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Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

drewyates.net

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Re: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

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"Further, many business students are aggressive and gregarious, many programmers are socially awkward..." I can generally agree with the article, but the old, old stereotypes aren't really helping, are they? I see very few "socially awkward" programmers in my work. They might not be game-show hosts, but they're not Rain Man either. As the author points out in the footnote, if you can master computing arcana, you can…

I made another note to the essay. What I mean to say is that successful programmers will try business, but what successful business people try engineering? But "trying to" is not a sufficient condition for "succeeding at."

Like I said, generally I agree with the article, and it makes some good points. But the button-pusher for me (and the point I'm trying to make) is that labeling the technically adept as "socially awkward" is about as acceptable as saying that black people have "soul", poor people have "dignity", women are more "empathetic", and business-people are "aggressive", as though the one naturally leads to another. I honestly don't recognise the stereotype of the "socially awkward" programmer, and feel it's unhelpful to keep recycling and perpetuating it.

Re: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

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Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Because implementing an Idea is most of the time harder than having an Idea" I think the difficulty is not in the hacking skills, though. Therefore it seems to me the arrogance of hackers is unwarranted. While I have a science degree, I taught myself programming with a couple of books - it really is not a secret superpower that should make the rest of mankind bow down before me. It is a skill like any other. Persona…

Nonsense, everyone wants to work on their own ideas.

So finding co-founders is impossible? I think not. You can also listen to some other person's idea, recognize it as great and work on that idea.

Re: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

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Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Because implementing an Idea is most of the time harder than having an Idea" I think the difficulty is not in the hacking skills, though. Therefore it seems to me the arrogance of hackers is unwarranted. While I have a science degree, I taught myself programming with a couple of books - it really is not a secret superpower that should make the rest of mankind bow down before me. It is a skill like any other. Persona…

But _why_ are hackers arrogant, and how does one differentiate between "bad" arrogance (what you described) and "good" arrogance (like Steve Jobs)? I don't have the answer to suggest for this question now, but I hope that it starts an interesting discussion. I'll try to reply tomorrow morning.

Not all hackers are arrogant, but I think some suffer from tunnel vision.

Re: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

#16
I wouldn’t necessarily say this has anything to do with students or school. I’ve been out of school for a couple of years now and have been working as a developer for about 5 years.

One incident, in particular, drove most of the hatred for my original (and now replaced) rant. It involved an M.B.A. recruiting me to work for “his idea”, promising a bunch of money and a sizable stake in equity (~35%). However, once the boss-employee relationship set in, the money evaporated and the equity shrank to 5%. In the end, I wasted 6 weeks of incredibly hard work and came away with a chip on my shoulder.

The argument doesn’t really have much to do with Hackers and Business types. As he points out, it simply has to do with the fact that in a small group of people (2 or 3), there is no room for pure leaders. At that group size they merely become bullies, and the whole group is less powerful because of it.

Re: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

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Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense, everyone wants to work on their own ideas.

So finding co-founders is impossible? I think not. You can also listen to some other person's idea, recognize it as great and work on that idea.

I just thought that, all else being equal, people on both sides are equally stubborn about sticking to their own ideas. Do you find this not to be the case?

Re: Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

#19
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

So finding co-founders is impossible? I think not. You can also listen to some other person's idea, recognize it as great and work on that idea.

I just thought that, all else being equal, people on both sides are equally stubborn about sticking to their own ideas. Do you find this not to be the case?

I didn't think in terms of people on sides, just about arrogant hackers. Of course there are all kinds of people who only ever consider their own ideas to be worthwhile.
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