
I am a programmer - vijaydev
http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/I+am+a+programmer
======
johnyzee
The problem I have with Patrick's essay ("you are not a programmer") is that
it addresses a situation that hardly any developer ever finds himself in. If I
go to interview for an engineer position, it matters exactly not one bit that
I try to pass myself off as a solutions architect or a business problem
solver, except for possibly some awkward glances back and forth. All they want
to know is how long I've been coding Blub, which frameworks I use and why did
I quit my last job? If all is well I will start on Monday with checking out
the SVN repo and start getting to know the code. Should I start trying to
analyze the company's business processes that would be an awkward conversation
indeed with the department manager.

I think that is the reality most developers find themselves in. I doubt it's
been any different for Patrick until the consultancy spinoffs he can now pull
on account of his personal brand.

So I kind of agree with Jacques here, with the exception that I don't call
myself a programmer in conversation with people outside the field, since it
sounds a bit like "punch card operator". That doesn't change the fact that I
really am a programmer first and foremost.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_a situation that hardly any developer ever finds himself in_

"To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."

(Sorry, have actual work to do today, so I'm going to reply mainly in epigrams
where I can. ;)

 _pass myself off as... a business problem solver_

Nobody is suggesting that. You don't _pretend_ to solve problems for your
business. At least, the business doesn't think so. They pay you. They don't
pay people just for fun. _They_ obviously think you're solving some kind of
problem, _right now_.

Even within the seventh layer of a nine-layer bureaucracy, your peers have a
problem that they are paying you to solve. Figure out what it is and learn to
talk about that.

This needn't be self-aggrandizement, either. "I am one of ten interchangeable
members of the QA team that keeps our customers happily renewing their
subscriptions by finding bugs before they even see them" is fine. You needn't
claim to walk on water all by yourself. People like loyal team players.

If you find that you can't talk about your problem without feeling dirty:
That's a data point. If part of the job is "follow orders without thinking
like a good little interchangeable part", that's a data point. If you discover
that the problem you're solving is "win our division's internal war against
the Other Division, customers be damned", you have a data point. If you come
to the conclusion that you are in fact paid to _cause_ problems, but the
company can't figure that out because the intervening tangle of bureaucracy is
disguising the fact, that's a data point. Try to keep doing your job well, but
as the data points accumulate, and depending on your personality, you may find
that other jobs are calling.

~~~
mgkimsal
_Nobody is suggesting that. You don't pretend to solve problems for your
business. At least, the business doesn't think so. They pay you. They don't
pay people just for fun. They obviously think you're solving some kind of
problem, right now._

Well, often the 'problem' as such is "lack of programmers". The business
value/problem has already defined by other people, and a solution decided on,
and you need to code it. At least, that's the position I'd been in in the
past. I might have come up with a clever algorithm that solved a particular
internal problem on that project, but the overarching project being worked on
wasn't really solving the original business problem that was presented.
However, as lowly-coder-#17, no one really cares what your views are - the
_problem_ you're solving is manpower to implement someone else's vision, right
or wrong.

------
kstenerud
"We're middle-men (and women), glorified translators"

By that rationale, teachers are glorified dictionaries, accountants are
glorified calculators, and lawyers are glorified secretaries.

"Programmers don't 'unemploy' people"

Bullshit. If I build an automated fraud detection system for a bank and they
lay off 50 people in charge of fraud detection after it goes live, I most
certainly made their jobs redundant. If I build a more efficient control
system for an automobile plant, and they lay off operators as soon as it goes
live, I've certainly made their jobs redundant. Efficiency kills jobs by
definition. You only create more jobs when you start in a new area, or as a
competitor. And even then it's only temporary until efficiencies kill those
jobs as well.

"As a ground rule, as long as you are calling other peoples modules you're not
yet programming"

Then, as a ground rule, as long as you're drawing triangles, arches, and
straight lines, or using a CAD program, you're not yet architecting. As long
as you're using 2x4s or windows made of glass you didn't blow yourself to
build a house, you're not yet building.

Why does everything have to be built fron scratch in an intellectual vacuum in
order to be "real"? Isn't the whole point to stand on the shoulders of the
giants who came before?

"Whether you use the word programmer to describe yourself or not has very
little to do with what your bank statement tells you at the end of every
month."

Actually, it has a LOT to do with what your bank statement tells you at the
end of the month. The world runs on respect. And respect comes from other
people. Give yourself a title that engenders respect and you'll find yourself
able to negotiate FAR better deals for yourself than you would with a less
respectable "I'm-just-a-replaceable-cog" title.

"And in such places (and unfortunately also in quite a few smaller ones) the
market value of what a person doing your work is charging is what will
determine your pay"

No, the market value of a person with your TITLE is what will determine your
pay, unless you're known to be a pushover who accepts promotions without pay
increases. And if such a 'promotion' happens, you gladly accept it anyway, and
then leave 6 months later with your new title to leverage a better salary.

