Blurting Past Learned Constraint - Happy Bootcamp Story 52 of 100

"I can't take it any longer. I have to say something."

TL;DR: Politeness kills productivity in a group setting where time is a primary constraint. Not everyone has Tourette's and just blurts out corrections.

Supportive Environment

First rule of success in our LiveCoding sessions is to not frighten students away. Coding in front of others is extremely difficult. Most students probably don't even come, lest they have to code in front of others.

We don't know, we don't have any way to ask someone why they decided not to show up to a session that, technically - they paid to attend. But fear of coding in front of others is probably a big reason.

So don't frighten him. Or her.

"My clothes are going out of style" - Sandlot

Then, there are those who show up all the time, and for them it's the opposite problem.

"My clothes are going out of style" is a great line from Sandlot that expresses the feeling of impatience one gets, waiting for someone to finish a task. We could be done with this, by now.

They might feel like they have Tourette's or something. Miriam Law finally just blurted out to Ricardo Edwards yesterday to "hey, move dev tools to the side" - it was impossible to see the widgets we were working on, when dev tools was at the bottom.

Why did she blurt? Because she could. Miriam was at almost every meeting. So was Ricardo. Nobody was going to have hurt feelings.

When?

Tricky business, this blurting stuff.

Blurt at the wrong time and you scare someone away that might never come back. Careers are very fragile at this point, this isn't something anyone wants to do. Plus - we like fresh recruits - makes for a more interesting meeting than when same old group.

Then there's the whole generational thing - we have ...ahem... mixed ages - and each age group tends to have very different expectations about what is, and what is not, appropriate in a group setting.

Love, and Being Odd

So maybe it's just a feeling of love or something. When we hang together often like this, we just kinda start feeling you want the other guy to do well.

The other guy feels it, too. So then the blurt isn't taken the wrong way and he/she appreciates being told to move dev tools to the side.

Then that new person that shows up feels that this is a safe place to hang, and there's enough support for him to volunteer to code, and not be scared away. Might even come back tomorrow.

Everybody wins.