Do you need to be passionate about programming to be a good developer?

I recently encountered an intriguing article on 10x developers that considers two developer types, the passionate enthusiast and the professional.

I’ve lived in both of these worlds, as reflected in my Compassionate Coding work. I started coding in my teen years and loved it, so I tried to fit in with the hardcore enthusiast programmers and found external success, but it left me miserable and burnt out. I came to believe that you can be an effective developer and live a balanced life that includes care for people, not just code, and I started this company to spread that view.

When you use RTFM, you’re saying, “Not only am I not going to help you, but I also want to make sure that you feel ashamed about your inability to help yourself.”

If we want to create more effective teams and a more inclusive tech industry, we need to retire RTFM and the associated sentiment from our culture.

“She just doesn’t seem technical enough.”

“We need someone a little more technical.”

“The guy who mentored me at my last company always made me feel bad when I made a mistake. I don’t want to do that to someone else.”

Coding is stressful. Self-compassion is a great technique for managing difficult emotions that provides health benefits, improved relationships, and a better mindset for problem-solving.

When executed properly, the agile retrospective is the perfect combination of gratitude and a growth mindset, which are two key contributors to happiness and fulfillment.