~~~
javert
_Efficiency kills jobs by definition._

Yes, efficiency kills (old, existing) jobs, but that gives new leverage to
expand production beyond what it was before.

That's why the wheel, the industrial revolution, etc. have all increased the
well-being of the world, not decreased it.

It's called progress.

~~~
kstenerud
"Yes, efficiency kills (old, existing) jobs, but that gives new leverage to
expand production beyond what it was before."

This is moving beyond the original point, but since we're here...

When increased efficiency kills jobs, the now jobless need to move onto some
other form of employment. We saw this happen in migrations from farming to
factory jobs, and now from factory jobs to service jobs. That area is safe for
now since it's still hard to increase efficiency in services such as grooming,
food preparation, entertainment, driving, and yard trimmers, compared with
industrial production.

So there's still a certain stability in the current system that is not
disrupted by emerging efficiencies, but that won't last forever. Eventually,
even the services industry will become efficient, at which point the trend of
jobs becoming scarce will accelerate to the point where it becomes impossible
to employ everyone, unless you start inventing "busy work" jobs or change the
work-to-live dynamic.

I'm neither calling it good nor bad; I'm just highlighting the need to come to
terms with it, because it will come regardless of our preparation.

~~~
javert
_I'm neither calling it good nor bad_

That's the real issue at stake. You should be calling it good, because it's
progress.

It's somewhat conceivable that there can be times in future human history
where there are large chunks of people who aren't capable of doing any
productive work, but they probably won't be lasting. [1]

And for everyone who can find productive work, more efficiency in the global
economy enables more production, thus more progress, and is therefore a plus.

[1] Partially because if we do things right, population will gracefully
degrade in times when fewer jobs are available. (I'm not advocating more
social controls to achieve this; providing additional money per-child to those
on welfare, for example, goes strongly against this.)

~~~
kstenerud
I'm not calling it good because I just don't see the graceful transition
occurring. If anything, I see massive upheaval because almost everyone will
deny the reality around them until it becomes impossible to do so.

In a perfect world, I'd agree with you. However, we don't live in a perfect
world.

~~~
javert
Do you have any ideas on how to avoid or cope with this massive upheaval?

~~~
sounds
I agree with you javert, that increased efficiency and productivity are good
things. But I do so for a fairly uncommon reason: I think that we have very
little idea of the capacity of one person.

Our economy is still marked by massive disruption: technological innovation
isn't just limited to services. Process engineering, chemical engineering,
astronomy, physics, linguistics, archeology, ... they're all experiencing
disruption at an increasing pace. They all increase GDP.

To me, this is an indication that as we provide people with powerful tools,
their minds expand to use those tools. The exponential feedback may become
much more smooth (less "disruptive") but I think we're a long way from a local
maximum.

The current economy still "feels" like an idling 2-stroke leaf blower to me.
It sputters and races because its carburetor and ignition are, well,
inefficient.

What would it take to get a jet engine-like economy?

~~~
javert
I like what you're saying.

However, you're not answering your comment's grandparent: how to avoid, cope
with, or assume away the concern that a super-high-tech economy will leave
unemployed people who aren't intellectually sophisticated enough to
participate.

~~~
kiba
_or assume away the concern that a super-high-tech economy will leave
unemployed people who aren't intellectually sophisticated enough to
participate._

Is changing your intellectual sophistication hard? I mean, I learn programming
by basically bashing my fingers against the keyboard. The concepts aren't
difficult to learn, but it require tons of practice to become competent.

~~~
javert
Well, that's one (potentially valid) way to explain away the concern.

