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Are Software Developers Naturally Weird?
jammag writes "Well, c'mon, yes — let's admit it. As a veteran coder discusses as he looks at his career, software development is brimming with the offbeat, the quirky and the downright odd. As he remembers, there was the 'Software Lyrics' guy and the 'Inappropriate Phone Call' programmer, among others. Are unique types drawn to the profession, or are we 'transformed over time by our darkened working environments and exposure to computer screen radiation?'"
There is no "normal" - everyone seems to have something. Developers (and geeks, in general) just wear it out there on their sleeve.
More
Eric Spiegel? Ha!
No.
It's the screen radiation, but The Others don't think that way...
I'm thinking that different professions have different levels of social pressure to conform to a certain way of behaving and appearing, and the coder profession has less of this pressure, perhaps because good programmers have to constantly question assumptions and think outside the box to come up with good designs. But hell if I know or care.
Here's a tip: everybody loves to think they're unique and "weird." The most conventional, boring, person you know is going to describe how wacky their party was if you ask.
In reality, there's no such thing as "weird" because there's no such thing as "normal." If you encounter somebody you think embodies "normal", well, you just don't know them well-enough. (I bet a lot of people thought Tom Cruise was normal before he started jumping on Oprah's couch.)
Comment of the year
Origins of Sysadmins
Strange, weird and unique peoples work in every sphere of society. You only think coders are special because you happen to hang out with coders and not, say, accountants. If you were hanging out with accountants, you would find accountants a weird and diverse bunch too, but instead you have a stereotypical view of how accountants act, just like the rest of the population have a stereotypical view of coders.
The stories in the article don't seem unique to software at all. That type and degree of weirdness shows up in every type of work, techie or not. People are just strange! We all know our families are strange - we've either adapted and become oblivious, or moved on. With coworkers, however, we are forced to interact daily with a group of random people we don't get to choose individually. That exposes us to a broad cross-section of societal weirdness that we aren't used to, and we notice it. I think everyone has had this experience to some extent. That's one reason The Office is such a popular show; we can all identify the Michael Scotts and Dwight Schrutes in our lives.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
My mistake ... I thought it said WIRED.
From my experience, programmers are no weirder than retail sales people, bakers or general laborers.
What may make programmers skew a little more weird is that programming talent is still rather rare or is certainly not an off-the-shelf commodity. So weirdness that might get you fired as a day laborer is more tolerated in programming. As I would think in any of the creative areas with relative shortages of talent.
We're just better suited to the task.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That's just nasty. That should really be part of an article titled: "Are Coworkers Sometimes Unpleasant?"
I put it in the same category as a nose picking coworker who occasionally digs into underwear to scratch their bung and then use a common keyboard. It's just nasty.
People with Asperger's syndrome - and left-handed people - make the best programmers. Ergo, weird comes with the terratory. I prefer "interesting". I'm "interesting"...and programming has kept me earning top dollar for 35 years.
I find that women with big tits make the best programmers and I have as much evidence as you do that proves me right.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Everybody is unique.
Do weird people naturally become software developers?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
terratory
Sigh. Whenever we have these "we only seem weird to you cretinous neurotypicals because we're geniuses" circle jerks the sloppy spelling and grammar really starts to grate.
And actually it's completely back to front. We socially lazy people are good at programming because we have lots and lots of free time that the regular folks spend being sociable.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
... data is not the plural of anecdote. That's like reading thedailywtf and conclude that most code written is crap, most managers are incompetent assholes, most interviewers are clueless, most interviewees are underqualified liars.
Personally I think a lot of it has to do with power and boundaries - again, just like with small children. Because any IT person who shows a modicum of talent is so sought after, that their employers will go to great lengths to retain them. If that means playing along with their emotional issues, well: so be it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
And some organizations do not put up with behavior at all that was mentioned in the article. A more professional manager would have a much different team an wouldn't have had the problem he had.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Normal people can't understand the way computers think. That's why we're so "strange/weird". We think in an analytical and logical fashion.
What do you mean? African or european developers?
The only time the word "darkened" and the phrase "computer screen radiation" will be used together in a sentence. Only on /.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This must be some kind of a joke. The first "example" is:
When Ted would deliver his code for the QA group for testing, there would be much rolling of the eyes. You see, Ted like to sprinkle comments in his code that were not relevant to the software. And not just irrelevant comments, but just plain weird comments. For example, a case statement would be preceded with:
“I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees. Asked the Lord above for mercy, ‘save me if you please.”
Huh? Or, a comment next to a loop would state:
“You spin me right round, baby right round like a record, baby Right round round round”
Yep – song lyrics. The first is from an Eric Clapton song “Crossroads” and if you saw the Wedding Singer, you’d recognize the looping Dead or Alive lyrics.
But, again huh???
Where these comments hurting anyone? Probably not, but they were at a minimum distracting.
That's not weird, this guy is just an idiot who can't be bothered commenting his code.
I'm fine with the occasional clever witty comment (I've done it myself) as long as the code makes sense and that everything is documented (e.g. This method does x, y, z and also takes over the world).
The other two examples are just as bogus:
a) a guy who interrupts co-workers at inappropriate times and starts chatting about life matters and doesn't know when to shut up.
b) a girl who's always on the phone distracting co-workers with inappropriate topics (calling guys about passing STDs to them and eventually doing phone interviews for other jobs).
I'm sorry, but none of this warrant a "software developers are naturally weird" headline. People are weird and every profession has its crazes. I can think of a lot of professions that suffer from the last two examples more so than software development.
This article is either a troll or the bastard child of a slow news Sunday, either way, I took the bait.
If you can't mod them join them.
If you think software developers are weird, you're not getting out enough.
Commission salespeople and futures traders are much weirder. Some CEOs are weird. Low-end rock musicians are weird. (Above the "club band" level, some sanity tends to emerge, or at least the self-destructive ones are filtered out.) Strippers are weird. Successful high-end call girls, though, tend to be chillingly sane when not in their work personas.
This article reminds me of a couple of incidents earlier in my career:
I usually find the HR department to be pain in the ass, but there are times when they are indispensable. When I first started working, I was managing a team of fresh college graduates. They all went out together after work one Friday for "movie night." The next week, one of the women who worked for me came to my office very upset. Turns out that after movie night, she'd gone to a bar with her fellow team members, then taken him back to her place and had sex. She was worried about pregnancy and disease because the sex had been unprotected. She was also upset that he was "being cold to [her]" the first day back in the office. At that point, I just said, "this is a topic for our HR department" and walked her and her "movie night buddy" to the office of the HR rep for our area. The resolution was to have one of them volunteer to be transferred to another area, but there was subsequent drama anyway. Social ineptitude coupled with inexperience and raging hormones is an unusually bad combination.
I also worked with a programmer who cursed worse than a sailor and "adjusted himself" more frequently than an entire team of baseball players. We used to take bets on how many times he would grab his crotch during a conversation, and if the meeting was all guys, we'd all adjust ourselves for laughs and to see if he'd pick up on it--he was completely oblivious. For whatever reason it went on for years without anyone ever doing anything about it. On the cursing part, he did eventually get called in to HR and scolded for his language, to which I am told his exact response was "Holy shit, I'm so fucking sorry." He still kept his job, though.
In that respect, neither handedness nor syndromes seems to have any relevance.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Systematic, analytic thinking, a strong desire to automate and a propensity to eliminate exceptions are the way of the future.
We socially lazy people are good at programming because we have lots and lots of free time that the regular folks spend being sociable.
I think this is the largest truth of it. Why are we good at things technological? Because we're so interested in it that we've spent an enormous amount of time and effort on it. Time and effort that had to come at the expense of neglecting other activities.
Also, we tend to be a bit elitist in attitude and relish all things that set us apart. So we probably think we're weirder than we really are.
Also also, people are just weird. I've never known a normal person in my entire life.
I think most people who are detailed oriented are considered eccentric. Good businesspeople, programmers, chefs, military strategists, and anyone who has to have things a certain way are considered weird.
Programmers just happen to be more detail oriented than most everyone else. One character in a program with hundreds of thousands is the difference between having something that compiles and something that doesn't. It takes a certain type of personality to accept this as part of the job description.
There are certain people who have it worse - civil engineers and doctors, for example. Once they have computed a load or prescribed a treatment, there is no way to edit and rebuild.
