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The Perils of Developers Hooking Up
jammag writes "Who better for a developer to love than another developer? Yet as a veteran coder describes, it's not always a good idea for a programmer to fall for another programmer. He describes his experience observing — and getting partially pulled into — a romance within a development team. Part of the problem, perhaps, is that some developers spend so much time buried in code that, well, they quickly find themselves out of their league. Then again, why not love among the code?"
This is nothing more than the old wisdom of not dating anyone who is exactly like you. You need someone that shares little same interestst, but who can fullfil things you dont like or do. Yes, you can have one night stands between developers, but then again, majority of female programmers are ugly and insecure as hell, so you might want to get a normal person anyway.
Why don't you ever comment anymore?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I have to assume gestation takes about 17 months. And the resulting baby in no way resembles what everyone was expecting.
...not to shit where they eat.
Hooking up with cow-orkers often ends badly -- the line of work has nothing to do with it.
What's this rubbish doing on Slashdot? It's a badly written co-worker romance short story.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Don't fuck where you eat.
It's generally not a good idea to have an office romance with someone that you spend most of your workday working closely with, regardless of the profession, but especially in working groups that are very stable and unchanging.
You see this person about eight hours a day, and might even work in the same group-cubicle. If your relationship gets serious then you're likely to see them many hours a day beyond the workday too. For probably most of us, best case and the relationship goes well, one gets a little tired of the significant other after awhile, but literally can't escape because of the enforced time at work together. Worst case, the relationship ends, badly, and you're stuck with them in the same confined space but now can't stand each other.
Eight or so years ago I dated a gal for a few months that works at one of the sites I support and it's still a little awkward running into her when I go there. I can't imagine the awkwardness if we worked at the same site, let alone the same department. It would probably also complicate my subsequent marriage, as I doubt my wife would be very happy with me working closely with an old flame.
If working groups are varied and dynamic and if the organization is large enough that one doesn't constantly see the other, then it might work okay to date a coworker, but even then it has its perils, not even getting into career choices.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Because you'll get the keyboards all sticky!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Inter-office romance shouldn't be banned, but you better be damn sure before jumping into a relationship with a co-worker. I don't see how the job description changes that fact. Life isn't fair, and if the relationship ends badly (and it surfaces at work), the woman is more likely to be the subject of gossip and office drama among colleagues.
Clearly the guy only knows programmers... the story he tells has nothing to do with the job. And the girl is a bitch.
Studies have shown that the risk of kids having Autistic spectrum disorders is drastically increased when both parents are borderline Aspergers or whatever (this shouldn't really come as a surprise). So it may be a very good idea for programmers to aim as high as they can when finding a spouse and try to get someone who at least has a normal amount of extroversion. If that's not possible and you do end up with someone of a similar personality, candidly assess your own mental state and think seriously about the risk/reward of having your own kids.
Office romances (especially within the same team) are always bad news. Though the story comes off as a poorly written romance novel - a sort of Shades of Grey fantasy novel for geeks.
That said, I've dated girls in my field and girls outside of my field, and I've found that I get along better with those outside my field. We don't need work to be our 'common ground', and we don't find ourselves telling each other how to do each other's job. When she tells me about her workday, I don't feel so compelled to tell her how to solve her problem since I have no expertise in her field. And vice-versa. On the flip side, if I'm looking for advice about some specific problem I'm facing, I can't go to her, but that's what friends are for.
Title made me curious why someone would be claiming developers shouldn't hook up (possibly a new study about the prevalence of high-level autism in the Silicon Valley?) Being a developer who is dating another developer and who might eventually want kids, that would have been potentially relevant.
But no, this was just another random story of a hot programmer flirting with teammates, which, as a jillion people have aready said, is generally a bad idea whether you're a programmer, or have any other career that involves working in a group. I don't think it'd be any different or less awkward for someone on my team as a developer to hook up with a tester or a graphic designer or a documentation writer on the same team as for them to hook up with another developer.
Inversely, a while ago I learned one of the testers on our team had requested to move to a different team; a few months later I learned it was because she'd started dating a developer on that team. They've been happily married a couple years now, and both still work here. Probably smart of them to be in different teams, though (though both still on the development floor, which I see nothing wrong with at all.)
It all starts-out with that flirtatious morning JAVA, and soon, it's on to PERL necklaces, and RUBY on rings.
get off your little couches and your home gaming rigs, and find someone outside the office.
Church is recommended for the ~1% of Slashdotters who actually have a religion. Lots of normal females to meet there.
For the 99% who are atheists, I recommend music. If you played a musical instrument in middle/high school, go to a local community college and enroll in a performing class. If you're actually (still) proficient, you can join some kind of a community orchestra.