(I should have said "explain away" instead of "assume away.")

~~~
mcteapot
I personally work a lot with 3d animation. We use plugins and pre-made
elements to create our animations. Because we are using 3rd party tools to
create our final product, does this make us "middle-men (and women), glorified
translators", Or is it only real if we where to make our tools form scratch.

------
agentultra
The problem I had with Patrick's essay is how derogatory it is to what we do.

I am a programmer because it's what I like to do. People pay me money to do
it. And when I go home I read about it, talk to others about it, and I
practice, practice, practice. I think about how I can write better software,
reduce the amount of bugs, test better designs, and improve my productivity. I
think about programming all of the time.

And like Jacques, I'm not afraid to tell others that I'm a programmer. I think
most people understand what that is by now. I write programs for computers. If
I say "Systems Analyst," or "Solution Architect," they will probably look at
me funny and ask what that means. In an interview... it will probably be
passed over without a second thought. So I call myself a programmer.

And I call myself a programmer with a bit of pride. It isn't an easy
profession and involves far more than typing in a bunch of things that make
computers do stuff. Experienced employers will have realized this before
sitting some one such as myself down in an interview. They want someone with
enthusiasm for the craft, the experience building many different systems, and
the ability to learn. There was a time when I would have accepted any
programming job. However there comes a point where talking to yet another
company who just wants to replace a cog in their machine becomes a waste of
your time. It is hard to be good at this job and experience and ability has a
cost associated with them.

So yes, I am a programmer. Thanks Jacques for writing this.

~~~
generalk
The point of Patrick's essay isn't "Programming is lame" or "you shouldn't be
proud of your programming accomplishments." How did anyone take that away?

    
    
      > It isn't an easy profession and involves far more than typing in a bunch of things that make computers do stuff.
    

This is true. Nobody said that wasn't the case.

    
    
      > I'm not afraid to tell others that I'm a programmer. I 
      > think most people understand what that is by now. I write 
      > programs for computers. 
    

Look, I love writing code. I <3 proper testing. I take pride in my work and
try to provide the best code I can possibly write.

That said, coding is what we do to achieve _something._ Maybe you're trying to
make it easier for your support team to track tickets, or helping your
client's customers save the most money.

I get that you're proud of your development skills, but at some point your
software has to solve a business need, and you need to understand what the
need is and how your software is solving it. All the unit tests and properly
factored code won't mean anything if you don't. You'll write unnecessary
features, or miss writing necessary ones.

Patrick's point as far as I understood it was that _we all understand this_
but we're not billing ourselves that way. If I'm in an interview, or
discussing my work with a non-technical associate, I emphasize my ability to
understand business needs and write software to meet them. When I talk to
technical folks, I emphasize that I unit- and integration-test all of my code
and that I understand why DRY code is great.

    
    
      > The problem I had with Patrick's essay is how derogatory 
      > it is to what we do.
    

On the contrary, I think it celebrated what we do. Not the technical aspects
-- squeezing performance out of underpowered machines or designing remarkably
simple architectures -- but the _final outcomes_. This app saved us millions
per year. These new dashboard reports helped us earn 20% than expected this
quarter.

~~~
agentultra
_“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._

That sounds derogatory to me. His opinion is that business types could care
less about what you do. You're not a _programmer_ but an exploitable resource.
Since when is being a crafts-person and being proud of your work and what you
do bad?

 _I get that you're proud of your development skills, but at some point your
software has to solve a business need, and you need to understand what the
need is and how your software is solving it._

I'm in the business of producing good software. How does calling myself a
programmer have anything to do with what you just said?

It's a matter of perception. Patrick thinks people think programmers are
clueless navel-gazing cogs who don't have a grip on reality. Of course nothing
could be further from the truth -- a good programmer is probably more in touch
with the needs of the business than the ignorant stakeholder who thinks
programmers just type in a bunch of stuff. I think this perception is a
disservice to both programmers and business people alike. I do not doubt that
there are people in the world who perceive programmers in the way Patrick
describes... but I wouldn't work for them for anything less than a big six-
figure salary and very gracious vacation allowance. I think most people
understand that programmers make software and software solves problems for
businesses and consumers which makes money. Therefore programmers must be
pretty important.

So yes, I still call myself a programmer. If I catch wind that the person
interviewing me views me as a 'peon' I walk. If that's what they're looking
for it's their loss. They can figure it out later I'm sure and might come back
to me when their spending 80% of their time and budget fixing the errors their
"peon" introduced into their software.

Good programmers are hard to find. I don't see anything wrong with calling
myself a programmer.

~~~
generalk

      > Since when is being a crafts-person and being proud of 
      > your work and what you do bad?
    

Nobody said it was. Not the original article, not me, not anyone.

    
    
      > I'm in the business of producing good software.
    

I don't know, maybe you are.

Right now, I'm in the healthcare business. My main client is a medicare
company and they want people to sign up for their plans and fill
prescriptions, preferably for the cheaper generics that save them money but
still provide therapy required.