...your friends are gathered around the very same table, of which you effectively manage to clear within 15 minutes with your endless drivel about Drupal CMS which of course - you really can't for the life of you - understand why isn't the most interesting thing on this planet next to stretchpants!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I find that often hiring managers tolerate jerks in our profession because a lot of hotshot programmers develop a large ego early in their careers, aided by management teams that enable this disfunction. The net result is a work place with high turn over of 'normal people'. There are a lot of hiring managers who read Slashdot. My message to then is 'Don't hire jerks'. Great programmers have lots of options about who to work for. If you have a team where you tolerate jerks then good people will leave and good prospective employees will turn down your job offers after meeting your jerks during the interview process.
yes.
I'm not weird. But those OTHER guys... Whew! ;->
Conforming to or avoiding certain behaviors simply because they are or are not practiced by the majority is a logical fallacy. Programming requires logical, critical thinking ability. Ergo, those who succeed at programming may tend to engage in behavior that seems strange to the majority of people.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Photos or it didn't happen.
Geeks love to tell themselves self-congratulatory tales about how they're weird, or prone to Aspergers, or otherwise exempt from the normal conventions of human interaction, because they're so smart and talented. Hey baby, I'm a rockstar! I don't need to know all that crap about proper hygiene or graceful social interaction--my brain is too full of powerful code that's the next killer app!
Programming will mature as a discipline when programmers see themselves as not that different from any other skilled, educated professional.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I'm normal, but all the people in my group, batshit crazy - makes sysadmins look sane.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
"Weird" is an irregular adjective that varies with the pronoun. An example illustrates best:
I am interesting
You are eccentric
He is weird
I find the best programmers are the ones with the maturity to complete a task when they said they would. Who can perform an exhaustive session of testing without complaining (even though it's boring, but necessary work). Who will produce the required documentation to a high standard and will play nice with the other members of the team they are in.
In that respect, neither handedness nor syndromes seems to have any relevance.
So how's Superman working out for you? I assume you didn't hire Batman because he has "issues".
Yes. Computing is warping our minds.
Computers are just so damn logical, working with them is completely removed from normal everyday life. It's well known that people anthropomorphize computers in order to deal with them in our own frame of reference, but conversely we also mentally shift our thinking into a logical form which we aren't evolved to deal with, so that we can work effectively with computers. The more closely you work with computers, the more this will affect you.
I don't think this is a new thing though. Mathematicians and people working in hard sciences have certainly faced the same sort of thing. For example, many early scientists (eg. Galileo) have faced persecution because they have found a mode of thinking that "normal" people have found objectionable.
It'll only get worse as technology progresses.
I find your ideas intriguing, and wish to subscribe to your evidence.
hehe, Exhibit 10243597 above.
It's something in the water cooler.
"Song lyric comment guy" sounds like the stereotypical no-social-skills IT guy - it sounds like the sort of thing a person would do to try to make themselves interesting to other people if that person didn't really understand basic human interaction.
"Inappropriate phone call girl" just sounds trailer-trashy - I (unfortunately) hear people on the train airing their dirty laundry in public all the time. I've also worked with people (not just IT people) who had phone issues like this. Some people just don't seem to get the idea that some things are better kept private. It doesn't seem to be a "tech thing" - it's not really similar to "song lyric comment guy" IMO.
#DeleteChrome
"There is no "normal" - everyone seems to have something. Developers (and geeks, in general) just wear it out there on their sleeve." - by dsginter (104154) on Sunday October 18, @01:10PM (#29785113)
Couldn't have said it better myself: You are truly, insightful. I have a few things to say myself on this note, to supplement your thoughts, because what I have seen in 45 yrs. on this earth, has turned into a disgusting rat race for the "love of money" & worse. It's sad... it really is. Especially because imo @ least?? If we don't ruin it for ourselves via some dumb war (or act of God like a plague)?? We're on the VERGE OF GREAT THINGS... better than last century's growth & discoveries imo no less.
Anyhow/anyways, read on, if this interests you (otherwise, don't bother):
First of all, you have to understand 1 thing: The "psychiatry industry" is EXACTLY that - an industry, & one looking for growth & expansion. How to do that? Easy - make more "conditions" to profit by, & classify others w/ said conditions. Easy fix, easy money, easy control + easy growth/profit.
It's funny though - sure, their science is SOMEWHAT accurate, but I know they base it on statistics, & that science is "perfect", except on 1 VERY IMPORTANT ACCOUNT - it's not as precise as others, because the human mind is formed by circumstances & experiences (& everyone's is different), PLUS, they cannot get a big enough 'sampleset' to justify some of their so-called 'findings', period.
Sure works to "fool the rubes" though... "4/5 Dentists Chew Trident"? Sure they do - when you pay them off to say so! :)
Now, on society in general, & what the world is experiencing, today?
Well - In today's "politically correct society", imo @ least? Anyone that doesn't "follow the program" gets labelled 'crazy' etc. et al, & often without anyone performing a formal psych analysis, & by naysayers with no PHD in Psych themselves... funny that, eh?
It makes sense though:
This is no longer a world of 'great men', but instead it's become a world of committees!
(Composed of many times, truly "lesser mortals" & some serious "ass kissing & sycophant rats" imo @ least, who will do anything for a dollar... they kiss the 'ringleaders butt', until they find out he is a sociopath even greater than themselves, & he dismisses them via various means should they no longer be useful (or, pose a threat to he, because they "know too much") - we've all seen this (& if you have not? You will unfortunately & most likely one day))
Now, you can "put me down" or "call me crazy" but... are the results out there today from their leadership worldwide showing contrary results? I think, no, I rather KNOW not...
Take a look around you (& ANYONE can try to "tell me different").
Once more - It's sad.
E.G. #1 -> A pal of mine, who is a self-made millionaire who used to be a coder & instead went into mgt. put it best to me:
Almost verbatim -> "Truly SMART people? They don't go into politics, nor do they stay in the trenches working for somebody else too long if they can help it - they instead start their OWN 'show' & make the millions"
AND, he's right. I know that our leadership in the USA is exemplary of this, look @ the results of the criminals like Bernie Madoff being able to pull off what he did. He did, because our leadership is CLEARLY unaware of the mechanics of the banks (specifically the Federal Reserve, which is no more "federal" than FedEx is by the by, & of the IMF (international monetary fund)).
The banking people toss a few acronyms @ these politicians & that leaves them w/ the "deer in the headlights look" & they accept what they're told apparently... that, or they are "truly the best money REALLY CAN BUY" (I am sure you all suspect this also), & have been paid to "look the other way".
Short-sighted, & STUPID (I hate using that last word too,
Here is my story... when i was a kid in my neiborhood there werent many kids that was interesting in computers, software development and such as i was... so i havent really someone to talk about my experiences... my creations and so on.... now that i grew up and i am in a public university of computer science and everyone talks about computer all the time i really feel kinda weird when i have to conversate with someone about my work... i have been really strange to "third" people(i mean except me and some guys i meat during my youth....) so this... weirdeness....
Also, author comes off as a bit of a jerk.
"Crossroads" and "You spin me round" comments were not only funny, but also completely on topic.
"Crossroads" - case statement, "You spin me round" - loop.
"At a minimum distracting"? You know what else is distracting?
Having a sense of humor.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"Silly" comments in code. Occasionally acceptable to have a sense of humour but it has to actually be funny because it's relevant rather than because it's random. But you'll often get the "funny" guy in the office who doesn't realise that he's not.
"Chatty" - Yes, this is more typical of coders. Not someone who spends a lot of time talking. More that he doesn't get hints. There seems to be a borderline aspergers type that has a high correlation with programmers. You can simply tell them to go away because your busy and they will.
Inappropriate conversations - happens in all sectors. Some people just don't know what's appropriate.
They are natural psychopaths.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I don't have much respect for developers.
I am a simple laborer who couldn't afford higher education, but I have my geeky things, specially related to videogame design.
One day, I reunited enough will to combine my work with making a game of my own. It's still in early alpha but it's doing alright.
Thing is...knowing I have no full education background, I dealed with C and OpenGL and their quirky things (pathetic string support, stupid color handling requiring to learn GLSL to do something worthy, respectively), all by myself. This is not specially impressive, but I didn't do by choice. I had to learn the same way with art/pixel art/animation and sound/music as well as general technique to achieve effects. It wasn't difficult to learn to do the media, but the code is not as straightforward. So I tried looking for help around in order to do some specific things that were hard.
