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Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

kalzumeus.com

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Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#201

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

zasz wrote: post #46
andrewflnr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming he had a green light on the project itself, and it creates value, I don't see why that would be selfish.

Suppose the OP leaves. It's going to be hard for the his former coworkers to maintain the Ruby app.

Ultimately everybody leaves. Does this mean you should never change your language or technology stack?

Do what gets the job done, within reasonable limits. If the expected maintenance is minimal and you can improve your personal capability and/or produce the deliverable faster using a different technology, by all means go for it. I've had to learn languages far more unpleasant than Ruby (VBA, I'm looking right at you!!) in order to maintain programs that no one expected would ever change. That's life!

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#203

Post by TheFuture »

16s wrote: post #200

My employer calls me a programmer. They print it in on my business cards and hang a sign on my door that reads "Senior Systems Programmer"... so I'm a programmer and I'm not ashamed to be called that.

Seriously, how dense are you to think this article has to do with the title on your business card?

This is about programmers that seem to love to undervalue their skills, and then anonymously bitch in online forums about how stupid everyone else is and underpaid and under appreciated they are.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#204

Post by 16s »

TheFuture wrote: post #203
16s wrote: post #200

My employer calls me a programmer. They print it in on my business cards and hang a sign on my door that reads "Senior Systems Programmer"... so I'm a programmer and I'm not ashamed to be called that.

Seriously, how dense are you to think this article has to do with the title on your business card? This is about programmers that seem to love to undervalue their skills, and then anonymously bitch in online forums about how stupid everyone else is and underpaid and under appreciated they are.

I only mean to point out that I don't call myself a programmer, but others do.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#206

Post by pseale »

rdl wrote: post #147

I'm kind of terrified of "At the end of the day, your life happiness will not be dominated by your career." Hopefully he means that primarily for employees, not for startup founders, and even then, I know a lot of people who work in research, engineering, etc. where career is by far #1.

Hopefully he doesn't mean it just for employees. The Hacker News community has a bent towards "startup = happiness" which I disagree with, but all things considered, is better than the screddit "eSports is important, and it's important to practice Starcraft" bent.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#207

Post by lazerwalker »

Jach wrote: post #113
mechanical_fish wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you run the company it doesn't matter what you call yourself. That is probably a great topic for another essay, assuming PG hasn't written it already. It might matter what you call the company or the product , however, since that is the brand that the people who pay you are seeing. Programmers are so literal. Let me try and translate: When Patrick says "don't call yourself a programmer" he isn't necessarily sayi…

I'm a programmer. I program things. What, specifically, changes pretty frequently still. Going into detail can be useful when trying to score social points from the smalltalk question of "So, what do you do?" But depending on what you program, I think for most people "programming" is sufficient compared to "I currently write software to manage an elastic computer server farm running data analysis jobs for people." In…

If you were a carpenter, you wouldn't tell your friends "I hammer things all day", you'd tell them that you make things out of wood. I'd argue that the fact that you spend your day "programming" is more of an implementation detail of the bigger picture that your job is to create software.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#208

Post by alecbenzer »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #192
m0th87 wrote: post #115

> If you really like the atmosphere at universities, that is cool. Put a backpack on and you can walk into any building at any university in the United States any time you want. Backpacks are a lot cheaper than working in academia. You can lead the life of the mind in industry, too — and enjoy less politics and better pay. You can even get published in journals, if that floats your boat. (After you’ve escaped the min…

How long have you been out of grad school? If you are still in grad school... Write us back in ten years and tell us how academia is coming along. Meanwhile, carpe diem . If you're out of grad school, tell us how much more awesome your career is than those of your relatively-untrained peers. More money? More respect? More challenges? What? I went to grad school, and then I did a postdoc, and these things were indeed…

I'm still an undergrad so it'd be completely logical to just ignore my opinion, but..... you went from doing research to supporting PHP apps? Did you initially want to go into more researchy things and then decide "this is boring, I want to just support PHP apps instead", or did you go into research knowing you'd eventually want to do something like supporting PHP apps?

I'm unsure about my own career but going to grad school and doing research (potentially at a company, after I graduate) is definitely something I'm seriously considering, primarily because I feel like (perhaps naively, I don't know) I want to be doing more interesting, "fundamental/ground-breaking" work in cs, and not just managing PHP apps for some company, or something along those lines. I don't see much personal value/fulfillment in that.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#209

Post by dpritchett »

Jach wrote: post #157
icebraining wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is to make your job description less technical, not more. You're not a programmer, you're "the guy who made $X for your company last Y".

That's a good point, it's not just about what you do, the effects matter. But again it fits into the scoring social points game and making yourself look extra important to companies.

It's not just social points, it's access to fulfilling work. The better you do at conveying your unique value, the more likely you are to find someone who's willing to pay you appropriately for work that's right at the edge of your abilities. If you don't market yourself properly you'll be stuck on an HR salary scale (e.g. Programmer III at 105% of standard compensation) doing fungible work.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer

#210

Post by m0th87 »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #192
m0th87 wrote: post #115

> If you really like the atmosphere at universities, that is cool. Put a backpack on and you can walk into any building at any university in the United States any time you want. Backpacks are a lot cheaper than working in academia. You can lead the life of the mind in industry, too — and enjoy less politics and better pay. You can even get published in journals, if that floats your boat. (After you’ve escaped the min…

How long have you been out of grad school? If you are still in grad school... Write us back in ten years and tell us how academia is coming along. Meanwhile, carpe diem . If you're out of grad school, tell us how much more awesome your career is than those of your relatively-untrained peers. More money? More respect? More challenges? What? I went to grad school, and then I did a postdoc, and these things were indeed…

It's sad when academia is demoted to a "hobby." For me at least, money is less important than having discretion to work on novel projects.

Also, I never called anyone arrogant, but rather the article itself. Big difference. I don't know Patrick personally, so I wouldn't label him as such.

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