I meet those goals by writing well-architected software with solid test
coverage. I make my job easier on myself by making my deployment a single-
click affair. That's part of being a good developer, but that's not what I'm
paid for. I'm paid to meet business goals. We got this client by writing
software that meets those goals better than their original vendor. If someone
comes along who writes poorly-architected messes _but that achieve those goals
better_ my client will leave me for them. I will be disgusted as a programmer
that this happened, but it only makes sense.

    
    
      > I don't see anything wrong with calling myself a programmer.
    

That's fine. Call yourself whatever you want. But -- _and this is the entire
point of Patrick's article!_ \-- assuming that people understand the value of
a good programmer is a _mistake_. Rather than dismissing folks who don't
instantly comprehend your brilliance, maybe you might try explaining to them
the value that you provide in terms they can understand.

~~~
agentultra
_If someone comes along who writes poorly-architected messes but that achieve
those goals better my client will leave me for them. I will be disgusted as a
programmer that this happened, but it only makes sense._

I understand what you're trying to say, but I disagree that people perceive
"programmers" as highly-paid peons. If they did, why would you want to work
for them? There are companies who are desperate for good programmers and
recognize that good programmers are hard to come by. Negotiating with them is
much less adversarial, I assure you.

I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying. I think we can both agree
that a good programmer understands their role in the business and should view
their practice holistically as a part of a much bigger entity. However, I
don't think that people universally see programmers as overly-paid gurus or
what-have-you. Assuming they want skilled programmers to work for them, why
would they look for replaceable cogs and peons?

The true cost of hiring those kinds of programmers will not be apparent until
5 years down the road when you're spending 80% of your budget and time fixing
bugs and putting out fires from pissed off client who cannot believe you would
ship them such a shoddy product.

Again.. maybe there are people in the world who still do not know what a
programmer does or the value of hiring good programmers. I would argue that
they're probably in the minority or hiring for a position that doesn't require
a lot of skill. In that case perhaps Patrick is right -- but again, why would
you want to work for them unless you're desperate to fill in your H1B
requirements or you're straight out of school and have no experience. A good
programmer can do a lot better in my experience.

------
DanielStraight
Patrick's essay had nothing to do with titles. It was about describing what
you do in terms of the benefit you provide to your customers/employers rather
than in terms of the skills or tools you use to provide that benefit.

I could tell people I can program Excel interop in .NET, or I could tell them
I saved my company dozens of hours a week by automating an administrative
process. To non-programmers, only one of these descriptions sounds
interesting. A programmer can hear "Excel interop in .NET" and infer
automating administrative tasks. A business person, generally, cannot.

Patrick's essay was about being explicit about the value you provide, not
about picking a fancier name for yourself.

~~~
TheCapn
I feel that is the wrong way to approach things. Your _job_ as a programmer
was to provide that deliverable as set out by your position. You programmed it
and it went along. The outcome of that deliverable was the improvement but
your job was to construct it.

I don't pretend that my past jobs were "automating IPTV interface
interactions" or "enabling alternative business transaction venues"... I was
programming what was needed. Its a white lie the industry has gotten
comfortable with and I think we'd be better off if this path was never went
down in the first place. People prettying up their titles have essentially
"robbed" honest ones ("I'm a f*king programmer") from being treated in the
same regard.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It is hard for those of us who know how to tinker to appreciate that there
really _are_ folks who don't tinker.

You assign them to pull the levers, and they pull the levers. If the machine
they're running is manifestly inefficient, they don't notice, or they pretend
not to notice.

(Or – if they're good – they adapt _themselves_ , adopting a complex series of
difficult physical and mental moves to compensate for the machine's
brokenness. Sometimes those physical moves are such that, after four years on
the job, they'll be in the hospital. But they do them anyway, because, hey,
making the inefficient machine work is their job.)

If the machine next to theirs is broken in a way such that it messes up half
of the work coming out of _their_ machine, they just keep going -- hey, it's
their job to run _this_ machine, not _that_ machine. If the machine they're
running breaks down, they call for help and then sit there unmoving until help
arrives. ("I didn't want to break anything.")

You tell them to RTFM, and they do, all of it, and then they come back to you:
"I read the whole manual; now what do you want me to do?"

They may have even _memorized_ the manual. It's not that these people aren't
smart and eager to please. Indeed – and this is the thing I have trouble
getting my head around – sometimes, within their area of expertise, they may
know how to _tinker like mad_ , they know the freaking _serial numbers_ of
every part of their machine and which ones can substitute for each other in an
emergency. And yet, beyond their area, there's this strange paralysis. You
hand them the duct tape and gesture encouragingly at a neighboring machine
and... nothing happens.