Every single programming question I deployed on the net was received with an elitist disregard, sending me to read tons of papers and stuff I don't really have an use for, specially because even if I try I can't understand it. They assume you have high education in MIT and you had to start from mainframes like they did or something. This is specially true on the IRC channel #opengl, where everyone seems to be too elite to deal with n00bs and giving incredibly obfuscated replies generally being more of a "don't bother me you fucking ignorant n00b".
Unfortunately I don't know anyone else who codes around me (this country is not specially literate on IT), since most of my people are laborers like me who'd rather watch TV and get drunk instead of venturing into a coding project. And I can't blame them because unless you reinvent the wheel infinitely you are doomed to be inferior to the top dogs there. They limit knowledge sharing with their arrogant and "I am better than you" attitude, and it's sickening.
There would be far more indie games and open stuff if they weren't so stubbornly elitist and shared that knowledge because it's going to die when they do otherwise.
Many people have quirks - but if it is causing an issue it should be addressed by the manager.
As much as one might think they are, no one is indispensable.
Programming, and engineering in general, is a solitary practice. Living in your own head so often for so long makes you weird. Period.
Developers have always struck me as people who have absolutely no desire to think. They want you to tell them when, where, and how (via email of course). In a way I guess that makes them weird because they are long-term introverts who have to, now and then, actually talk to people.
In my view it would be roughly the same situation if you took garbage men and sat them down among professionals to do a dev job. Very rare is the person who has decided to focus on IT AND has a well developed set of people skills. So I think it is less that they are weird and more that they are pushed into social situations because dev work can't be 100% behind a screen.
I know that guy, he lives in Imaginary Land.
I've noticed many programmers, including myself, act completely illogically outside of work (and on breaks). My personal theory is that everyone has a finite amount of logic, some more than others, and coders use up most of theirs at work. Hence acting wierd and illogically away from their computers.
Maybe that's why one cannot code some days. The Logic Reserve is depleted.
Agreed. I tried to solve this by going out more and meeting new peoples, but the voices wouldn't let me.
The first is from an Eric Clapton song “Crossroads” Everybody knows Robert Johnson wrote "Crossroads Blues". The Tommy Johnson character in Brother Where Art Thou? is based on this song. The song was written in 1936, so it predates Clapton by just a bit...
I find the best programmers are the ones with the maturity to complete a task when they said they would. Who can perform an exhaustive session of testing without complaining (even though it's boring, but necessary work). Who will produce the required documentation to a high standard and will play nice with the other members of the team they are in.
That is one kind of 'best'. But in my experience, the folks who grind through exhaustive & tedious tasks with nary a peep of discontent, rarely have good creative skills.
I work in a small company that has an in-house programmer on staff who creates small custom utilities to help with many day-to-day work tasks.
He's quite stereotypical in that he lives off Coca-cola, spends his free time playing online role playing games, and at 31 is still a self-confessed virgin. (He does not, however, live with his mother -- he owns his own house.)
But this guy completely lacks social grace. He's loud, obnoxious, crude, and has no concept of "when to shut up", especially around female employees.
However, the worst part is lack of personal hygenie: Rarely showers, rarely does his laundry, has breath to kill a small country, and has not yet discovered the miracle of toilet paper. (Even after I not-so-subtly hung a Tommy Toilet poster on the bathroom wall...)
After numerous complaints from numerous staff, he now slathers on cologne in an attempt to hide his smell, but the result is more of a vulgar mix of feces, sweat, BO, and cologne. Ugh.
Although he does his work reasonably well (nothing sterling, mind you) his eccentricities will be his undoing. Pretty much everyone wishes this loud-mouthed stink-bomb to be fired, myself included.
Weird can be acceptable, even entertaining, but it has limits.
Our social skills diminish with the time spent with the computer rather than in society. We're just not used to those basic unwritten rules, and the computer is to blame. There were some hints of programmers getting around in society, but those are not hardcore coders (hackers). As proof that hackers understand it very well, you can see ESR's essay on hackers, which even suggest that us being apart from the society (or rather, socializing) is a good thing. Personally, that's just the way you comfort yourself, but it's true that our time is invested elsewhere. Could we still manage to do both if we really tried? I'm afraid it might be too late for me to try. The process of rehabilitation would be too long and too intense anyway. What's your excuse?
In my limited experience of Software Development (I wrote my first program in 1972 on an ICL 1901A in Fortran using Punched Cards), no they are not weird.
Since thme I have written everything from device controller microcode to O/S Device Drivers(VMS & Unix) to financial applications.
So from my experience,
The BEST Programmers are those who can say NO. No and Thrice No for function creep and ill thoughout changes to the spec.
The WORST ones are those who say 'No problem' without thinking through the request first (yes nerds I mean you)
The BEST programmers are those who can produce a project that can run for more than a year without any bugs! Yep I know this might be an issue for some. Yes I mean you! Error Handling? Yes that too. 'Unexpected Error' is not an acceptable output when you app goest tits up. Nor is a BOSD!
Properly designed & coded software requres disciplien and createive thinking. In too many of my colleagues over the years, the have one or the other but never both.
Oh, I'm left handed and have run my own Software Company for the last 10 years with a turnover in excess of $400K in the last year and I still code stuff.
I find that women with big tits make the best programmers In my experience, attractive women with big tits severely limit the productivity of their male coworkers, making themselves look good by comparison. It's a basic biological defect, most men would rather stare at tits than computer screens.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Premise 1) Most hackish types are either probably or definitely autistic.
Premise 2) Most autistic individuals genuinely *are* basement dwelling freaks, on a level that would make the Joker or the Addams Family look normal. Before you call me a bigot for saying that, realise that I'm an autistic person myself. My Quasimodo/Frankenstein/Joseph Merrick complex is both strong, and fully justified. Most of us genuinely are the sort of person who was interviewed in the documentary, "Trekkies."
I don't have a girlfriend, I've only had one sexual partner, and I lost my virginity very late. (at 26) Part of my current celibacy is by choice; female psychology simply doesn't have what it takes to be able to tolerate an autistic male. Women just aren't strong enough to be able to handle us. I realised that, and so I made a decision to never put another woman through what I put my ex through again.
In that film "Adam," the guy who tried to tell the woman not to get into a relationship with Adam was right.
My father was a misogynist, but I honestly am not. I loved my ex, despite what I put her through; and I left her because I loved her. I wanted her to find someone who she could be truly happy with.
If you're an autistic person, you have a moral responsibility to stay away from neurotypicals, particularly from women. They need to be protected from us.
It's true, but due to the the prevailing stereotype that the best programmers are "weird", the mature, cooperative guy is always rejected in favour of some rude rainman wannabe.
Conveying "I'm an eccentric asshole and therefore a genius" is a lot easier than conveying "I'm a thoroughly dependable guy who's better in the long run".
I can not tell you the stories I have heard of from people in other units, but then again, with years of war and lower standards till recently, it is no surprise.
I find that women with big tits make the best programmers and I have as much evidence as you do that proves me right.
awesome! i'm on my way to a brilliant career then! but please do provide the evidence, i'd like to be sure.
At the very least women with big tits do rule the internet. I guess that makes them our rulers. Hmmmm.
I for one welcome our long standing large busted female overlords (overladies?).
There is NOTHING natural about the urge to write code in Haiku, have Hello Kitty usb-powered leg warmers, play real life missile command via web cam, or to sit for hours in artificially lit rooms as a favorite pastime. Short answer? Yes.
Yeah, I've gotten to the level know when someone asks me the 'wrong' question I now answer "You're not asking me the right question". I used to answer it.
Is "is that sentence grammatically correct?" the correct question to ask?
It's a basic biological defect, most men would rather stare at tits than computer screens.
But how is that a defect?
Also, what if the tits are on the screens?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Women with big tits /are/ better at everything. That's why we favor them in our hiring process.
This sig intentionally left blank.
No, actually some of us make time for computer work, a social life, and Humans vs Zombies.
I decided several decades ago that everyone is crazy. Given that, it's only a matter of what you like. Eh.
I don't get it; doesn't everyone use quotes from songs, literature, or film in their code? "I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking."
Being a software developer is kinda like owning Apple products: there are significantly fewer of us than non-developers, so we feel a sense of elitism and thus reflect our internal pride through fitting to the stereotypes of geeks.
Software developers are normal. It's the rest of the world that's weird.
if the meeting was all guys, we'd all adjust ourselves for laughs and to see if he'd pick up on it--he was completely oblivious. For whatever reason it went on for years without anyone ever doing anything about it. On the cursing part, he did eventually get called in to HR and scolded for his language, to which I am told his exact response was "Holy shit, I'm so fucking sorry." He still kept his job, though.
