A senior dev in Seattle told me my pull requests were 'too polite' and it changed how I code.

He said I was explaining every tiny change like I was apologizing for existing. So I stopped writing long paragraphs in my PR descriptions and started just listing what changed and why. Within a month my reviews got way faster and people actually read the code instead of skimming the fluff. Has anyone else had to unlearn being too nice in their technical writing?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy_martin4d agoMost Upvoted

Is it just me or does this whole "too nice" thing bleed into every part of life now... I see it with people texting too, where someone writes a whole paragraph to apologize for a late reply when a simple "got busy" would do. It's like we're all trained to over-explain ourselves so nobody gets mad at us, but then nobody actually reads what we wrote anyway. You strip away the sorrys and the extra words and suddenly people actually pay attention to the real point you're making. Makes you wonder how much of our daily communication is just fluff we add to make ourselves feel safer.

fionafoster3d ago

My sister once sent me a 4 paragraph apology for forgetting to bring a dish to a party. I literally just wanted to know if she was still coming or not.

thomasgonzalez3d ago

oh man, that "too polite" thing hit my friend chris hard at his last job. he used to write these giant PR descriptions with like "hey sorry to bother you but i moved this function here and please let me know if i broke anything, no rush at all." his lead finally told him to stop apologizing for doing his job. once he started writing "changed X to fix Y. tested with Z cases" his reviews got done in like 20 minutes instead of 2 days. it's wild how all those extra words just make people's eyes glaze over.