Why do people spend so much time criticizing each other?

In this blog and others in the software community we try to learn from our experiences by expressing them in writing for others to read.

I have a pragmatic approach to software development. I try new ideas, give them a fair shot if I believe they could work and then assess if they did work as expected. Blogs are important because they give me that extra set of ideas I would not easily come across otherwise.

I’m also not hung up on being perfect, my job is to get profitable software out that makes the users so happy they want to come back and buy more software. I also understand that the skills that we develop and learn in doing so are important, so important that I would like to contribute to the community by describing some of the skills or (more precisely) techniques that I learn in my job.

Unfortunately this attitude is not shared by all in the software development profession.

It is sad for me as a member of this community to see and hear so many people criticizing each other without really trying to prove their ideas in practice or even really understanding what each other are trying to really say.

I’ve often heard/read criticism from one person that had been successful against another that had been equally successful. Stop it guys. If you both are successful in software development, share your experiences and stop criticizing each other.

We need a positive spiral of learning in the community, not more infighting for self-importance and conference gigs.

Dear gurus of the software industry: we listen to you all, but we need positive ideas not mean criticism just because people don’t agree with you.