it, because I'm still a developer myself. Uh, but I, I feel that there is a little bit of a lacking. I mean, I, you know, I, I, I work at, I, I work at a lot of conferences and I stand in a lot of booths. And I see that it's very, often it's hard to engage conversation with, with people because people are shy to come up and say, you know, like, what do you do or whatever. And so I have found it, but, but more than in, as a, and as evangelist coming across this, I, it's been more my experience with, with teams that I've worked with or teams that I've worked on.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And it's more about the, the actual root problems that often there have been in, in teams. And I've, I've learned to deal with people more openly and be kind of like, you know, more open in that a lot when I was dealing with customers.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Okay.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
When I had to talk to customers and that's why I say, I mean, customer support is, is one of the best things that developers should do. I mean, I have had to deal with customers, you know, doing technical support and ISP where, you know, the guy would call and say, I can't, um, send email.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
And you would say, are you connected to the internet?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And he would say, I don't want to go to the internet. I want to send the email.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
You have to learn to deal with that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And it gives you patience and it teaches you how to talk to people because you can't hang up the phone and say, you're, you're too stupid to send the email.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
You can't. Well, and, and the thing is, is again, it goes to the empathy, remembering that once upon a time, you were in the same boat, you know, you may have been a child when it happened, but once upon a time, you did not know what the internet was.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And, and trying to remember at one, um, you know, this, this reminds me of, uh, a scenario I'd experienced in the military where I was dealing with a bunch of new recruits and asking them where they, which, which jobs they were going to be taking. And of course, you know, one was a medic and one was going to go to language school and one was going to be in an MP. And the other one was kind of, uh, said, um, I'm just gonna be a truck driver. And that kind of took me back. She was, she was really like, eh, you know, I'm not as good as these other people. And he just not, she also like kind of from the other end forgot that she was providing a very valuable service. And that what she was doing was important and that she was a human being and, and had value. And, and when we're looking at our ivory towers, we have these very fancy jobs. We're senior engineers and we're, we have these very illustrious titles. And we forget that we couldn't have that without the truck driver who carries the computers. That, that we're all part of this. And if that customer didn't call in and say, I want to send email, I don't want to get on the internet. If it wasn't for that person that we wouldn't even, you know, we wouldn't even be able to exist. Um, you know, much like the truck driver, you couldn't even have an infantry without having the trucker who could bring the stuff, the supplies. Or the factory worker that puts the chips together on the computer that you're using every day. And it's every day. And it's, that we, it's just, it's part of an ecosystem.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
That, that, you know, that we, if we can remember that, maybe it might, uh, I don't want to say humble, but just be more aware that. Well, I definitely think there's the, uh, you know, there is that, that missing in, in the developer community. I think we need, we all need to be a little bit more humble.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
We all need to come down, back down to earth and think about what we are doing as part of a, the global picture.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
As opposed to our personal goals. Uh, and there was an, an article recently in fact on, I think it was on Forbes or somewhere about whether we are the, they were putting a comparison of, uh, are we the Lindsay Lohan or are we the Meryl Streep of the, of Hollywood?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
You know, as opposed to, are we in this startup business of getting venture capitalists and cashing out quick?
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Or are we there to try and really change the world and grow up a business and grow it steadily?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
And I often find that we, we're kind of more moving towards that big, you know, hotshot Hollywood kind of thing, right?
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Hadi Hariri
developer community and conference conversations
▶ Speaking
Well, yeah, it's, it's the, uh, the, uh, the, the rock star, the ninja. Yeah, the ninja, the rock star. Yeah, yeah. It's very fancy. Yeah, it's all that. It's, again, that's that desire to put ourselves up on, on a, on a higher pedestal instead of realizing, okay, we're, we're part of an ecosystem that, you know, we can't do these things without each other. And that's one of the reasons that I wanted to support, um, and, and make, um, user group organizers and conference organizers, the people that bring people together. That's one of the reasons I do these interviews is to help expose them, to support, to support the people that build the community and, and realize that we're in this kind of together and it's more fun to do it together than to do it alone. And that's how it plays a role in the world and it's important. Yes.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to stand. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure. Pleasure having you. Thank you. Sorry. Oh, oh, oh.
Critical Insights
durable
"Developers are not inherently antisocial; they just prefer less socializing."
durable
"Small talk is often avoided by developers, but it's essential for building relationships and understanding others."
durable
"Empathy and emotional intelligence are underused skills in the developer community, leading to a lack of understanding and support for new team members."
durable
"Effective communication is crucial for resolving conflicts and improving team dynamics, even in technical support roles."
durable
"The culture of isolation and lack of communication in the developer community can negatively impact team performance, code quality, and company goals."