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"Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

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Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#31

Post by pikewood »

"Programmer" is the term we use to explain to non-technical people what we do. If they respond by letting you know they're a programmer as well, you can go into details about what languages and stacks you deal with. For everyone else: family, co-workers, bosses, etc., they don't care--they have some general idea of you working on a computer and that's sufficient.

Reminds me of a crazy blog post from someone who thought he was explaining the difference between "The Programmer vs The Developer". He was delusional to think that there is some kind of standardization there.

Also, a title does not prove your knowledge or competence. If you're judging people solely on their title and not by the conversation, then you need to reevaluate your classification techniques.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#32

Post by white_devil »

white_devil wrote: post #29
eykanal wrote: post #25

I am a human, a male, an American, a Caucasian, a PhD, a statistician, and a Risk Management Quantitative Analyst (level II), in broadly-decreasing levels of specificity. The term "programmer" is ridiculously broad, the same way that "weight lifter" is ridiculously broad. No one uses the term to mean anything more than it's broad definition nowadays. You don't see job advertisements for a "programmer" without further…

> a PhD, a statistician, and a Risk Management Quantitative Analyst (level II) As an aside, I really wish that intelligent people would refuse to use their capabilities in the service of evil.

Unsurprisingly, it appears some people disagree. Maybe they're working for Goldman Sachs.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#33

Post by dkarl »

michaelochurch wrote: post #14

Do you know why we have pointless language wars, and meaningless arguments about what is good in practice? As a veteran language warrior, I resent the claim that my efforts are "pointless". There's a lot of terrible software out there, and one of the reasons for this is that inappropriate choices were made on the outset. Now, I'll be the first to say that there isn't "one language to rule them all". I recently got in…

Software engineering is a generalist discipline: how to solve problems and add value to organizations using software. It applies whether you're writing performance-critical weather simulations or web apps.

I agree absolutely. I've done jobs in scientific computing (whoops! knew nothing about interfacing with hardware, had to learn) networking (whoops! knew nothing about SNMP, had to learn) and stock trading (wtf is an intermarket sweep order? time to learn again.) There's a role for specialists, and I like the fact that I become more valuable and more independent as my domain knowledge increases, but even more I like that my skills transfer from one vastly different domain to another.

Someday maybe programming will be specialized. Like medicine: there's no way we would let a chimpanzee doctor operate on a human or even prescribe drugs to one. Right now there are natural areas of specialization, but specialization just isn't what it's cracked up to be. Anyone who has dealt with hired guns in software knows that specialists can't compete with smart generalists who are close to a problem. It's as if botanists performing surgery on close friends and family members always achieved better medical results than surgeons operating on people they didn't know. What's the use of specialization in a field like that?

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#34

Post by jmsduran »

Interesting, this article touches on an internal dispute that has been going on for quite some time within our industry: the fact that software engineering as a profession is rather "loosy-goosey", that is, the lack of any formal accreditation standards that are common in other engineering professions.

Granted, our industry is still very young compared to other engineering professions, so of course we still have kinks to work out. In my opinion, I believe it will benefit our industry in the long run if we can all agree on a base set of knowledge & skills that all self-proclaiming software engineers should have, no matter their specialization.

Because right now, for having an "engineer" slapped at the end of our job title, the only form of standardization we have is a college degree.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#35

Post by killnine »

sambeau wrote: post #22

I disagree with the three main points that this article expounds (and I find all three arrogant and patronising). The first thing I disagree with is the idea that programmers are not all 'programmers'. My Dad is a civil engineer to everyone except other civil engineers and a guy who drives a truck is a driver as much as a guy who drives a rally car. What's the problem? Every term, especially those of specialised subj…

I completely agree and find these comments very accurate.

Plus, I always thought that becoming a programmer meant learning how to make a computer do what you need it to do by learning how to command it in various languages.

Along with that, I always thought that writing this language is a skill required amongst other skills to qualify as a programmer, and another major skill that is required is to be able to walk into many different problem domains, familiarize yourself with them, learn them, understand them, and attempt to fix them with efficiency.

So while there are many specialized types of programming, we are all programmers, just writing our favorable language to speak with a machine, to solve a problem, in domain X.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#36

Post by TallGuyShort »

white_devil wrote: post #32
white_devil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a PhD, a statistician, and a Risk Management Quantitative Analyst (level II) As an aside, I really wish that intelligent people would refuse to use their capabilities in the service of evil.

Unsurprisingly, it appears some people disagree. Maybe they're working for Goldman Sachs.

Unsurprisingly, it appears this community frowns on telling someone they're "in the service of evil" based solely on the fact that they do Risk Management Quantitative Analysis.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#37

Post by jedwhite »

Saying you're a programmer is like saying you're a writer. It's not an overgeneralization. It's a broad field. There are technical writers, business writers, novelists, journalists, poets and hacks. Some write soaring prose, others mundane workaday text. They write in different languages. They right for different audiences and cultures. There are amateur writers and professional writers. Those who write for love. Or the love of words. Those who write for money. They're all writers. To me, programming is a lot like writing of other forms. And in more ways than this. So it is an apt comparison.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#38

Post by jedwhite »

jedwhite wrote: post #37

Saying you're a programmer is like saying you're a writer. It's not an overgeneralization. It's a broad field. There are technical writers, business writers, novelists, journalists, poets and hacks. Some write soaring prose, others mundane workaday text. They write in different languages. They right for different audiences and cultures. There are amateur writers and professional writers. Those who write for love. Or…

PS this reminds me of advice I was given leaving school.

"So what makes a true writer?"

"Well, writers write. Plenty of people say they're writers, or want to be writers, or criticize other people's writing and say they could do better. But the thing that sets a true writer apart is that they actually write, rather than talk about writing."

Plenty of people talk about being programmers, or say they know how to program, or critique others' programming and efforts. But the mark of a true programmer is easy to find.

Programmers program.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#39

Post by RatOrigami »

setrofim_ wrote: post #10
atjoslin wrote: post #8

The only way not to overgeneralize is to say "I'm an Andy" or "I'm a Kate" or "I'm a Jerry". Everyone is quite unique. The purpose of titles is to generalize a bit ;)

There is "generalizing", and then there is "over-generalizing". The problem pointed out by the author of the article is that we're often doing the latter instead of the former. Something that is a good practice for a "compiler writer" or a "web developer" (both generalizations) is ofter presented as good "programming practice" over-generalization.

It is a pedantic topic and a pedantic article.

Only nerds care about this.

Re: "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

#40

Post by jebblue »

Excellent article, articulate, well written, I completely agree with the content. I see this every time I interview for a new contract or FT position. Now I focus on Java, JEE (or J2EE) or lighter stacks like Tomcat + Spring or GWT. I do the data tier including SQL as well. That's all I have time for. Sometimes I get out to the front, JSP, JSF, GWT, basic JSP + jQuery for AJAX but that's it. Sometimes I do rich client apps using SWT, some AWT and rarely Swing. Then too I write Java console apps for system level work on occasion.

I need a vacation.

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