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Career Advice: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer
Ian Lamont writes "Patrick McKenzie has written about the do's and don't's of working as a software engineer, and some solid (and often amusing) advice on how to get ahead. One of the first pieces of advice: 'Don't call yourself a programmer: "Programmer" sounds like "anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo." If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired.' Although he runs his own company, he is a cold realist about the possibilities for new college grads in the startup world: 'The high-percentage outcome is you work really hard for the next couple of years, fail ingloriously, and then be jobless and looking to get into another startup.'"
In Canada, it's illegal to practice engineering, or call yourself one, without a engineers license. There's nothing worse than retards who get a college degree in programming and start calling themselves "engineers". It's an insult to every actual certified engineer in the world.
Programming seems easy to you and me, but you would be surprised at how many people just cannot do it no matter how much training you give them. Anyone can clean, most people can do construction. Maybe 1 in 10 people could program if they really wanted to, and only 1 in 10 of those will actually want to.