Here's the lesson I learned from your post: some people are willing to change, they just need someone to tell them how they should change. They might even be grateful that you've helped them change for the better.
Now, ask yourself: whenever you find people you'd like to change, do you want to risk them never changing by not asking? How does that weigh against the risk of them being offended by you asking?
Thinking over the folks I've worked with, I would have to agree that geeks in general share some common traits. We hate inaccuracy (sometimes pathologically). Most of us have at least one toy (maybe more) on or in our desks. Geeks that do tech support all hate "stupid users" but depend on them for a living (there's a dichotomy). Programmers usually expect true logic to apply to people and are disappointed in people when they won't be logical. Most of us come in late and work late. Once we go home, we get on our computer at home. We tend to like science fiction and fantasy books/movies (including comic books). We will easily convince a non-player character to join our dungeon quest but get a "deer in the headlights" look when confronted with asking someone out on a date.
Not every geek will conform to the stereotype, but stereotypes come about because they are observations about life. We're not all like the above description, but see if there aren't several of those traits that apply to you.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
I have a 2nd home in Vegas and visit often. While I am not a frequenter of the strip clubs I am aquainted with a couple girls who moonlight as strippers. Their fortunes can vary based upon the makeup of the conventioneers in town at the time. They always say that the clubs are the most crowded when the "computer nerds" are in town. This was especially true during compuserve's hey day.
"Successful high-end call girls, though, tend to be chillingly sane when not in their work personas."
Please explain how you know this.
more cowbell
I have to agree with an earlier post. It's not software developers that are geeks. I've meet lots of government programmers that are just as boring as your standard beaurocrat. It's being a GEEK that makes many software developers interesting. Unfortunately, it's not being a geek that makes you a software developer.
Although in my books, being a geek is often what makes you a GOOD software developer, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.
You are "weird" if some narrow pursuit makes up the majority of your life. Be it programming, stamp collecting, keeping up with fashion, or memorizing baseball statistics. It naturally makes your interests rather narrow and much too extreme for average people to understand.
The non-weird people are those with a well-rounded life, and (generally) moderate or mediocre marketable skills (if any). I know plenty of normal people who make minimum wage... Very few (though some) who are in the top 5%.
And besides, we sysadmins are much more normal than you programmers (freaks!).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm not a programmer, I'm a mathematician, but I notice the same thing in my field.
To those who say there is not a tendency toward weirdness in mathematical disciplines, I suggest the following experiment. First go to the weekly math colloquium at a local research university. Then, go to the weekly philosophy colloquium and see if you can discern a difference in the people who come. I believe you will almost certainly find that the mathematicians are less attractive and charismatic. You could argue that philosophy simply selects for attractiveness and charisma, but I believe you will have similar findings if many different subjects are substituted for phil.
To those who say that the strangeness of programmers is somehow reducible to various qualities of "geeks", this is clearly begging the question, as any good geek should know. The topic for this thread is very similar to asking "why are geeks the way they are?" but phrased differently.
I have spent large amounts of time wondering why mathematicians are weird, ugly, uncharismatic and so forth. My answer is that they live largely in their own imaginations, and spend correspondingly less time in the "real world." Therefore, not surprisingly, their real world appearance, manners etc gives evidence of a lack of attention. Conversely people in other fields are not selected for an ability to concentrate deeply, spend more time in the here and now, and reap consequent benefits in hygiene, social skills, etc.
No, programmers aren't weird, its just a field that isn't well enough established yet.
As such, those who are incapable of surviving in other more well established fields can survive in development for now. Give it 10 -20 years and programming will be roughly the same as any other desk job, and these quirks that developers currently get by with will no longer be acceptable.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I strongly believe that I am normal. It's everyone else that is weird.
So what if I think news about particle physics, astrophysics and space exploration is conversation-worthy. It beats talking about American Idol!
(for the record I'm a software developer because my family is weird enough to have bought a home computer in the 80s, then put me in front of it for many hours.)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Robert Johnston, the original singer of Crossroad Blues, died in 1938 before Eric Clapton was even born (1945)
I don't know who wrote it, so it is entirely possible the song is even older.
But that is not my main point. Wow--given a sample size of 3, a whole profession is labeled as 'weird'? I have seen my share of weird programmers, but most of them happen to be perfectly normal people (for society's definition of normal). My definition of "normal" also includes people who speak Klingon, eat Ramen and may have questionable hygiene.
As a response to the original article, here is my generalization of the day: all Earthweb columnist's are weirdo's who look like they are secretly planning to take over the world.
You mean they're the kind that would do what they're told instead of losing interest and writing a short perl script to do it for them.
That also includes "exhaustive session of testing".
Interestingly enough my experience is that a lot of companies would rather hire some guy in a suit who's got a "used car salesman smile" and next no skills over someone who's got actual skills. At least that's how it was a few years ago after the economists had created the dot-bomb and thus most businesses were distrustful of geeks because the economists fucked everything up (of course, most people seem to think the ones doing all the hyping and investing in insane companies were the geeks).
(Yes, the above "economists -> failure means geeks can't be trusted" bit isn't supposed to make sense since it doesn't but that's how a lot of businesses seemed to react)
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
The age of weird programmers is coming to and end: as programming languages become less and less arcane and code reuse is increasing in such a pace that it's becoming a crime to write original code, the profession is slowly loosing part of the allure once responsible for attracting those eccentric types. Having worked for a C++ R&D and team and later a JEE team, I can tell the difference in eccentricity is remarkable.
But the minority of programmers who got into the profession because they spent their evenings and weekends in school hardware hacking or hobbyist programming rather than socializing, are bound to behave strangely when placed into a highly social environment - the workplace - and when their strange behavior is accepted rather than questioned or openly mocked as it would have been in those school days, they are bound to persist in it.
I wouldn't be surprised if I had said syndrome, and I certainly have peeped with discontent often enough, but only at incompetent management.
But I'm going to disagree with both "maturity" and "creativity", although I'll stick fairly close to the latter.
Rather than maturity, what is important is the competence to be able to make a good estimate about when something will be finished (including documentation). Unfortunately the vast majority (80%+) of programmers aren't very good programmers when working in teams. I'll get back to that in a bit.
And rather than creativity, I find imagination, lateral thinking and problem solving in particular, to be more important. A similar 80%+ majority of programmers who's work I've had the pleasure to maintain are extremely creative in using the wrong tool for the job, etc. Again, competence is most important.
I'm going to make it more personal now: I'm unemployed and haven't worked with Delphi for more than 5 years professionally. Unfortunately that's where I put all my eggs. Although after 2020 I'll probably be able to find some maintenance work (just as the COBOL guys did in 1999, hehe), I'd like to be developing new stuff again. I had one agency who I had worked through to mutual profit regularly in the past, only for the incompetent agent to - after saying I couldn't get the job because my French wasn't good enough reversing that when I wrote her in French - then tell me I couldn't get the job because my Delphi experience wasn't recent enough DESPITE the version being asked for (5) being 2 years prior to the end of my professional usage (7), and this being clearly visible on my CV.
Somewhat ironically, for my very first Delphi job opportunity, when I'd waited for 32-bit Delphi (2), the job agency (a temping one back then) had been asked for someone with 5 years Delphi experience, so I didn't get that job either. My 10 years (at the time) Pascal experience counted for nothing, and I sometimes wonder if they ever found a bullshitter who claimed 5 years experience with a product which had existed for only a year. Competence.
The reason I stopped developing was stress-related. I was working for a seemingly friendly guy on a niche product (version 5) of which the source to version 4 had been lost. This was at half my usual rate, but with the understanding I might take the company over when he retired. I told him up front that although I am an excellent developer and test my own code, if I were to develop from scratch I needed a tester, and since he was the only other person, that meant him. The first thing I didn't know is that he was supremely competent at the art of fine bullshit, and for the first six months I hammered out functionality at an extremely fast pace, while he supposedly tested it. Actually, he only did so cursorily, and instead spent most of his time fighting the tax man on his evasion and bullshitting customers into upgrading to the new (as yet non-existent) product. But the second thing I didn't know is that he actually had a demo CD of a competing product, which I tested on a lazy day in summer to see what the opposition was up to. And this may be why this post gets moderated funny: the opposition were on version 3.0 of their product, and not only had a development team of about 100 for this product alone (recall we were about 1.1), but their functionality and data were both at least an order of magnitude higher, and similarly the price was an order of magnitude lower. Not only that, but their budget was, on researching, discovered to be 9 figures. Yes, that's a hundred million dollars. The only bright side is that presumably they used their own tools to develop this competing program. The name of their tools probably started with the word "Visual". Yeah. Laugh with me or cry for me ;)
But let me return to what is important: competence. I know what I'm competent at. I also know what I'm incompetent at, although I've learned the hard way. Note that competence is unrelated to brilliance: I've met many comp
In order to be a good programmer, one has to have a very good memory for trivia. Why do you think Ken Jennings, a programmer, was the best Jeopardy contestant of all time? Computer systems and APIs are so complicated that if one cannot remember a good chunk of the APIs and how trivia about how parts of the systems work, it can be difficult to get anything done.
