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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.
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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
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.
My mistake ... I thought it said WIRED.
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;
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
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.
That's just nasty. That should really be part of an article titled: "Are Coworkers Sometimes Unpleasant?"
Well, it's inappropriate to make the call while at work (or at least, while you can be overheard) but otherwise it's very responsible to tell previous partners they might be at risk. All they have to do is get a test.
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 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.
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.
"Weird" is an irregular adjective that varies with the pronoun. An example illustrates best:
I am interesting
You are eccentric
He is weird
Programming, and engineering in general, is a solitary practice. Living in your own head so often for so long makes you weird. Period.
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.
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.
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.
Game programming is a very difficult field, are you expecting these people to just write code for you? sometimes you really do need to understand the fundamentals in order to be able to write the code, If people are giving you links to tons of papers to help solve your problem then I would argue that they are being helpful, its not their fault that you "don't really have an use for" it, or that you don't understand why the background information is important. it sounds to me like you think programming is as easy as "give me teh codez" and then pasting it all together, which may be true for a subset of simple problems, but when developing your own game, its simply not that easy, and you really do need to study and read, a LOT. Even if your game is going to be really similar to some other game out there, you can guarantee that the code is very very different, and nobody can just throw you some code to solve your problems, you need to study and read and understand, and THEN you can write the code yourself... if you need to ask questions in order to create your game, then you don't have enough background knowledge and you really do need to read the materials they're giving you... EVERY programming problem can be solved with enough reading and understanding of the works of the giants whose shoulders you stand on, and nobody will have a more appropriate solution to your problem than you, you just need to find that solution yourself.
This thread gets more self aware as you scroll down, but your comment makes me feel quite sad. Don't give up on pursuing a relationship just because you had a bad experience - what you have said suggests that you are sufficiently mature and emotionally 'in touch' to recognise your own faults, which is the biggest stumbling block in most relationships. I'd suggest you look for women who you share interests with. Maybe they won't be into coding, but someone with an analytical mind, or with the autistic traits you have identified in yourself (or that others have identified in you). I'd guess you have a lot of good to share with someone, so don't punish yourself for one relationship that didn't work out.
Architecture is part art and part dumb labor. I know because I worked in this field. Art occurs at the topmost level, and once the designer is done the rest of the team (90% at least) are stuck with drawing endless elevations, sections and details - and with changing them (usually by redrawing) when the team leader suddenly decides that he wants different window here or a different staircase there.
Medicine is minimally creative, unless you talk about scientists (and scientists are probably all creative.) In medicine you need to match observed symptoms to a set of possible causes, and then narrow it down. Once you settle on a specific cause you open the book and read what treatments are prescribed for it. Very little creativity is required, but a lot of pattern matching, like detective's work. But rare a doctor discovers a new disease; some come up with a new treatment. Look at dentists, they are working like machinists at a factory, doing pretty much the same type of work.
Finally, I don't know much about law firsthand, but still I am pretty sure that rarely a lawyer invents a completely new defense. In most cases old, well known defenses and tactics work just fine. Law is very conservative, and I believe that most cases are solved and tried by methods that were known hundreds of years ago, as far back as the Roman Empire. Their "secret language" is Latin, not Klingon.
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."
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.
A lot of software is just a variant on a theme though, similar to lots of software that existed before but slightly different to fit the demands of a different business.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register