If you write code, it’s really clear that your code does not represent you. The product you made, the work you did – it’s not you.
Code has bugs, code has inefficiencies, and code can almost always be better than it is right now.
As a developer, you have an intuitive understanding that an evaluation of your work is not an evaluation of you as a person.
- There’s clear evidence that a body of work lives outside of you. You shipped a product, and feedback invariably is focused on that product. You are detached from your codebase.
- Lots of development time is specifically spent fixing bugs. It’s a natural part of the process that the product is not perfect and should be improved.
This clear split doesn’t always exist for other people, which makes the practice of bug fixing and constant improvement somewhat harder to breach into.
Shipping specific products might help. Being reflective might help. Practice, and constantly trying to get to “better” is definitely helpful.