A Profile of Coders

Zito writes "'The stereotypical programmer is a shy young man who works in a darkened room, intensely concentrating on magical incantations that coax the computer to do his bidding. He can concentrate 12-16 hours at a time, often working through the night to realize his artistic vision. He subsists on pizza and Twinkies,' Steve McConnell writes for gamasutra about profiles of software developers. "

Comments

it's true

[Travoltus]

We have to devote our hearts and souls to the trade in order to learn how to write good code.

The logical, non judgemental nature of computers tends to be a friendlier environment for shy folks who cannot figure out the whimsical, inconsistent and often childish and pointless rules of 'social skills'. In a world where Tommy Lee can beat Pamela Lee to a pulp and still remain a popular star, maybe computers are the only darned things that make any real sense.

I find it rather hypocritical that anyone can stand around laughing at a geek programmer's "lack of social skills". He's not the one hiding in the trunk of a car trying to evade police after murdering his girlfriend. (That would be you, Rae Carruth.) The devastating consequences of the excesses of those socially skilled 'alpha male' types make headline news all the time.

The image of this dashing Don Juan who can code up a clean version of Netscape overnight while weightlifting his way to tomorrow's Mister Universe competition while knowing all the slick lines that make the chicks swoon, is a myth. You put someone like that into a real honest to god developer's job and he'll be flat out crushed by the kind of tasks that the four-eyed geeks drink up like orange juice.

I've seen it happen on my job too many times. The witty funny dashing fellow gets his head handed to him time after time by the fat guy down the hall who spends half a day cleaning up the first guy's code with bug fixes and speed enhancements and then finally getting him fired for being a (relatively) crappy programmer.

Heh, this should really piss the moderators off...lol.

The Urge to be Cool

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Axiom #1: Steve McConnell is the author of (among other things) "Code Complete" where he advocates good engineering practices for software developers. In that book he specifically debunks the myth that "real programmers stay up all night coding and eating cold pizza".

Axiom #2: The quote taken from the story says "stereotypical programmer".

Axiom #3: The full story seems to be unavailable (/. effect?).

Axiom #4: Many posts on slashdot are already using the quote as fodder both for and against the notion that "programmers are misfits". Lemma 1: Putting Axioms 1 and 2 together we can conclude that this story will be a further debunking of the "Real Programmers are Social Misfits" myth.

Lemma 2: Axiom #3 and #4 allow us to conclude that the quote is the sole source of fodder.

Conclusion: Lemma 1 and 2 show us that maybe we should read the article before responding.

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A clue for the PHB's

[bhurt]

That guy working 16-hour days and subsisting on pizza and twinkies is not necessarily more productive (especially in the long run) than the guy whose leaving at 5:30. Stressing out your employees to the point where they're leaving the field and not just your company is dumb. "Gee, he's irreplacable- let's work him till he quits."