I tell them I'm a nerd.
Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#52Programmer. Works every time. No one has ever asked me to explain what it means.
My biggest pet peeve, which perhaps is my own bias is that when someone says "programmer", I take it that they pretty much know how to use an if statement, loops, call functions, but that's it. You can hire people on Rentacoder and elance with that skillset for I guess "programmer" doesn't capture the bulk of the value of someone with a computer science background. But maybe there's my problem. Non-techies probably e…
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Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#53Programmer. Works every time. No one has ever asked me to explain what it means.
My biggest pet peeve, which perhaps is my own bias is that when someone says "programmer", I take it that they pretty much know how to use an if statement, loops, call functions, but that's it. You can hire people on Rentacoder and elance with that skillset for I guess "programmer" doesn't capture the bulk of the value of someone with a computer science background. But maybe there's my problem. Non-techies probably e…
My bias is exactly the opposite; I assume that anyone calling themselves a "software developer" or a "software engineer" is probably more interested in implementing a design pattern than writing good code, and probably knows about as much about computer science as he read on Coding Horror.
I think both of our biases are dumb.
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
My biggest pet peeve, which perhaps is my own bias is that when someone says "programmer", I take it that they pretty much know how to use an if statement, loops, call functions, but that's it. You can hire people on Rentacoder and elance with that skillset for I guess "programmer" doesn't capture the bulk of the value of someone with a computer science background. But maybe there's my problem. Non-techies probably e…
My bias is exactly the opposite; I assume that anyone calling themselves a "software developer" or a "software engineer" is probably more interested in implementing a design pattern than writing good code, and probably knows about as much about computer science as he read on Coding Horror. I think both of our biases are dumb.
There's something to be said about purposely inflating one's title to sound cooler (there's certainly bad people graduating with CS degrees), but let's set that point aside for a moment.
Sounds to me like you saying that implementing a design pattern != good code?
An example of my bias is more towards something like this:
(1) someone with a CS background is more likely to notice and inefficient algorithm and know how to optimize it
(2) someone who just knows how to code in a language may not be aware of the presence of a suboptimal algorithm, much less know how to optimize it
How do you explain to a non-technical person the difference and importance between (1) and (2)? I guess it's going to be difficult, but I was curious if anyone was able to easily convey (1) or (2) in a quick short introductory pitch.
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#55I always say "Computer Scientist", I also think the term engineer is alright. I hate any phrasing that uses the word "programmer" because that is generally used to describe jobs involving wrangling Excel spreadsheets programming Word macros and other low rent IT jobs.
Of course I've read before that by time you get around to the topic of what you do for a living you should have so captured your audiences attention that you could say janitor and they wouldn't care.
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#56Visitors to this country are often surprised to find that Americans like to begin a conversation by asking "what do you do?" I've never liked this question. I've rarely had a neat answer to it. But I think I have finally solved the problem. Now, when someone asks me what I do, I look them straight in the eye and say "I'm designing a new dialect of Lisp." I recommend this answer to anyone who doesn't like being asked…
I don't know if this is strictly American though. In Italy, people are often referred to by their professional titles. We do that with doctors here, but they would say the equivalent of "Lawyer Smith" or "Engineer Jones".
I only know this from studying the language. I have never been to Italy, so correct me if I am wrong.
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#57I always say 'Software Developer'. If you say, 'Computer Programmer' then they picture someone tinkering with computers, if you say 'Developer' or 'Engineer' they don't know it's anything to do with computers or software. What really annoys me, is when people respond with 'Oh right, I.T.' or 'I have a friend who does I.T. too, yeah he fixes computers at... ' - I personally see being a 'Software Developer' as a far hi…
I personally see being a 'Software Developer' as a far higher position than someone doing 1st line support in I.T.
That "friend who fixes computers at..." may not actually be first line support IT like you're assuming. Even if he is a System Administrator rather than a Software Developer, that doesn't say anything about the level of the position.
A 3rd-level software developer playing with eclipse making minor modifications to existing Java and writing features under close supervision from a senior developer is much less valuable than a 10th-level System Administrator with a proven track record of diagnosing production bugs, managing deployments, tuning applications like Apache, Oracle, MySQL, and building stable, scalable environments for the developers and QA.
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#58So how about seeing the results?
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#59To most people I say I sell software. This is what I primarily do today. If I write something, it's in the realm of hacking and to the right crowd I say I'm a hacker.
Re: Ask HN: Explain to non-techies what you do: Programmer? Developer? Engineer?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
My bias is exactly the opposite; I assume that anyone calling themselves a "software developer" or a "software engineer" is probably more interested in implementing a design pattern than writing good code, and probably knows about as much about computer science as he read on Coding Horror. I think both of our biases are dumb.
There's something to be said about purposely inflating one's title to sound cooler (there's certainly bad people graduating with CS degrees), but let's set that point aside for a moment. Sounds to me like you saying that implementing a design pattern != good code? An example of my bias is more towards something like this: (1) someone with a CS background is more likely to notice and inefficient algorithm and know how…
Well, the stereotype I was shooting for was someone who overarchitects things and who is really shackled to some particular set of concepts, methodologies, and tools; the sort of person who will go on implementing "factories" and "strategies" in languages and situations where they don't apply.
Personally, if I were tasked to explain that distinction, I would shorten (1) to "a good programmer" and shorten (2) to "a bad programmer."