Having a good memory for trivia makes it easy to see all kinds of connections among things in non-programming life, namely in culture, or in day-to-day life in general. This usually leads to a special kind of creativity in which one brings together one's own set of personal behaviors from tying things together instead of just following a template that society provides for us. For instance, instead of trying to imitate the confident corporate person they see on TV, a programmer will choose their outfit based on utility and comfort, pulling together shoes, pants, gadgets, etc, based on utility and comfort.
Bad depth perception?
Je me souviens.
I find that women with big tits make the best programmers and I have as much evidence as you do that proves me right.
That's just not true. Haven't you looked around? It's the men with the biggest tits that make the best programmers.
Helicopter Problem
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment.
Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to steer to the airport.
The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter's window. The pilot's sign said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters.
People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."
The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.
After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position in Seatle.
The pilot responded "I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because, similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer."
But in my experience, the folks who grind through exhaustive & tedious tasks with nary a peep of discontent, rarely have good creative skills.
They also tend to have a habit of bringing shotguns into the office after they get laid-off.
For some reason, I read the headline as "Are Software Developers Naturally Wired?"
On an unrelated note, do you want to try some Snow Crash? Free sample!
Ahh, the m-word, a great modern method of poisoning the well... who could argue against this, for to do so is to admit immaturity?
There are any number of reasons a programmer (or anyone, in fact) might not complete a task when they said they would. Few have anything to do with "maturity" per se. Most common is likely poor estimating skills. Another very common one is that some requirement for that task (outside the person's control) was not fulfilled; even if the programmer placed a caveat in his estimate, it gets conveniently forgotten by management. Or the programmer may have been subsequently given another task with higher priority.
Division of labor. Look it up. Developers shouldn't usually be doing that kind of exhaustive testing. Not only are they generally temperamentally unsuited for it, but their knowledge of the code can lead to gaps in the testing; the same mistaken assumptions which resulted in the bug can result in the test missing the bug. And if the developers are not only doing it, but doing it without complaining about it, it probably means they believe complaining about it will result in negative consequences... and therefore they're probably looking for another job where this isn't true.
So why is it you expect developers to be technical writers as well? Do you expect your tech writers to write code?
Always good. Of course, since the developers seem to be the testers and the tech writers as well, interaction with the OTHER teams isn't an issue, is it?
Programming involves trying to reproduce the literal mindedness of an autistic person. Maths involves deliberate abstraction from the real world. Surgery involves doing things that may kill someone in order to cure them. It's unsurprising that these occupations too can result in strange mindsets in their practitioners.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
In my experience, software developers are quirky and somewhat socially challenged, but they tend to be honest, hard working, loyal, genuinely interested, fair minded, and ethical people who get treated with WAY less respect than they deserve for their skills and talents.
The 24th chromosome of the human genome has XX for the female and XY for the male. Humans ingest all kinds of toxins and poisons from plants and animals; some affect psychological developement such as soy and other affect organ developement like alcohol or tobacco.
The Y chromosome is more prone to deformation and defect from toxins interfering with it; as a result, male intelligence has a greater spread on an IQ chart. The X chromosome on the other hand, is far more stable and less affected by things such as foreign substances, thus it has a far denser spread. Females are less prone to genetic mutation than men, and their bodies are also designed to get rid of toxic substances such as lead, arsenic, and toxins through lactation and menstruation which is part of the reason why they survive longer. Men on the other hand can build these things up; this deforms their genetic structure more and as they age their sperm introduce more problems into their children. They're also the ones who are in charge of figuring out which man is suitable for mating and it just so happens that there's a fine balance to this.
What does this mean? This means if you're a man of average intelligence you're going to look good and have fewer defects. If you're a man of very high intelligence you're very likely to have one or more defects such as aspengers, schitzophrenia, or bodily deformation. It also means if you're of extremly low intelligence you're more likely to have the same defects. There's a lot more spread in men than there are in women.
Women, by contrast, even if highly intelligent or downright retarded are more likely to be good looking.
It also means you're more likely to have a lifetime of dealing with general fuckery as the men of average intelligence need to position themselves as alpha males so they don't feel completly useless. If you happen to be at the height of the IQ spectrum AND possess few/no defects, it means men are going to tear you down and undermine you in EVERY effort and may even kill you outright. This is why some of the best, most intelligent people are bums; nobody wants them working for them because they make them look bad. I watch others talk to each other and do nothing useful for 3-4 hours of their day picking and packing boxes while I work my ass off fixing electronics. Part of the reason I still have my job is because I ensure my employer thinks I'm unstable and will come in with a gun if I'm fired. Of course, one doesn't have to say as such, they just have to talk about inevitable rioting and show them pictures of you in bodyarmor and firearms for them to think bad things.
Another interesting thing about women is they have more senses then men; from quadchromatic vision to better sense of smell, touch, and taste. Part of this is men are there to hunt and kill so their thought process is visual spacial and contextual whereas women are more gatherers and nurterers, thus their senses are more based in diagnostics and athletics. Some monkies are colorblind as are some men; imagine trying to pick tomato's and not knowing when they are ripe.
Do all Americans get trained at school on the subject of appropriately stereotyping people into roles? Do you get told as you leave school what your job is going to be because of the stereotype you fit into? What I'm really wondering is, does everybody else in the world think that everybody working in software must be a 'geek'?
After 20 years in software development, I have worked with a few people that could be classified as geeks, but the majority of people were not. They did their job well, and most had a busy life away from the pooters also. Here in NZ you don't have to fit an American character profile to get a job in IT.
It seems these days many people want to feel different, and out there, and weird, as opposed to an older, more puritanical society in which most people wanted to just fit in and appear normal. This does not seem to be exclusive to computer workers. As for the examples in the article tho, my impression is that these incidents are more of an indicator of the decline in good management, as a good manager should monitor new employees and provide guidance, instead of letting bad behavior persist in the workplace.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
I agree with your reaction to the article on "earthweb" -- it's a thin argument. Like you, I also thought about occasional, odd comments that I've put in code, and I tried to judge the listed examples. Of course, there's not enough information to reach my own judgement, so I emoted and projected a little... and now I give this unnamed, undefended developer the benefit of the doubt. He's my comrade in arms and spirit. Surely "Right Round" makes sense in context. Perhaps he was commenting a spinlock in a multithreaded media player with visual animations. The visual animations kept drawing tiedyed ellipsoid upon overlapping, tiedyed, dizzying ellipsoid until the loop finally, mercifully terminated. In this case, his comment is multi-layered, beautiful, astute.
It takes a certain level of analytics and tech interest to be a software developer, that makes people wierd. On the other hand, I've seen very few that were the kind of irrational crazy not-connecting-the-dots people as software developers. Just like you see very few introvert people working in sales and marketing. Some differences just come with the job description, but there's infinite variations on crazy and plenty left for everyone.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Programmers are actually becoming very normal and conventional.
I like using awk and shell for doing a lot of different things, and I also use ed at times as well. (Although I'd never use it full time, and it sucks for starting new files in particular)
I also prefer using flat text to XML, and enormously value late 70s to late 80s vintage, UNIX thinking in general.
I get derided by other programmers who insist on using languages and methods which to me, are horrible. C++ is a great example; I can find any number of rants written (some of them by fairly high profile people) on how thoroughly evil and what a mess generally it is, and yet anyone I talk to on forums insist that it is what all the cool kids use, and there must be something wrong with me if I don't like it.
XML, same. I've never seen a single application for XML, where it actually justifiably needed to be used. Do you people honestly find parsing it easier than you would plain text? Or let me guess, you've fallen for the suit-spawned "richness," argument. WTF does richness mean, anywayz? It sounds like a subjective attempt to justify complexity, to me.
