Recently in the world of programming blogs there has been a string of articles by disenfranchised developers bemoaning their current work environment in a sarcastic and ultimately unproductive manner. I understand and appreciate sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek humor but what I have seen lately goes above and beyond simple satire to a new level of pessimism that in the end is more about self-serving venting than anything enjoyable to read or to learn from.
At first I shrugged off the first article, which was a negative play on a post I made last week, thinking that perhaps the writer had a bad day and was simply going a bit over-the-top. But then another post by a different author came up on DZone in the same light. And then another.
I then started to wonder why there was this growing trend into negative venting blog posts, where their only function is to belittle other peoples’ efforts and cause as much controversy as possible surrounding that subject.
When I started this blog I made a choice: I wanted to prepare and post articles that people could read and learn from or to be more realistic, to offer them alternative channels of thought so that they can continue their research until they find the solution they require. I have made a personal choice to be an optimistic programmer, meaning I understand that while there will be times that I am incorrect or times where my example code was not the most efficient it is more important to accept that and learn to grown from it, moving onwards and upwards, than it is to be negative and post with the only intentions being to vent and complain without offering any sort of solution or assistance.
There have always been trolls on the internet. There always will be. The best thing I believe we can do as bloggers is to call it what it is and try to be above it by taking the good points of a negative experience and growing from it, not brooding over it.
UPDATE: Since posting this I have received E-Mails concering the troll label I have applied to these posts. Specifically to the first and last links. While I still disagree with the method of complaining or venting with no solutions presented, I have mistakenly grouped what the authors wanted to be humorous posts in with the negativity I was seeing at the outset. Perhaps troll was a bit harsh. I apologize :)