If you give such a person a room full of miscellaneous broken things and ask
them to fix everything they will proceed at a rate of (1 + epsilon) hour of
progress per hour _you_ spend telling them what to do. On the flip side, if
you give them a room full of ten thousand widgets to finagle and they have a
certification in Widget Finagling, those widgets will get finagled. They might
even work overtime to please you. And when the widgets are done they'll go
home, _even if the rest of the factory is on fire_ , because there's nothing
left for them to do.

When hiring someone to solve our problems we desperately need to know whether
or not we're getting a hacker, or a technician. Both have their roles, but
they can't substitute for each other.

~~~
pnathan
This is true. I know someone who has bluntly me told me they don't want to
think at their job.

------
sixtofour
Yes, me too, I'm a programmer. That's how I think of myself, regardless of
what infinitely varied tasks I may do. And me too, that's what I blurt out
when people ask me what I do.

In more formal contexts, like resumes and job apps, I call myself a software
developer, because that's a more encompassing description of what I do.
Software development is not just programming, even if that's the most obvious
and the most fun part.

My employers call me whatever they want to call me. That's been technical
staff member, programmer, software engineer, etc.

I never voluntarily call myself a software engineer. I've never worked under
the supervision of a PE who was legally responsible for my work, and I've
never been on a track working toward my PE. Very few software developers work
in that environment.

I don't mind the informalization of the term software engineer, but I don't
use it because I've never, ever worked in an environment where programming or
software development was practiced as an engineering discipline using national
or international standards of practice or product. Software development where
I've been, and where most people are, is much more an individual art than a
community science. So I don't want to give the impression that what I'm doing
is in any way a legal, formal engineering practice.

~~~
wallflower
> I never voluntarily call myself a software engineer

I actually had my company change my official job title at one point in my
career to "Software Developer". I have an undergraduate degree in engineering
(partially because I wanted to rebel against my parent's wishes for me to do
CS). Software cannot be engineered like a bridge. Structural engineering is
very narrowly scoped. You have a design load, comprised of live loads like
wind and moving cars and static loads from the weight of the structure itself.
There are entire "cookbooks" of formulas used to compute the theoretical,
accepted thickness of the support beams and bolts. There is standardized
everything, from the project management terminology to the thread count on the
bolts. After graduating, if you gain four years (in some states, less) of
practical engineering experience, you can take the Professional Engineer (PE)
exam. In some cases, to prove your experience, you need to submit three inches
thick of paper calculations you have done while working. The PE exam is
rigorous and graded on a curve. But once you pass, you get the pride and
responsibility of having a seal that you can use to emboss blueprints. That
says you take responsibility for the work. Software development is not
engineering, and I have strong philosophical discussions with those
programmers who insist on that term.

Software development is creative problem solving. You do not have much
creativity in structural engineering.

~~~
T-hawk
> Software cannot be engineered like a bridge.

It can be, as in the world of formal proofs and languages like Ada which
facilitate them. It just typically isn't, as such formal procedures are far
more costly and slower than than just dealing with bugs as they happen. For
critical software systems like say avionics where a failure case is extremely
costly (in both money and casualties), there do exist certification programs
and rigorous methods as you describe for structural engineering.

It could be argued that avionics behaves more as engineering than as
programming. Then we have a self-fulfilling definition: if we define fields
with rigorous procedures as engineering, and fields without as software
development, then of course software development doesn't have formalized
methodology.

You're also comparing the largest scope of structural engineering - a massive
bridge - with the entire spectrum of software. Engineering does happen on a
smaller informalized scale too, like a homeowner building a shed or a Boy
Scout troop building a rope obstacle course. That's still engineering,
applying skills in carpentry or knot-tying to build something.

------
akie
I am a programmer, but I am not a programmer.

The problem is, 'programming' as such is the end of a process. That process
begins with talking to a customer about his or her idea/business problem, and
asking questions and (basically) doing consulting to help the customer
understand what his or her problem really is. Once that's clear, I write a
proposal that outlines how I would address that problem, all in strictly high-
level layman-understandable language - no mockups, no screenshots, no
technical language, nothing. Then, once we agree on that, I contact a designer
to help out with the design of the app, and to think about new and novels ways
to make the interface as simple as possible. We show it to the customer,
refine it, and get an agreement on all that stuff. And then, finally, three
months since that first meeting, I can start with the programming.

So yes, I'm a programmer - but only if an academic is a writer, if an
architect is someone who draws, and if a manager is someone who talks to
people.

