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Developers, you don’t need to ask permission…

Reading the “The programmer as decision maker” by Mark Seemann hit a nerve with me. You didn’t read it yet? Ok, go do that first….

…. Done reading? Ok, let’s add my 2 cents on it. I completely agree with the statement that Mark tries to make. Every day in a programmer’s life is combination of micro- and macro decisions. Unfortunately programmer’s are not always aware that they are making these decisions giving them the feeling there are not in control. This is really sad especially if you know that the 3 things that motivate us the most are ‘Autonomy’, ‘Mastery’ and ‘Purpose’. We as developers have the luxury that we can quite easily achieve all 3 but we are not aware that these things are in our control…

I sometimes here statements like; “Everything is decided for me”, “I’m not involved in the decision making”, “Our PM will never allow us to do X” where in fact these people are already making decisions(good and bad) all the time.
So I would say to all developers out there; “Embrace the power that you have and stop thinking you need to ask permission…”



And of course I have to repeat the Grace Hopper quote:
"It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."
Grace Hopper
PS: If anyone from my team is reading this, don’t forget to ask my permission first before you start applying this 😏

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