Another thing I don't get; why do flat text databases get crapped on so much? Sure, I know SQL can be nice, especially when you need things like hard concurrency locking, arithmetic functions and such, but I find delimited flatfiles to be an absolute joy to work with, with awk. Writing awk parsers for my own flatfile formats is actually fun. Maybe I'm just diseased in the head. ;)
(Anonymous Cowards, I have left you the perfect opening with that last sentence. I expect you to make abundant use of it. ;))
There needs to be a renaissance of real programming, according to the older UNIX philosophy. We need a scenario again where people appreciate using awk, and systems programming, and actually writing your own code. The reason why I often disagree with the concept of code re-use, is because with the kids these days, generally speaking it was written badly to begin with. So someone writes crap initially, and then we're all expected to re-use it, rather than rewriting it like we should.
That was the definition of true weirdness, though, and we're losing it. The genuine UNIX way is dying. :(
...are the ones you don't know well enough.
I know the previous poster personally, and I have to say, he was the first person to come to mind when commenters here were talking about weird, arrogant kids who think they are better than everyone else. I am actually quite glad he is living overseas this year.
so don't nothing phase me.
'Ceptin' maybes an Eng'lish Coarse.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
But you cannot deny that some will play it up to appear to be brilliant and conform to what has been stereotyped. These fakers can be difficult to spot right up until they have to do something. I've across a few of these. They are just social misfits and not too bright. Some, however, are clever at the lie; will sit back and pretend to know the solution and allow others the 'opportunity' to solve it the way the faker would.
I've found that those people who are genuinely smart are also fine socially (pretty much are good at anything presented to them). They have a few interesting quirks but nothing debilitating.
.
First, I am sick to death from seeing people try to claim some watered down form of a mental condition that excuses excessive behaviors they mostly wish they had and makes them seem special without having to put much efforts towards it or even understanding much about it. Understand this about autism/Aspergers and pretty much any state considered disordered as compared to the general population: meeting a diagnostic criteria includes having some persistent behavioral anomalies. Having some of the same persistent behavioral anomalies does not qualify one for the diagnosis. Very few of any who actually earn the diagnosis are capable of anything productive. And if one were to go with the behavioral criteria, the vast majority would earn themselves a far less appealing diagnosis or three, and which point they'd rebel against the process and disclaim any association with any disorder.
Now, we have in fact looked at 'weird' in psychology, but mostly as to what people think it is, rather than an objective state. I've looked at what kinds of people get that label and how. Programmers, or geeks/nerds in the technical literature, earn that label -- literally. They tend to start out more similar than most, and develop a specific quirk or three in order to exert individuality. They themselves keep each other within boundries of weirdness by approving or disapproving of others quirks, as often as not in how they're expressed rather than pure content. The effect is one of most people taking on the task of marking themselves an individual by developing an unusual, hopefully unique set of markings for their clothing. They appear to ignore the fact that the piece of clothing is a jacket collar. They appear to be unable to recognize that the collar is always on a Nehru jacket.
The defining word is "affectation". The evidence is in the desperation with which the concept is held and in how vehemently it is denied. A close analogy can be drawn with those who have strong anti-authoritarian rebelliousness early in life. It is not that they are anti-authoritarian, but rather than they are overly sensitive to it and dislike the fact that early in their life they are near the bottom of the ladder. They frequently end up at the other extreme. Likewise, the chronically similar act to differentiate themselves as soon as their situation allows, but only within a limited way, the rest remaining a recognizable part of the fairly closed group for which similarity of some sort remains more a badge than the differences. These too tend to evolve to the opposite end of the spectrum, common end states being either comparing swag t-shirts from conferences, or comparing their ties, the only major item of difference they would ever consider sporting having bought into management.
You may now feel free to mod me down as troll or flamebait just because I've answered the question with my own considered opinion which will no doubt prove unpopular. Refer back to "vehemence".
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Software gets its deep appeal to the intellectual class of people because of its inherent contradiction: The ability to change the operation of physical machinery by manipulating symbols.
Sure the more technical you are, the more you can understand the rationity behind this seemingly divine contradiction. Ones and zeros controlling electrical voltage levels channeled through thousands of transistors, etc...
But the ability to change physicality by manipulating symbols has been an art reserved to magicians, shamans, and high priests. This ability to stand in the shadow of divinity has always appealed to men, because it is an analog or approximation of a divine absolute power.
This is the subconscious appeal of software programming.
It also explains why software is primarily a masculine field of interest and employment. Women get the 'shadow of the divinity' power and feeling not by controlling physical nature through the manipulation of symbols, but by actually creating life inside themselves. This is something that men can and will never be able to do.
For instance, a co-worker mentioned he was going to the Chinese Bodies Exhibition (the one with disrepectfully skinned dead bodies laid about to earn capitalistic pig lucre) and I immediately explained its connection to Nordstrom (the department store chain): the Chinese government official who put together the original exhibition used unclaimed bodies (i.e., the terminated bodies of "dissidents" as well as the bodies of murdered, underage female factory workers -- when injured on the job, the factory manager would bury them alive as opposed to sending for medical aid and being fined for employing an underage worker) and some of those had worked at the factory Nordstrom is a big customer of....
Have you read Adam Fawer's Improbable yet? Great read.
Agreed; "Are you not going?" conveys that the asker thinks you're not, and wants to confirm that. He wants to communicate this assumption, rather than just asking "Are you going?", which implies he doesn't know one way or another (he could communicate that he thinks you are going by asking "Are you still going?").
But the way he asks it puts the listener in a bind. Should the listener take it literally, or negate its meaning? Negating its meaning just leads to more unclear cases, ones that I might notice but answer in a way that differs from what the asker is assuming. Often I only realize later that a question I asked was ambiguous, or an answer I gave was ambiguous, and then start to wonder whether the other person is doing what I thought he would.
I want to avoid this from the start, so I disambiguate a question with my answer. The asker can still convey his assumption in this case by asking "Are you staying?". If he can't eliminate the negation, he can still ask something like "Is it correct that you're not going?"
So I don't think it's a simple thing like you describe. If you're going to fault people like me, it must be for thinking of the larger picture and the overall effect of ambiguous questions, the king of thinking that programmers do when deciding on coding styles with regard to defect rates.
Study more languages!
The interesting part is when you realize that for example English and Japanese have opposite rules for answering negated questions. Japanese focuses on the person asking (assuming you are not coming) and English answers the topic at hand (if you're going to the party or not)
Scandinavian languages have three words for "yes" and "no", the last one only when replying to negated sentences. (Which makes it translate to "Yes" in English and "Iie" ("No") in Japanese). I have no idea why there is no 4th word to handle the opposite answer.
And this is why everyone should learn more languages. To realize that words are not a 1:1 mapping of the world, but that the way the human mind relates to things and defines your place in the world is strongly linked to which languages you operate with.
(I had a few drinks. I'll go to bed before I come up with long arguments about language being the OS for the brain. Sorry about the typos ;)
I lost my sig.
Preferably, still in the woman, and the woman along with them.
Oh, you mean "edible" eggs........the kind one might ingest with breakfast?
BY DESIGN
Mark me down, but most of them are assholes.
Now this site is truly weird....and wonderful....can never get enough of this song....and Zombie movies....
Ill agree, methodus 2000 is the reason I got into programming.
I said, I wanna make cool stuff like that!
You're being a bit incoherent here, yes, but you have hit on a fundamental truth of the world: from the suit's point of view, the suit is never wrong. If those weird guys in California manage to do something cool, it must be a flash-in-the-pan that desperately needs a bunch of suits to come in and manage it to turn it into a real business. If the suits come in, and it doesn't all fall apart, then all credit goes to the Responsible Management, if the suits come in, and it all flames out, the suits just shake their heads at how hard it is to work with those weird techies, and continue to fall upwards.
..but everyone else is!
Don't blame him. Your entire country needs one instead of the watered down ebonics thing you've been getting since Reagan. I have no such excuse. I had a chance to get a decent education in English but could not be bothered to pay much attention to it.
No, I think you are transformed by your stereotypes. In the Anglo-Saxon world, but more particularly in the USA, people are often pigeonholed/pigeonhole themselves into categories, and the stereotypes of their group only serves to reinforce their traits. "Jocks" are more "jocky", "nerds" are more "nerdy", "popular girls" try hard to be more like popular girls, and so on. It's not just in high school either, it works for anything else too.
I think there's a culture in Anglo-Saxon countries (but again particularly in the USA) for people to trade some of their individual identity for their group identity, which makes people that are strongly defined by the group they feel they belong to, and who identify strongly with those groups. In other words I think that the Anglo-Saxon civilisation is more naturally geared toward communitarianism and self-segregation.