~~~
xiaoma
> _And then, finally, three months since that first meeting, I can start with
> the programming._

In my world (iOS), if it takes you three months to even start moving, you'll
miss the market opportunities far too often. 3 months ago, iOS5 storyboarding
and multitasking weren't even a concern and most developers were split between
Xcode 3.x and 4.0!

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
And as a data point from a completely different industry, it can take me three
months to get approval to fix a bug.

Apples, meet oranges.

------
danso
_Job security, job satisfaction, good pay. Pick any two._

This statement doesn't make much sense when you think about it. It seems to be
a lazy riff off of:

 _"Fast, cheap, quality: Pick any two"_

Each of those characteristics are in competition with each other. Doing
something fast often hurts quality and/or cheapness. Doing something cheaply
may take longer and may harm quality.

Job security vs. job satisfaction don't really compete with each other. In
fact, being more satisfied (i.e. happy) at your job may lead to better
security indirectly, as a happy worker is a more productive, engaged, and
charismatic worker.

Perhaps JMJ is trying to appeal to the commonly-held notion that fulfilling,
satisfying jobs are ones that don't pay well - teaching, research, social
work, etc. OK, it applies to certain sectors. But not across all sectors. A
failure to recognize the inherent structural differences and opportunities
between job fields (and public vs. private) hurts whatever rhetorical argument
he's trying to make here.

~~~
lucasjung
I've heard this sentiment phrased much better:

"There are three things that mostly determine how well your life goes: what
you're doing, who you're with, and where you are. If you can get two of the
three right, you're ahead of 90% of the human race."

Sometimes there are tradeoffs between the three, sometimes not, but it's
really, really hard to get all three to line up together.

~~~
danso
Yes, and I'm sure that's what Jacques meant. Getting each of those qualities
on their own can be difficult, but they are not in direct competition with
each other. Nitpicky, maybe, but it's an important nuance.

In the limited context of tech jobs and entrepreneur, I don't think it's quite
right to tell people that it's not possible to achieve all three. And it may
even be counter-productive.

------
TheCapn
The biggest quarrel I have with this whole debacle is how it all started out.
A group of wise asses decided they should fancy their title up and now
everyone has to "to stay relevant".

The fact is I _AM_ a Software Engineer. I have a degree in Applied Science and
I have my Iron Ring. I am registered with my provincial Professional Body.
Saying that, I am not just a "Programmer" (I do not mean to sound derogatory)
but there is a difference in the fields that I think is getting blurred.

I turned down many jobs that wanted "programmers" because I am an "engineer"
and don't want to fall behind in my primary field to take a job that is
loosely related. I code at home in my own time releasing small projects only
recently digging into bigger ventures that are potentially able to turn profit
but that's beside the point. Where I am now is an engineer's job. I do
programming yes, but my job requires more than an understanding of computer
architecture and design pattern competency to succeed.

I feel like I'm sounding like an ass. I am much more humble I swear! The point
is that Software Engg != Programmer we need to stop fooling ourselves and
allow the segregation to occur so that programmers are properly recognized and
respected for their work!

~~~
jbondeson
Frankly, I dispute the existence of a "Software Engineer."

The UK and parts of Canada may recognize and regulate people with this title,
but I don't believe that the same rigor _can_ be applied to building software.

You would have to work with formally verified (and I mean that in the
mathematical sense) hardware and software all the way up and down the stack
(that would include the language and compiler you utilize). You would then
have to formally verify your own software on the stack you are deploying to.
Only then would you be approaching the rigor that other Engineering
professions are held to.

~~~
tjr
I've worked on avionics flight management systems. We had reams of system
requirements, multi-person code reviews for every line of code in the product,
formal verification runs, system integration testing, field testing... The
compilers used were qualified for our use. All libraries used were qualified.
All operating system components used in the product were qualified. Internal
tools that automated any part of the process were qualified.

I'm not sure what your criteria is for "mathematical" verification, but I see
this sort of work as software engineering.

~~~
jbondeson
The aerospace and medical fields have done quite a bit to increase the rigor
in building software, however there doesn't seem to be any push from them to
codify their processes and establish some sort of push for the industry as a
whole. The establishment of a true Software Engineering discipline would
require some consensus on the use of formal methods in specification design,
and then program verification.

The other hurdle is that you need the same rigor from your hardware designers.
Just as structural engineers must rely on the rigor of steel manufacturers, we
are held hostage by hardware manufacturers. Frankly the entire industry needs
a wake up call.

As for formal verification, it is the mathematical proof (in the pure sense)
that a program behaves exactly as speced -- the specification must also be
formally verified for consistency. Currently this is only possible on
relatively small programs, with the largest being several compiler back-ends
being verified.

Here's a paper on what it took to formally verify the seL4 micro-kernel:
<http://www.sigops.org/sosp/sosp09/papers/klein-sosp09.pdf>

