I hate these broad sweeping titles on HN. Speak for yourself.
I love my job, I work from home in an amazing home office I designed. I filled it with plants, little bonzai trees, art on the wall, inderect lighting for the evenings, and all the best work equipment money can buy. My environment is pretty much an extension of me.
I have awesome clients that invite me out for events, I go to programming conferences and have a great time, I can buy pretty much anything I need to (not a rolls royce, or anything that expensive, but anything I realistically need is mine.)
and it even sounds cool. I tell people what I do and they're really interested.
I can travel whenever, wherever - as long as they have internet and I can bring my laptop.
And if you aren't known... then make yourself known. No brainer. It's tricky but not that bad to build a small network, just interact with the people you look up to in your career on twitter, go to events and network, build something that a lot of people use and love. If you love your job you may have quite a lot of failures building this 'thing' but eventually you'll hit on one that people really love.
Lastly but not least, its FUN. FUN FUN FUN. I wake up some days at 8am, eager to make some french press coffee, heat up a danish in the microwave and just look at some code. It's really probably the best job in the world I think.
Disclosure: I am not a corporate programmer -- I would imagine in that exact scenario you are treated less than you are really worth, so I'm not trying to downplay the frustration I'm sure many of you guys face. I'm talking from my point of view that the statement "programming isnt glamorous" is just silly.
I am a corporate programmer and even though I work in a cube farm, I thoroughly enjoy my job. I get paid awesomely (at least compared to all of the startups I used to work for), the hours are great (except this weekend because I'm on call and we just deployed some new code), and I get to use the tools, languages, and machines I want. Maybe the company I work at is an anomaly, but it's definitely FUN FUN FUN for me too!
Programming is fun because I derive a lot of my satisfaction from solving problems using a computer. Seeing end-users enjoying my creations is just icing on the cake.
I get that satisfaction when I worked at a startup, now in my cubefarm, and I imagine even if I were a consultant.
>I hate these broad sweeping titles on HN. Speak for yourself. I love my job, I work from home in an amazing home office I designed. I filled it with plants, little bonzai trees, art on the wall, inderect lighting for the evenings, and all the best work equipment money can buy. My environment is pretty much an extension of me.
If this is not sarcasm, then in any case it does not put a dent the "programming is not glamorous" notion a notch.
An "amazing home office"? With "little bonzai trees and indirect lighting"? "Invited by clients for events" and "programming conferences"?
That's not glamorous in any common use of the world. At best it's a geeks idea of what glamorous is. And even that trailer-park idea of glamorous is far from most programmers reality (as one can tell from programming median salaries).
But even if that was "glamorous" (which is not: by glamorous, common folks AND the movies TFA describes, mean the Ferrari, red carpet, model dating type of startup millionaires), the whole premise of the comment would still be a classical geek misunderstanding.
When people say "X is Y" they don't mean "ALL X is Y and only Y", they mean "most X are mostly like Y". And it's true that most programming jobs not only are not glamorous in the Ferrari sense, they are also not "glamorous" in the sense you describe above. So the "sweeping generalisation" is perfectly accurate in normal conversation sense. TFA never used a universal quantifier in the mathematical sense.
I very much disagree. I'm not talking about "glamour" in terms of a celebrity and red carpet, that's just stupid.
My definition of glamour is (and I'm sure what most of the normal world considers glamorous outside of celebrities)...
1. I can travel, where I want, when I want
2. I can buy nice things. MAYBE even a ferrari, in good time. Not right now, but it is absolutely in the realm of possibility
3. I can work from home, I can work in an office. I can work wherever I like. I can move to different states, and different cities at the drop of a hat.
4. I can take a break if I want to, and I can resume when I want to
5. I have true FREEDOM.
I mentioned my desk and working area because (although it's trivial, and not one of my main points), most people are chained to some slave job, so when they walk in my house their first reaction is usually .. "wow! this would be great to work here!"
And that to me is glamour, hardly a "trailer-park idea of glamour". That just makes it sound like you are bitter. All of the points I reiterated are ones I said in my original post but that you graciously ignored in favor of challenging my one trivial answer.
Only it's not about "your definition of glamour", it's about the general definition of glamour. TFA talks about the glamorous presentation of programmers in some movies and media specifically (in which they mostly represent the top dog entrepreneur programmers -- think Justin Timberlake on the Social Network et al).