To contrast with this, in France (where I was born and raised), this phenomenon is practically non-existent, or only extended to social classes (e.g. "les bourges" or "les racailles"). As a result, people (of the same social class) tend to have a feeling of belonging to the same group as anyone else, and personal identity is therefore almost entirely solely reliant on individuality and personal traits, and generally there's a lack of self-awareness as to which pigeonhole one would fit in.
The consequence of that lack of segregation is that people in a profession don't seem necessarily much more different than people in another. That's how you can have more colleagues in IT who look like rugby players or bikers than colleagues who look like stereotypical nerds. A small confirmation of this was the admission from Irish engineering students that all the foreign French students they had seen in Engineering were much more 'normal' than Irish engineering students were.
So my answer to the question is, besides aspies, self-reinforcing nerd stereotypes, and a strong awareness that you're "just a full-blown nerd".
You just got troll'd!
Creativity seems to be something that you don't just turn on and off. You have to do it an practice continuously. Apparently people in suits have a difficult time understanding that. However, they should not be surprised. I know people who wear suits who continuously play blackberry and "lets try to offend people with the Jag" on weekends, so it should be no surprise that creative people (people who take conventional ideas, and carefully twist them sideways, or make jokes about something, pressing the logical conclusion, using a miniature thought experiment to complete and continue the silly joke. When thinking about something twisted sideways, they gain insights. People in suits don't get that. They consider the joke to be just a joke (and stupidly, just a waste of time). They will even become condescending about the 'waste of time', and berate those who do these things. The creativity is lost on them. One particular experiment in the silly involved a man (a university professor) watching a cafeteria food fight. He did the math regarding a thrown object. The math took more than a week. Fellow professors thought it was an interesting. University officials thought it a waste of time. Students (business students) thought he was a nut. They didn't get it till he got the Nobel Prize for the silliness. Considering the first university lecture he gave was scrutinized by Wolfgang Pauli, John von Neumann and Albert Einstein, you would think he would be nervous. But he was a creative 'offbeat' genius. (Richard Feynman).
Bright people tend to be kind of strange. We don't quite fit in, we have unusual ideas about how the world should work, and standard solutions to life's problems don't tend to make us happy. Programmers as a group have a much higher fraction of bright people than the population at large. So programmers tend to be weird. You'll get that in any profession that attracts bright people, though of course it will get expressed differently depending on which subset of skills you filter for.
If you don't know who your co-workers are complaining about, they're probably complaining about you.
You could at least dress in something other than a polo shirt that predates the dot-com craze and is several sizes too small.
Chewing your food with your mouth closed also helps. As does bathing and shaving daily, and getting a haircut every 6 weeks.
The monitor cannot hear you, and is NOT going to be party to your conversations. Neither will it ever offer debugging tips.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, cares to have a conversation of any duration about intellectual property, copyright law, and the RIAA/MPAA.
Oh, we also don't want to hear about your vintage IBM Model M keyboard with bucking spring action. We already are acutely aware of how clicky the damn keys are.
You aren't really weird, you are just playing at it. Grow up.
->Dan
Don't blame him. Your entire country needs one instead of the watered down ebonics thing you've been getting since Reagan
Your assumption that I'm American is amusing. Not everyone is American. Unless you're meaning to imply that Reagan was responsibile for Australia's education system. I was aiming for funny not political insult.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Visual-spatial memory and thought are my primary driver.
For those who don't "have it," I may appear to be a completely weird person that they can't understand... someone who can look at things from 200,000 different angles and still say that there is no answer.
It's hard to find friends, lemme tell ya. :)
I'm guessing I'm going to get modded down for this one but could people stop with this stupid "Just throw more language at em" nonsense. Yes, I'm apparently one of those very rare group who has massive problems with learning any foreign language. I can't tell you how much of a torture it is to get this shoved down your throat and then when you try to get help being basically told to just suck it up. Sure, try to suggest it so some of the students will try it, maybe it'll benefit them. However don't assume it will always benefit all students. (Because to be blunt for some of us this is just not true.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well." Joe Ancis http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/634.html
In my opinion real software developers are more like artists than (computer) scientists.
If you look at artists for all the disciplines, you'll find that almost all of them could fit the concept of weirdness.
For the good and the bad.
Divergent thinkers are very often at the base of new (software) solutions to old problems or for a fresh new breakthrough..
So, yes, very likely developers look weird when compared to anyone else.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I've also noticed this, and considered doing a little research into the psychology of coders - especially those employed as enterprise developers. I've noticed that a disproportionate number of the coders at my company are either color-blind, left-handed or both. Does anyone have any insight into this? Left-handedness is fairly easy to explain, but the color-blindness comes as a bit of a surprise.
Damn newbie. It's "Your thoughts are intriguing to be and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter".
Actually, the Damn Newbie was right. Once the meme is established, merely parroting it is no longer funny (actually a meme becomes unfunny long before it's established, but I digress). It is slight alterations to the meme that that make it funny. Just like the distorting mirrors at the fun park.
Now, get off my lawn!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Also also, people are just weird. I've never known a normal person in my entire life.
I think that means that everyone you ever met in your life is weird. Which makes you weird, and so you don't notice.
Or maybe everyone everywhere is weird, in which case it's normal to be weird.
Oh, shit - now I've got the dreadful "Hip to be square" Huey Lewis track running through my head - it'll be here for hours now. shit shit shit.
You've also got to look at non-techie workers too though.
I've worked in many places where the secretaries are just plain bimbo's spending most of their day flirting (distracting others) or trying to get men to do their work for them.
Then there's the Sales guys who are just plain preoccupied with talking about the football results or how drunk they're going to get on pay-day.
Don't forget the old-timers waiting for retirement who spend most of their day figuring out how their pension scheme is going or how good their shares are.
If you think a programmer who puts lyrics in his comments is weird, then you've been a PHB too long.
In Scandinavian languages, at least Swedish, IMO there is a 4th. A short form of nej ("no"): Pronounced short and distinct: "nä" or in some dialects: "näpp" This is used in spoken language, almost never in written. These forms of "nej" are almost always used as an answer to questions of the form "Are you not going?" and then indicate that, no indeed, I am actually not going as you suspected. Good going with the analysis in this posts parent. Oh, and I assume you meant "jo" as the third. (Which in Swedish relates to "ja" ("yes").)
Perhaps technological expertise started the other way around, i.e. the geek was initially unable to join others in conversations and so they turned to other interests.
Seriously, "I'm going to perpetuate negative stereotypes about my own profession by telling completely unrelated stories about a guy who didn't take his work too seriously, a friendly guy and a girl who (shockingly!) liked to talk on the phone; all of which have absolutely nothing to do with software development."
Are software developers naturally weird? No... but society will continue to unfairly assume they are because of idiots like the guy who wrote this article. Thanks a lot, asshole.
with increased brain activity and inspiration your inner world becomes more active. and it naturally reflects to outside. and there are a lot of musings coming from the inspiration.
Read radical news here
He was 21 and doing a 12-month placement, shouldn't he be making the most of finally earning some money?
you mean, wasting his money and his life in shady bar corners with sleazy whores ?
Read radical news here
those bright eyed young prep students already come with comparable net experience as 30 year old geeks.
Read radical news here
Manager, are you ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
The fact we don't mind sitting behind a computer all day long looking for bugs in a software that 6 months down the road will probably be replaced, etc..etc... usually means you have your own "unique" way of looking at things. The worst is when a computer geek tries to turn into a management suit, and stays within the same company. It doesn't work for long, and makes the environment worse for the wear.
It's not that he is socially inexperienced or inept, it's that he consciously chooses to be an ass.
Well that cleanly negates the excuses and brings things right back to everyone's initial assumption.
... "I resemble that remark!"
The older ones are, for sure. But geekiness and intelligence are more chic, sexy, and important today, which is evident in our cultural artifacts (TV shows like Numb3rs, Bones, House, etc all glorify the super-smart). Developers my age (20-something to 30-something) by and large have seemed a pretty hip and trendy crowd. Some of the 40-somethings I work with, weird as shit.
--"insert clever quote here"
Piiiiiiiiineapple...
do they run linux?
... the stricken or his plague?
Normal is really what society says is normal.
This goes for many people that are seen as "wierd": there are people that do not care about what the societal norm is for being normal.