~~~
tjr
Codify their processes?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B>

On the avionics software I worked on, we (another group of people) designed
and manufactured the hardware. I'm not as familiar with the process there, but
I have no reason to believe that it wasn't done with similar rigor. [See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-254>]

I understand mathematical proof, but I wasn't sure that was what you meant. I
did not realize that physical engineering projects are mathematically proven
to that extent?

~~~
jbondeson
I'm sorry, I wasn't very precise in my language, I meant the industries
working together to generate a more generic process that isn't tied to a
specific industry. This would be done with the intention of building a
Professional Software Engineer program.

Anything relying on the physical world obviously cannot be mathematically
verified, however the mathematical rigor is still there in the modelling and
testing.

~~~
tjr
Ah, I think I follow then. Mathematical proof of very large software systems
may presently be impractical; the verification procedures currently in place
for avionics systems are pretty daunting as they stand.

I'm not sure what we would gain from an overall software engineering
professional qualification. While I am quick to point to avionics development
as (in my opinion) being true software engineering, I also acknowledge that a
great deal of software is not built using any methods even remotely as
rigorous. But then, it also probably doesn't need to be.

You put a lot more rigor into building a house for people than you do a house
for dogs, and you put a lot more rigor into building a skyscraper office
building than you do a house. And rightly so. Each needs to withstand
different levels of pressure. I see no reason to apply rigorous engineering
processes to iPhone games; it would be a waste of time and resources.

As it is, the industries that require rigorous software development have
produced their own standards. I suppose if you could ascertain the
similarities across industries and codify that into general software
engineering practices, that could be a good thing, but you'd probably still
need industry-specific regulations to make sure nothing was missed.

I dunno. Maybe if more software needed extensive rigor it would be more
obvious what needs to be done across industries.

~~~
jbondeson
There are tons of industries that _should_ require it. The issue is that we
focus in on the software that can directly kill us, rather than all the
software that can indirectly do it. We instantly reason that all software we
use to control things like cars or airplanes should be highly controlled, but
what about financial software, phone systems, medical records software?

One of the sloppiest and haphazard programmers I ever worked with is now
writing software for non-critical medical monitoring devices (external
monitors like O2 sensors, and blood pressure monitors) and it scares the
living daylights out of me. When I'm in a hospital room I look around to see
if his company's hardware is in use. It might not kill me, but it could
contribute to that end.

I'll come full circle around to my initial assertion that I don't know if we
can even get to the point of a true Professional Software Engineer. Many of
the tasks we deal with are highly abstract. How do we define an acceptable
failure rate for a TCP stack? And even if we do, how do we take that into
account for a monitoring application? There are many hard questions we have to
tackle prior to our industry being taken seriously as a true engineering
discipline.

What troubles me is that very few of the leaders in the software community
even care about these questions.

------
itsnotvalid
Although there is no mentioning of any references, I have a clue that it is a
response to "Don't call yourself a programmer"
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170766>)

~~~
Xixi
I think that if jacquesm was living in Japan like patio11 (I also live in
Japan), he wouldn't call himself a programmer either. Because a programmer in
Japan is someone that takes a spec or a task, written by an engineer, and
"translate" it into code. A programmer doesn't solve any problem, he
implements another person solution, and that's it.

