medical student
Poll: Are you a Programmer?
61–70 of 87 posts
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#62I code, but it hasn't been advantageous to call myself a programmer for a while now.
My title is technically "software developer", so I just use that. Most jobs nowadays seem to use "software engineer" instead.
I generally am not a fan of software engineer, because most software seems to involve a much higher level of trial and error than traditional engineering disciplines. To me, engineer implies a level of guarantee that usually can't be provide in most software systems.
In extremely critical software systems the developers are probably software engineers, such as if the presence of a single bug in your code would cost someone their life or waste billions of dollars.
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#63A lot of the commenters seem to be programmers by passion but not by trade. I'm both. I got a BS in Computer Engineering but have always been a programmer at heart so I took a job 3 years ago working from home developing desktop applications in C#.
I came to Hacker News after I heard it mentioned in hushed conversation on reddit about alternative news aggregators. I enjoy HN because it seems that content is a higher priority than karma.
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#64if you program with jquery and want to work on http://infusedindustries.com then send me an email! we're hiring. brian@infusedindustries.com
I didn't down vote you, but I am guessing that the reason is because this is off topic. You are welcome to make your own thread though!
I'd say it's the combination of low karma, a fairly new account with not much interaction, an off-topic post, and a spammy looking site and twitter account (http://twitter.com/infusedindustr)
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#65[deleted]
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#66You'd probably be better off asking a more general question. Non-programmers are not likely to click a link, "Are you a programmer," while programmers are probably 10x more likely to click such a link.
someone should make the "are you a non-programmer" poll.
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#67I code, but it hasn't been advantageous to call myself a programmer for a while now.
I am just a graduate student, i want to code more, but in fact i don't have to code. I just have to write damn papers, i hate it. So, i am not a programmer actually
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
*sigh I would hope people would understand the title of hacker on this website. Hint it has nothing to do with security
Sure, but this thread was about what it's "advantageous" to call yourself. Calling yourself a "hacker" in front of 99% of clients is not going to get you off to a good start.
except in front of silicon valley MBA types who're vaguely familiar with four steps to the epiphany
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't down vote you, but I am guessing that the reason is because this is off topic. You are welcome to make your own thread though!
I'd say it's the combination of low karma, a fairly new account with not much interaction, an off-topic post, and a spammy looking site and twitter account ( http://twitter.com/infusedindustr )
What about the twitter account looks spammy? What about the website looks spammy?
(Agree that he should've been downvoted - but curious about these points.)
Re: Poll: Are you a Programmer?
#70I code, but it hasn't been advantageous to call myself a programmer for a while now.
Here's the thing: no-one can make you be a manager. You might be aware of the downsides, sure, but managers aren't pressganged. So by and large, the people you find in management ranks are the people who wanted to be managers and not programmers. This is important because these people hold the budget and ultimately make hiring and firing decisions. Another factor is that angling for promotion is a full-time job in its own right. You can't do the maneuvering necessary and produce code. There just aren't enough hours in the day to schmooze at meetings and do work at a comparable rate to your peers who are mainly working.
A manager considers him or herself "successful" and looks back at their own career and doesn't see that they were perhaps a mediocre programmer themselves (or actually bad and given a promotion so they wouldn't be able to break stuff[1]). Then they look at a candidate who is still programming after 20 years and they see a "failure". That's why ageism is rife in the industry.
[1] It's very very difficult to fire someone these days. So you "promote" them sideways to get them out of the way. Problem is a couple of years later everyone has forgotten that, and their next promotion is a real one...