I think it is good. It is the same situation with dating. Most people will put on a persona when meeting a person they want to date, and then once you start heavily dating, the other person is surprised at the person they are dating since it is not the same person they met.
Many programmers are just good examples of people that do not care about the social norm since many of them have been tagged as outcasts for awhile anyway, so they might as well be themselves instead of trying to fit in.
People that try to fit in are not fully being themselves, which is sad. Some people will actually convince themselves in their head that they are different that who they are. Don't worry, it will all come back eventually.
If you are a nerd, do not be depressed about it, try to become a rockstar in the nerd field. Hey, Cliffy B did a pretty good job of doing that.
The world is how you make it
So corporate tools in sales who ask the same dumb questions over and over are normal? The ditsy hot front desk girl is normal? The talking head reporter who asks dumb questions like "Is this a jobless recovery?" is normal? The basketball player who answers a reporter's question "You gotta go out and give 110%" (mumbled) no matter what the question is normal? The douchebag who hangs out at the night club with a tight button up shirt is normal? Ok, this is getting old...
Are people who ask this kind of stuff, making us spend a lot of time to read this kind of bullshit, naturally stupid and have nothing really useful to do with their free time?
God is Real as long as it's not declared as Integer.
Game programming is a very difficult field
In some cases, yes. However, some of the most widely successful games are also simple in concept and not so complicated in code either. Of course the GP is talking about OpenGL, so from experience I'd have to agree that some of the more "useful" things tend to fall into the arena of complication.
My own background is in IT. I work as a sysadmin, but also have an education in programming, and do well enough with perl/PHP/etc to understand some of the more prevalent apps written in those languages and/or code for work as needed (which is actually still fairly often). My C/C++ is definitely a bit rusty, but I've been doing OpenGL stuff as an aside.
I'm still at a fairly base level (building an overall set of objects into an engine, which at this point does render and allow a camera walkthrough) as I tinker with it for the general experience of things, but it seems to me that the amount of information is sometimes excessive. Half the time when I search google for a particular piece of information, I run across tons and tons of SPAM sites.
This especially true of those that seem to do nothing but aggregate the newsgroups/lists from OTHER sites in order to troll keywords and appear to be some definitive source of information. Unfortunately, more than half the results on these sites are clipped, meaning you get the original question and a few answers, but not all of those since the topic was aggregated. You then spend an extensive amount of time sorting through all the other spammy sites of the same genre trying to find the *original* submission in hopes that there *was* in fact an answer in there somewhere.
Now some lists/forums/etc I've used have been very helpful and friendly. Others seem to be full of posturing egotards that can't stoop from explaining their latest meaning-of-life-transform to answer a more simplistic question with something other than "AHA, behold the noon."
From the friendly responses, the best and most useful answers I've gotten are actually more a "check here and here", with URL's being very helpful, or even a "try chapter X in book Y."
And yes, I do have the red book already, and understand the concepts up to where I am at the moment.
In the event that you happen to be watching this thread, send me a message. I've always wanted to get together with people of similar interests and trade notes, hopefully to come up with a good book/wiki/etc on how to get to various places from scratch but without the complications/assumptions made in some of the bigger books.
Good memory is definitely important, but having a good set of organized notes/sources/bookmarks/etc is almost equally so. There are plenty of things that fall into the "sorta remember but don't quite recall the exact syntax/wording" that have come up and then had the good ol' bookmark-to-a-snippet save my bacon.
Of course, modularizing in many cases happens to help here too... in that case the snippet might be your own. Naming the module something useful is a good idea though :-)
Because if they're not, they're really weird. Average people are really weird. The average person is really stupid. Half of the of the population are dumber than they are. Find me a normal person and I'll show you someone really strange.
You know why people never liked you Alexander Peter Kowalski? It is because of bizarre diatribes like this one. I see you post this weird shit all the time and always wonder how you verbalize this stuff when you're talking face to face?
I can picture you frothing at the mouth while the poor soul you managed to corner desperately tries to come up with a way to escape. And then once they try to make their move, they slip on a pool of spittle and you pounce on them with a P.S.=> blah blah blah.
In other words, STFU. Please. Every time you write one of these nearly off topic tirades God kills a kitten. Please think of the kittens.
I'm a mama with big milky tits and I am definitely the geekiest person reading this board.
Damn right I'm the best programmer!
"You know why people never liked you Alexander Peter Kowalski? - by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, @07:07PM (#29801579)
Like you really know me OR anything about me, lol.
(I know you don't, because, IF you did, you'd realize I have more than my fair share of folks that I get along with, just fine).
I do, however, realize you're probably some "twisted freak" that "gets off" on trying to bother others though, and also one that follows others around online trying to bother they.
That much is apparent from your stupid reply here I am quoting, & more on THAT note, below:
----
"It is because of bizarre diatribes like this one." - by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, @07:07PM (#29801579)
Everything I noted is completely verifiable, nothing weird about it @ all: In fact, pick up "The Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider - it outlines much of what I wrote above in fact (a very famous book about the Federal Reserve & the entire fractional reserve centralized banking system).
What is bizarre is, your comments on truthful information (of course, anyone reading can garner that much from your ignorant reply there now, vs. that which I put up as a verifiable source of information I read years ago, in order to put out a good deal of the information I did above in fact)
----
"I see you post this weird shit all the time"? - by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, @07:07PM (#29801579)
It is only 'weird shit' to an ignoramus. It is, again, completely truthful & verifiable in much of what I wrote above, & I listed my source (1 of them, a major one) just now above in this reply. So much for that on YOUR part, eh?
(Try read a book now & then, especially about things financial - you might stop being such an ignorant clod, & you might even have some "play" in making things better worldwide, or @ least nationally in the USA).
----
"and always wonder how you verbalize this stuff when you're talking face to face??" - by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, @07:07PM (#29801579)
Don't wonder: I'd NEVER talk to an ignorant fool like yourself, in real life (@ least not once I realized you're nothing but an ignorant fool, based on your comments above).
----
"I can picture you frothing at the mouth while the poor soul you managed to corner desperately tries to come up with a way to escape. And then once they try to make their move, they slip on a pool of spittle and you pounce on them with a P.S.=> blah blah blah." - by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, @07:07PM (#29801579)
Uhm... I think you forgot to take your meds, freak. Please - do us ALL a favor: Swallow your pills, & be a "good psycho"... "m'kay"?? Thank you.
----
"In other words, STFU." - by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19, @07:07PM (#29801579)
MAKE ME, freak.
(You can't & you couldn't on your BEST DAY, so why don't you take your own advice (&, per my last part of this reply above, your psychosis meds too)
APK
P.S.=> To others reading: I'm no 'shrink', but imo @ least, based on the fact he admits to 'seeing what I post' & replying as he has here (not the first time mind you, it's hilarious, not a shred of anything worthy in what he states either, just pure b.s. that is off topic).
Well, as you can see? I have this particular idiot who stalks me here thus, to try to "harass me", & one who posts as "A/C" that really tries to bother me here (he doesn't, he just gives me a morning laugh like I am getting now with my coffee reading his lunacy), as he has above with his stupid replies - aren't I priveleged, in having my own "online internet psycho stalker fanclub"? LOL... apk
No they are not.
I think you misspelled "wired".
"We're all mutants. What's more remarkable is how many of us appear to be normal." Walter, Fringe
See my blog at tomwhartung.com for my resu
yes, no, maybe....
trinary logic perhaps?
Well, nice to see that the people who don't like me can always chase me down on the internet for the flames they'd be too polite and meek to spout in real life.
Bad news: I'm actually not living overseas for a year. It's just a semester.
So let's see... are you just some undergrad or have I actually managed to seem weird and arrogant to a PhD?
Who are you to tell someone STFU when you obviously do not know much about what he was talking about in his speech above. He does have a good source because I have read the Secrets of the Temple also. It is an older book but tells a lot about the Federal Reserve system and its fractional reserve banking practices that are bad. I also feel that the fractional reserve banking system controlled by a dozen people or thereabouts is a problem. You giving him a hard time makes me wonder if your last name is Rothschild, Lehman, Sieff, Warburg, Kuhn, Goldman or Sachs, or Lazard, or if you are a major stockholder in Chase bank of NYC (as they are rumored to be in control of the lot of this consortium of banks that run everything basically because they control the money supply and the international monetary fund). Since that small group of men controls the money, they control industry and all else. They are the root of it all and money's the root of all evil as famous phrase states, and they control the money.
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Yes.
One of the few things less funny than parroting memes is explaining the nuances of proper meme humor