You might like to read this too, "Are you a programmer or a coder?" http://brajeshwar.com/2007/are-you-a-programmer-or-a-coder/
Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
251–260 of 274 posts
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#252Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#253Fantastic post. I'd also recommend any "programmers" to invest a couple years in a systems integration engineering role as well. It's generally a great place for picking up some skills many programmers / engineers lack: * Communicating with internal and external customers * Understand systems from a broader (higher level) perspective * Ability to translate wants and needs to technical requirements and specifications…
I'd also add - meet all the influential people in different teams. From my limited experience, even if you're on a low position you suddenly start talking to team leaders and people who they assign to talk to you (usually the ones who have a clue). Great start for networking.
Honestly, for networking purposes, look no further than participating and volunteering in a national non-profit group. It'll give you access to both depth and breadth.
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't take this the wrong way, but ... really? I find that hard to believe. Pretty much all programming is in the short term unemployment producing, since pretty much all programming is automation. Automating a job means that no one does it anymore, hence one fewer job. In the long run those people are usually repurposed into productive work, and there are occasional moments where a programmer will create a massive n…
There are types of programming that create jobs, but you're right, most of them eliminate jobs while making the rich (owners of our companies) richer. Which kind of sucks if you think about it. The programming that creates job is the kind that sells to consumers. Pretty much any consumer product will create jobs. B2B will eliminate jobs. Most programming is B2B (I think...) because it's easier to take money from othe…
If you work for a publicly-traded company, then you aren't really "making the rich richer", or at least not totally. Some of the biggest investors are pension and mutual funds, so it's quite likely that the success of your company is being shared by many fairly ordinary people.
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he said they had the highest status...I think he said they were the best paid. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it's a very different claim. (I too have heard differently)
This is not true -- pay is not based on project.
But bonus is.
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#256> If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired. If you work at a place like that, I feel sorry for you. Even the owner of my company lists himself on Twitter and his blog as just Programmer at RAD Game Tools. Besides being the sounding board for us when we have problems and ideas, he still writes more code than most of us can regularly muster.
>If you work at a place like that, I feel sorry for you. I came to the comments to express the same sort of opinion. I work at a place that understands and values programmers. I can't imagine working in any other kind of environment unless I was between real jobs and really strapped for cash. If you're at a place run by a bunch of clueless MBAs that don't understand the value of their in-house engineers you just don'…
> If you're at a place run by a bunch of clueless MBAs that don't understand the value of their in-house engineers you just don't have a good (or reliable) job.
That is exactly Patricks point. If you can explain to those MBAs how you make $N for the company, then your job (as long as your job costs less than $N) is safe because you're now a profit centre. You will then have turned those clueless MBAs into bosses who understands and values programmers.
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't take this the wrong way, but ... really? I find that hard to believe. Pretty much all programming is in the short term unemployment producing, since pretty much all programming is automation. Automating a job means that no one does it anymore, hence one fewer job. In the long run those people are usually repurposed into productive work, and there are occasional moments where a programmer will create a massive n…
There are types of programming that create jobs, but you're right, most of them eliminate jobs while making the rich (owners of our companies) richer. Which kind of sucks if you think about it. The programming that creates job is the kind that sells to consumers. Pretty much any consumer product will create jobs. B2B will eliminate jobs. Most programming is B2B (I think...) because it's easier to take money from othe…
> Which kind of sucks if you think about it.
Yeah, it totally sucked that the tractor came along and eliminated all those coveted farm hand jobs. Software is the tractor of our time.
> Pretty much any consumer product will create jobs.
Such as the iTunes store that overnight closed pretty much every single brick-and-mortar music store in the world (mild, but only mild, hyperbole)?
> Examples of programming that creates jobs:
Games doesn't automate a physical task, but it's silly to assume that they haven't displaced other kinds of entertainment, say, perhaps, comic books. (I consume neither games nor comic books, so I'm speculating)
Whether an iPhone app has destroyed or created jobs depends on the app, after all it's just a computer program like any other. Take magazines and newspapers: There is NOTHING these businesses would like better than to shut down their printers and distribution divisions. Those are, if anything ever was, pure cost centres. Also, any app that lets you do something from your phone that you otherwise had to call a call centre to do probably isn't exactly a job creator.
I don't know how todo-lists earned a spot on the list, but there is no reason to believe that they (and any other "productivity" app, say, a good e-mail client or calendar app) don't, on the margin, raise the barrier to needing a personal assistant/secretary.
Advertising online is just one example of the lower-barriers-to-everything that the Internet has facilitated. Whether the Internet is a job creator probably depends on who you ask: A self-taught Rails dev or a Borders employee.
EDIT: My point, which took a little while to crystallise, is that at businesses the things being automated away are larger and have individual accounts, so savings/consequences are very visible. When you download NYT to your iPad, they don't fire three guys in the printshop, they need a small fraction of one of them less. When you send an e-mail to your mother, a fraction of a person in the mail- or greeting cards industry is less needed. Etc.
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 worked at a startup for 2 1/2 years, quit, went to grad school in math, did a postdoc, and am now a professor. For me it was a wonderful choice. I didn't like the startup work for precisely the reasons patio sort of hints at. Our business was primarily about making money, and we had to focus on what customers actually wanted rather than what (I thought) would be most interesting, most challenging, or most elegant.…
I'm glad to hear it's great for you. Being a tenured professor in a field with low overhead is great.
However: The median undergraduate won't get to be a prof.
The median grad student won't get to be a prof, however much they might wish to.
In physics the median postdoc won't make it to prof. Too many postdocs. Not enough new profs.
I went to a top grad school and made a bunch of friends. Of all my Ph.D.-holding friends I know of exactly one tenured professor. He recently graduated his first Ph.D. student, who promptly got a junior faculty position. He jokes that his work is done: All of his future grad students will be aimed at positions that don't exist yet. May never exist.
I'm aware that being a successful prof seems like a fun job, just as I'm aware that being Lady Gaga is a silly and remunerative job. But when I advise anonymous people on the internet I try to advise the median person, and the median person ain't going to get tenure, just as the median musician isn't going to be Lady Gaga.
Or is it different in your field? The physicists used to dream of easier advancement in math or CS, but the grass is always greener.
Congratulations on being a winner, by the way. Have fun, and help your students have fun!
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#259Don't Call Yourseld a Businessman, call yourself a charlatan.
Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or to put in a comic-friendly way: "It's not who you are, it's what you do that defines you".
Agreed, I'm doing programming.
Another way to frame this point -- that's kind of like asking a novelist what they do, and having them answer "I type out sentences, in English".
No, even if they started with "I'm a full-time writer", they'd follow up with "well, I've had two novels published -- I guess you'd categorize it as literary fiction? -- and I'm finishing up the draft of a third."
If you are a "programmer", what does that mean? Do you do anything of value? To whom? Do you know? Or do you program whatever you're told to program (inasmuch as you can figure it out, and it's their problem if the specs were bad) because that's how you earn your paycheck?
If you're in the latter category, and that's the only thing you grasp about the work you do, that's a pretty big limiter on your future.