Psychological programming help site?

Question

I am looking for some sort of site that focuses on the Psychological side of programming. I have always thought that like any sport programming also has psychological side to it. I am not referring to the logic and intelligence one uses while programming, but (dare I say) the emotional side of it. Back to my analogy, with sports, a lot of time is spent (at the professional level I guess) getting the team and the players ready for the game or practice on the emotional level. I was just wondering if there is any site anywhere (besides SO) that focuses on the emotional side of programming, where programmers can interact with each other and share ideas and techniques on getting their head in the coding game?

So there you have it, I officially and publicly destroyed my macho-ego :-) so can you help me out.

FIRST: for using the word "emotional" and "programming" in the same context.

Answer 1

I guess what you are really talking about is things like 'team building' and 'leadership' and managing your team's morale. My observation is that in IT we don't take these things as seriously. For many employers the psychological (emotional) state of their workers is of little concern, and the employer-employee relationships never get as deep as that. The notion of "keep programmers happy" is out there, but its interpretation is anyone's guess. Some people do manage to interpret it quite well (e.g., Joel Spolsky), but I think that's the exception rather than the rule.

Answer 2

I do not know of a relevant site. Some relevant books are PeopleWare and The Psychology of Computer Programming. I just noticed they come from the same publisher, so maybe they have other relevant titles. Another idea is The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programmming. Code Complete 2 also deals with psychological issues, albeit in chapter 33.

Answer 3

I'd love to hear what Steve Ballmer has to say about this!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Answer 4

The closes thing I can think of is that you program much much better when you're "in the zone". There's a thread on how to get yourself into the zone (i.e. kinda like a pep talk before a sporting match) over here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/297037/what-tricks-do-you-use-to-get-yourself-in-the-zone

Answer 5

Programmers have odd brains, I know, because I am an odd programmer. I try to adopt a non-blocking brain .. one that does not spend much time on things that return -EANXIETY, -EANGER, etc.

What you could do (and what would be really cool) is to come up with a short survey that people could accomplish and then connect with others who have similar results. A good question is:

"Your team lead just decided that using version control is silly. You spend at least [ ]0 [ ]1 [ ]3 [ ]12 [ ]48 [ ]72 [ ]more than 72 hours wondering if he/she is brain dead"

That really says a lot about how someone thinks. So, I think, the hard part is not coming up with a site, its coming up with the questions that make everything work.

And then you have the privacy implications, patents, etc. The fact that something like you describe lacks existence does not indicate an original idea, it indicates how much of a pain in the *ss it would be to manage.