I mean, which part of TFA's "depicts a tale of the less than 1% of programmers who become extremely rich, famous and successful, practically overnight" is difficult to understand?
Not even telecommuting and having a good salary and "bonsai trees" is not the same at all as the kind of glamorous the media (and TFA) describes, it's also not representative of the 95% of programmers.
Most of the 1-5 points you note apply to a lot of professions. In fact you see all those benefits far more often in other fields than you do in programming. And it sure is not in the typical percentiles for programming jobs.
Plus point 5 is bogus. Either you have money to do anything you wont (including not working), or you don't have freedom. This has nothing to do with programming. It's not even orthogonal, as the vast majority of programmers are not rich and the vast majority of rich people are not programmers. If you mean you have "inner freedom", then that you can have also bumming in the streets.
>And that to me is glamour, hardly a "trailer-park idea of glamour".
It sure is not the general middle class idea of glamour. Which is what TFA is about (Ferraris, partying all night, red carpet events, etc).
Oh, well, if we're allowed to redefine the words as we go, MY job is way glamourous. I can drink tea out of any mug I choose to bring in with me. Oh yes. Now THAT'S glamour.
The only special thing about programming is that you can do it remotely far more easily than, for example, chemical engineering or landscaping (on the downside, a lot of people do; the barrier to entry is low, so we get a lot of bad software). In all other respects, everything you've said applies equally to those and a million other jobs.
I agree with your level of enthusiasm. As I am in the same field, I can relate to the bad and the good sides of being a developer/contractor etc. There are downsides and frustrations that I encounter on regular basis, and while I have learned to avoid and cope with them, they do exist.
Managing relationships in your team, building a rapport with your management and teammates, delivering products that match or exceed expectations, contribute to the bottom line profit pool and balance it all with a healthy time schedule and proper nutrition. All these can be flipped to be negative, which can turn a career into a miserable chore. Notice that I'm aiming to dissociate the programming aspect from the that list. I believe that a programmer doesn't face a unique set of problems.
As a very small side note, I noticed you mentioned nutrition and health.
I recently bought a large frame/large top geek desk. Apparently I'm behind in the times when it comes to this desk, as 4 or 5 of my friends have been using a standing desk for years and I never even knew.
It hasnt arrived yet, but I heard a standing desk will skyrocket your stamina, increase focus for most busy or easy work (usually write algorithms sitting down). It will also fix your posture and help your health greatly overall.
That should help a ton, I am going to write about it after a week of using it.
Biggest disappointment of my teenage years: no induction into a secret cadre of American ninjas to go along with my black belt to help our master avenge his murdered wife.
I blame it on our instructor not having a murdered wife. Just a wife few would miss if she were.
I get to work with highly intelligent people, doing work that impacts tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
My day-to-day involves taking the most powerful and complex invention in history, and bending it to my will in ever more elegant and sophisticated ways.
For my efforts I'm paid X times the average US wage and receive regular kudos from strangers on Twitter and blogs.
My friends and family assume I must be a genius to be able to do what I do. On my best, most satisfying days, I'm not so sure they're wrong.
I'm just an ordinary programmer at an ordinary startup, but from where I sit this job is amazingly glamorous.
I'm not so sure that public percepiton is different. Loads of people I know still think that because I'm a programmer I must be an expert in fixing printers, or formatting spreadsheets.
Totally agree. Just because a movie came out and there is a show about startups doesn't mean its gone mainstream. Far from it. To top it off, what is represented in the media is such a small slice (ie. the startup scene) of what real world software developers do that its almost meaningless.
As someone who worked more than a dozen jobs that no movie has ever depicted as glamorous before becoming a professional programmer, I can say the pay, benefits, relative career security are amazing.
Not to mention, the feeling I get from solving problems and creating things others (and myself) find useful (and fun) for a living.
Quit programming for a month and work as a menial worker. See how you feel. I dare you.
I agree. I've worked as a developer in places from startups to financial institutions to large fortune 100 tech companies. Definitely not glamorous but sure beats working fast food that put me through school 15 years ago. I derive my enjoyment from solving problems using a computer and seeing people who use what I create enjoy what I've created. I definitely didn't do it for any sort of fame or glamor.
Many other professions allow you become rich. Too become rich as programmer you need to own some part of the company. You can do that in nearly every proffesion.
