18. The Humanitarian Developer

When immersing in studying and using purely technical things directly related to the profession of programming, it is easy to forget about the most important component: what it is all about.

The developers of the "like" button on major social networks wanted to make a simple and convenient way to give feedback to the author of the post. But they didn't consider the consequences of these changes for the human psyche, they didn't think about the potential of addiction to social networks, they didn't think about the task beyond technical implementation of a seemingly innocent, simple and useful functionality.

Programming doesn't happen in a vacuum: programmers live in a society and work on projects that ultimately benefit other people in some way. So the other half of what a programmer needs to know has nothing to do with the technical aspects of the job.

Understanding how society is organized and works, how people think, live and communicate, especially people of other professions, nationalities, genders, origins; history of your city, region, country, the whole world; philosophy, psychology, minimal awareness of politics and world events; awareness of complexity, unpredictability of the multilayered world, all this leads to bringing sense to your daily job and realizing your place in the current historical moment.