Static Types Are for Perfectionists

Summary

✏ 2025-04-01 ✂ 2025-04-01 In this article, I reflect on my professional preferences and trace them to my early childhood experiences. I argue that culture and upbringing shape our core beliefs about technology more than rational arguments. I conclude with two implications of this idea: the necessity to accept other people’s preferences without judgment and the importance of finding an environment rewarding your style. Perhaps the most decisive element of my game was the way my style on the board was completely in synch with my personality as a child. Josh Waitzkin, The Art of LearningFor most of my programming career, I believed that my technological preferences were rational and reflected the realities of software development. I thought people who disagreed with my views hadn’t seen the light and hadn’t felt the pain yet. Give them time and relevant experience, and they will arrive at the same conclusions: Statically typed languages are the only way to do serious software development. Programmers must grok and have a solid mental model of their systems. Dependencies are evil. They complicate infrastructure and deployment and slow down development in the long run. A few years ago, after reading half a library worth of books on personal development and psychology, I realized how profoundly my early years affected my relationships, values, and core beliefs. In particular, the following two traits of my formative years stood out: Mistakes were costly. Breaking something or getting a bad grade at school could result in punishment. As a result, my brain wants to avoid (or at least hide) mistakes. It demands perfection. Asking for help, even from parents, often resulted in humiliation. As a result, I became counterdependent. Seeking or accepting help feels daunting. I’d rather read a gazillion books on psychology than talk to a therapist. It didn’t take me long to realize that my technology preferences mirrored my everyday behavior. Thus, my early conditioning is a better...