Is this just another form of the lament of geek culture going mainstream? Because the idea that software engineering could or should be represented realistically in media is completely ridiculous. Of course they over-glamorize it because that's what media does. Point me to a profession that is not glamorized, villified or otherwise sensationalized by television and I'll show you a really boring job.
So no, programming is not glamorous, but it's a damn good job (at the right companies) if you can get it.
It's the ultimate irony. People of all walks of life will tell you that the way their profession is depicted in the media is unrealistic and silly. And yet we all seem to share the equally silly misconception that those who work in the media are attempting to depict us realistically and failing.
Stop worrying so much about how other people perceive you and your profession. Anyone worth talking to is going to realize that what they see depicted in a Hollywood film and B(or C)-level shows on Bravo is probably not representative of the vast majority of real experiences in the field.
I say stop worrying, not because I simply don't care, but because no matter what we're needed now and will continue to be needed in the future. If public perception sways a bit and begins to define us as 'lazy slacker partiers', then we should just get back to the keyboard and create something. It's just a function of society trying to come to terms with something that many of them don't have the slightest clue about. We all try to categorize the new and unknown using simplistic stereotypes. It's part of how we build mental models of how the world works.
With time, people will begin to understand more realistically what we do. Until then, let's just enjoy our relatively high job security, satisfaction and compensation while continuing to push technology forward.
Good points. What's funny is that by posting this, it's almost like temporary fame, albeit to mostly techies like myself, but none-the-less it's kind of ironic how that happens.
Well, so is being a lawyer or a doctor. Those jobs aren't what TV series and movies would have us believe either.
Most lawyers don't try high-profile murder cases. Most doctors don't save countless lives during their day-to-day work.
Even the most glamourous job of all - being a rock star - isn't really all that glamourous if you take a closer look at it. Those rock stars who ultimately love what they do and hence take their work seriously have to work very hard and be very disciplined to make it.
Same thing applies to programmers. Sure, most programming jobs are in a corporate environment and working in such an environment can suck quite a bit. However, the more your work sucks the more potential there is for actually changing something for the better, even more so if you're a programmer. Programmers can create wonderful designs and feats of engineering with little more than a bright mind and a computer.
My girlfriend worked in crime scene investigation. I think they probably have it way worse than programmers when it comes to public perception of the job based on shows and movies.
I agree that glamorizing programming is not particularly helpful, except that coder-entrepreneurs can get more attention from venture capital. Glamorizing programming, along with the app-stores, is pushing the independent programming business into a "blockbuster" mentality, a winner-take-all situation where a small number of practitioners do very well and most don't ever make their development money back. Thanks, Steve Jobs!
Could be worse. Could be an artist and therefore free to starve to death in a garret any where in the world, so that your agent can become rich when you're dead. Or as others have said, pick your profession. To paraphrase C&W, "What's glamour got to do with it?"
Most jobs are not glamorous in and of themselves, but can be glamorous for what you do with them. Programming is no different: it's the project, not the job, that makes the glamour.
I love my job, I work from home in an amazing home office I designed. I filled it with plants, little bonzai trees, art on the wall, inderect lighting for the evenings, and all the best work equipment money can buy. My environment is pretty much an extension of me.
I have awesome clients that invite me out for events, I go to programming conferences and have a great time, I can buy pretty much anything I need to (not a rolls royce, or anything that expensive, but anything I realistically need is mine.)
and it even sounds cool. I tell people what I do and they're really interested.
I can travel whenever, wherever - as long as they have internet and I can bring my laptop.
And if you aren't known... then make yourself known. No brainer. It's tricky but not that bad to build a small network, just interact with the people you look up to in your career on twitter, go to events and network, build something that a lot of people use and love. If you love your job you may have quite a lot of failures building this 'thing' but eventually you'll hit on one that people really love.
Lastly but not least, its FUN. FUN FUN FUN. I wake up some days at 8am, eager to make some french press coffee, heat up a danish in the microwave and just look at some code. It's really probably the best job in the world I think.
Disclosure: I am not a corporate programmer -- I would imagine in that exact scenario you are treated less than you are really worth, so I'm not trying to downplay the frustration I'm sure many of you guys face. I'm talking from my point of view that the statement "programming isnt glamorous" is just silly.