My mother was a web-app, my father was mobile. I am the result of a one-time backend synchronization.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I also know of two pairs of now-married employees in my corporation are both very similar.
One such couple are both very narrowly focused in aligned skills and interests, geospatial app development.
Another such couple are both high-level engineers that do program management.
I think it just depends on the people. If you put your career first, and then the relationship happens later, then I think it works great! This particular story is one of people getting involved with someone they just met on a particular team, and this particular individual sounds like a leech (and I know of a few in our corporation too, we tell people to stay away from them).
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
If the author is trying to generalize a lesson from that story, he's more naive about women than he claims Jerry is. The moral is not "don't get involved with a colleague," it's "don't get involved with a psycho bitch from hell." A lesson I, personally, had to learn the hard way. :-)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
When I was in the USAF in the '80s I was maintaining a system written by some folks from Sandia Labs in Albequerque. Apparently, two of them were having a bit of an affair (when they visited our site, at least) and they'd taken to leaving notes for each other in the code comments. While those comments didn't help me resolve issues with the code (and there were quite a few) they did occasionally provide some welcome humorous relief while searching for bugs. Especially when a few were found and we tried to match them up without any context or sequence info...
Good thing their spouses weren't cleared to see the code...
Church is recommended for the ~1% of Slashdotters who actually have a religion. Lots of normal females to meet there.
Let me guess - you're the 99%.
As one of the handful of Christian Slashdotters, I can tell you that this is patently not the case. A "nonreligious" girl will say something like, "I'm not feeling it" or, "you're a nice guy, but...". The majority of the girls with whom I spent my adolescence with in church would say, "I don't feel led to date you" or "You're a nice guy, but God told me to date Mr. Tall-dark-wealthy-handsome over there." At one point I learned that trying to beat them at their own game by saying something to the effect of, "I understand, and am certain that you have been praying about it for some time, since Exodus 20:7 does condemn using God's name to justify actions that you take at variance with His direction, right?" at which point I learned that turning things into a scripture war isn't exactly the best way to win her heart, even if I win the argument. To sum up, girls in church generally only differ from the majority of girls outside of church in that church girls will justify their lack of interest by blaming God, whether or not God genuinely gave her direction in this regard. Hence, this church filled with normal, single girls you speak of is not one I've yet visited.
What I *will* say though, is that there's a pretty good way of weeding out the girls who are actually decent people and getting to know them: sign up for service projects. 3,000 people attended my church weekly. When it was time for the semi-annual church work day where we'd rake leaves, mop floors, reorganize cabinets, run wires, etc., on the good years we'd end up with MAYBE 25 people. Some of the most fun times I've ever had at the church were spent in the kitchen slicing 50 pound bags of onions and potatoes as we threw a banquet for several hundred homeless people in our area. Again, a church of 3,000, but a dozen people helping in the kitchen and having a blast in the process. The people who showed up for those kinds of events were there to actually help out others and were willing to sacrifice their time to do it. A resistance to doing those kinds of things when one's day is otherwise uncommitted speaks louder about that person than even the most complete profile on eHarmony - but the opposite is also true. I met more than one of my best friends through those kinds of things, and even if things don't work out, or you have one of those random silences that would be problematic and awkward if done on a first date, the worst case scenario is that you've got organized cabinets, a pan of chopped onions, or a yard whose leaves are raked. On top of that, when you're performing an activity together, it helps with the other issue that I frequently have - when sharing a task, you're all but guaranteed to find something to talk about without guessing if the other person can relate.
Church is recommended for the ~1% of Slashdotters who actually have a religion. Lots of normal females to meet there.
For the atheists, be aware your views would be welcome at a Unitarian Universalist church too. Just be aware they welcome theists of all stripes as well.
I am officially gone from
This has nothing to do with being a developer. Most workplaces discourage or outright ban workplace romances because they rarely work out and the fallout is detrimental to the organization.
Bad ones, of course.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This story doesn't really support your claim. This story only proves that manipulative women who hook up with every guy in their workplace are poor relationship material, the fact that she happened to be a programmer is incidental to the story. You can tell because if you replaced "programming" with say... "painting" or "accounting" and change the other terms to match, the story still works exactly the same. I for one am a web developer, as is my girlfriend. We've been together six years and are very happy.
"Office romances (especially within the same team) are always bad news. Though the story comes off as a poorly written romance novel - a sort of Shades of Grey fantasy novel for geeks."
If it's Shades of Grey for geeks, show me the pr0n. It's more like Days of Our Lives, soap opera reruns for bored code monkeys. There's more sex in Twilight than in this drivel. Of course that may be the point. The guy didn't get shagged because he was too busy getting fragged by the girl.