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Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

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Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#21

Post by mtraven »

crazygringo wrote: post #18
alxbrun wrote: post #5

I was having a beer in this small Brazilian town, mid-afternoon. Two girls come to my table. We try to chat ; they can't speak any foreign language and my Portuguese is awful. - Me: What is your job ? - The girls: Programma - Me (for the next 30 minutes): Oh great, me too ! Which languages ? Even "Java" didn't seem to mean anything to them. Strange. I assumed they had special programming languages in Brazil. 10 years…

That's pretty funny. In case anyone's wondering, the full term is "garota de programa", literally "girl of program" or "program girl". Obviously, the English is "call girl". Normally, "programa" just means events, like "what's the program for the evening?". Here, of course, you can figure it out yourself.

Now I'm wondering if there is a difference between call-by-value girls and call-by-reference girls.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#22

Post by johnrob »

I don't agree with the point about later stage options:

But what this misses is that you don't get paid in percentage points - you get dollars. A $100 share going up 20% to $120 means you make $20 per share. A $5 share going up 100% to $15 means you only make $10 per share.

If you join a larger company, the shares will be more expensive but you will own less of them. Percentage growth is definitely the way to measure opportunity when it comes to options. In other words: (how much I might earn) / (how much I have to pay).

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#23

Post by alxbrun »

mtraven wrote: post #21
crazygringo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty funny. In case anyone's wondering, the full term is "garota de programa", literally "girl of program" or "program girl". Obviously, the English is "call girl". Normally, "programa" just means events, like "what's the program for the evening?". Here, of course, you can figure it out yourself.

Now I'm wondering if there is a difference between call-by-value girls and call-by-reference girls.

If only my wife's body was immutable.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#24

Post by jerrya »

talles wrote: post #17
alxbrun wrote: post #5

I was having a beer in this small Brazilian town, mid-afternoon. Two girls come to my table. We try to chat ; they can't speak any foreign language and my Portuguese is awful. - Me: What is your job ? - The girls: Programma - Me (for the next 30 minutes): Oh great, me too ! Which languages ? Even "Java" didn't seem to mean anything to them. Strange. I assumed they had special programming languages in Brazil. 10 years…

Haha I laughed to this. Specially because I'm brazilian. And yes, it is the same word, 'program' is a slang for prostitute work. We programmers here joke a lot about this :)

It goes both ways. In the US many "consultants" / "independent consultants" refer to themselves as "whores" especially when applying their talents (for money of course) to companies or projects they disrespect.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#25

Post by bitwize »

No, the person he's responding to is right. In general, hiring managers don't care about bits, they care about dollars. They're going to be looking for dollars you made for other companies because that translates into dollars you can make for them.

Money. It's the universal language.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#26

Post by deadfall »

Glyptodon wrote: post #19
nawitus wrote: post #12

I thought the general advice is to call yourself a software engineer.

I hate the trend of calling people who code 'engineers.' It's just not a good title for anything to do with software. And invariably people who embrace its usage seem to be trying to compensate or ignorant of what a real engineer actually does or is.

I think engineer is a reference to "builder of" or "maker of". There are plenty of other things to hate.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#27

Post by ssw1n »

alxbrun wrote: post #5

I was having a beer in this small Brazilian town, mid-afternoon. Two girls come to my table. We try to chat ; they can't speak any foreign language and my Portuguese is awful. - Me: What is your job ? - The girls: Programma - Me (for the next 30 minutes): Oh great, me too ! Which languages ? Even "Java" didn't seem to mean anything to them. Strange. I assumed they had special programming languages in Brazil. 10 years…

10 years later, those two programmas in that Brazilian small town would still be recounting to their fellow programmas and friends that:

- There are male programmas in America (in fact, the rumor says that most of the programmas are male) and,

- The strange ritual of male programmas from America is that they start to recite these about 100 strange sounding words, and ask you if you know any of them.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#28

Post by cglace »

quaffapint wrote: post #16

In the huge mega conglomerate where I work, I was told by my old boss to not call myself a 'programmer', as those with that title they can outsource to India, I had to have something with Architect in it to hopefully keep me employed continuing the daily grind. Of course in all reality I am more of an architect, but when people ask what I do, do I say architect of this or that, and have to explain that, or simply com…

Yeah, I usually say programmer/software engineer rather than architect. Makes explaining it a lot easier

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#29

Post by gibrown »

Glyptodon wrote: post #19
nawitus wrote: post #12

I thought the general advice is to call yourself a software engineer.

I hate the trend of calling people who code 'engineers.' It's just not a good title for anything to do with software. And invariably people who embrace its usage seem to be trying to compensate or ignorant of what a real engineer actually does or is.

Unless your definition of 'engineer' is someone who drives a train, I don't see how 'engineering' doesn't apply to coding. At least good coding.

I was an electrical engineer before being a software engineer. There is a difference in what level of the stack I focus on now, but there is very little difference in how I design solutions and think through problems (though hopefully I've continued to get better).

Most of my electrical engineering also involved coding day in and day out.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#30

Post by jjsz »

Glyptodon wrote: post #19
nawitus wrote: post #12

I thought the general advice is to call yourself a software engineer.

I hate the trend of calling people who code 'engineers.' It's just not a good title for anything to do with software. And invariably people who embrace its usage seem to be trying to compensate or ignorant of what a real engineer actually does or is.

The trend extends to other words. Sometimes I hear Programmers calling themselves Computer Scientists or Computer Engineers [1] [2] [3] when in different cases they are a Developers or a Hacker. Which they get wrong too. You are what you are. of you're acting another role you should state that you're playing that role not that you are.

Ex. Computer Scientist, who can fill the role of a Programmer.

This discussion keeps popping up [4] [5] , but the definitions are clear. I believe there's a Wikipedia article somewhere that explains all the differences.

[1] In Puerto Rico [2] http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/undergrad/academics/degrees/cs-vs... [3] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5936652 [5] http://blog.hartleybrody.com/hacker-developer-engineer/

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