But at the end of the day it's not strictly about semantics, I think it's also
about how you understand you work. When I don't introduce myself as an
entrepreneur, I always introduce myself as a software engineer. Not out of
elitism or anything like that, but because I think it carries more the fact
that I am here to solve problems, and that programming is just one possible
mean to this end.

~~~
rhizome31
I wonder what those specs written by engineers look like. How much details do
they provide? Is the architecture of the project already specified? Algorithms
and data structures already provided? If that's the case then wouldn't it be
quicker for those engineers to directly type their specs in a high-level
language? If that's not the case I think there are still a lot of problems for
the programmer to solve.

------
ewoodrich
I would argue that this semantic debate over the meaning of "programmer" is
getting a tad tired. The author description would be more aptly described, in
my opinion, as an entrepreneur.

Conflict management, and the other business-focused tasks he mention are
completely separate from the programming side in the corporate world. I worked
at a company where the software developers spent 90% of their time writing
code based on tasks, and nearly no time on these other facets described in the
article.

Suffice to say, I think that more focus should be spent on what people are
doing, and not what they're calling it. Which is sort of what the author was
saying, in the end.

------
brlewis
Patrick's essay covered a lot of ground. It expanded on its title by
explaining what companies value. The essay as a whole did not seem focused on
job titles. The essay title did focus on job titles.

I see a wonderfully self-referential thing happening when people focus on the
title of the essay. Maybe people do focus more on titles than they should --
both essay titles and job titles. Maybe job titles are as important as essay
titles and email subject lines.

Patrick's essay was adaptibly engineered. If titles are what get through to
people, the essay title will convey what's imprtant. Otherwise, the essay body
will convey what's important.

------
pnathan
What this particular farcical drama boils down to is the tension between the
creative and the business. It is identical in spirit to the musician's
dilemma.

Usually it comes out to something like this, "Do we take pleasure in our art
and pursue the art, or do we take pleasure in selling our art in pursuing
that?"

It's painfully obvious that good businesses pay people to create a positive
value proposition for them. Therefore, if you are running your career like a
business, you need to be seeking to maximize your value proposition. Part of
that is passing yourself off as a maximal value creator. That is one half of
the essence of patio11's point.

A lot of the artists I've dealt with are content to seek their art and to work
in badly paid jobs to maximize their pursuit of their art. As someone who can
program computers, we can draw value from our art. We do not _need_ to hack at
night and work as a barista during the day. That is the other half of the
essence of patio11's point.

No one has to take patio11's advice, and their priorities may not align with
his priorities.

But if you're maximizing wealth creation through being a programmer, you need
to stop 'being a programmer/hacker/ninja/rock star/operator' and start 'being
a person who creates wealth for other people via technology'.

------
jessedhillon
I've been re-reading the Gervais Principle series[0] recently, so I can't help
but to construe both the original essay[1] and this response in terms of
Sociopath, Clueless and Loser dynamics.

The original essay could also be called "A Loser's Guide To Careers" -- it's a
realistic assessment of the options and opportunities offered to most
engineers. It recognizes that most readers will be, in the grand scheme of
things, on the short end of the stick and will have relatively little to
bargain with. Accordingly, it dispenses cold, rational advice for how to best
bargain with that limited leverage.

Both the Sociopath and the Loser are realists, it's only that the Loser has
little meaningful leverage; he accepts this and so makes the best time-money
bargain he can negotiate.

The Clueless, however, is clueless -- he would like to believe he is making a
difference by keeping his head down, working hard and following the rules;
instead, he is setup to be a mediocre middle manager at best, and a scapegoat
at worst. And this essay could best be called "A Clueless Defense." That is
not meant to slight any of Jacques technical achievements or prowess. Instead,
I apply the term "clueless" here to mean that Jacques is being hopelessly
naive. This essay is essentially a celebration of Jacques refusal to accept
the situation in which he and other engineers find themselves: a world where
those who hold the largest stakes (in any venture we choose to participate in)
generally have no clue what value we provide and are incented to reduce our
stakes.

(Yes, there are exceptions, even successful ones, and I think I work at one of
those. But I don't blindly believe it, and I wouldn't bet my life or my
family's future on it.)

I could write a lot more about my feelings on "I am a programmer,": I don't
like it. I've already said that I find it naive and I don't want to cause
unnecessary offense. Still, I commend Jacques for writing it at all and
there's no reason to alienate him in disagreement, because it's an honest
expression of his feelings. But I do want to say that, as a worldview, the
idea of it being useful for understanding the trajectory of your career...
well, I'm reminded of a line from the Futurama episode "Love and Rocket":

"Oh I would dearly love to believe that were true. So I do."

(And also -- the original essay has nothing to do with job titles.)

[0] [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/) [1]
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

~~~
javert
Responding to "The Gervais Principle":

Categorizing everyone who works in the modern economy as either a "sociopath,"
"clueless," or a "loser" is utterly ridiculous and deeply offensive.

Moreover, "The Office" is not a basis for drawing general conclusions about
the working world.

This very rarely happens, but I'm not willing to finish reading an article
that spouts this kind of hogwash.

~~~
jessedhillon
I understand your initial reaction, but you obviously haven't read enough of
this massive five-part essay to have an informed opinion. It elaborates a
theory of power politics which, in my experience, has immense explanatory
power.

The terms "sociopath," "clueless," or "loser" are selected for their
efficiency, and are not value judgments.

------
CodeMage
Excellent post all in all, but the part I consider the most important is:

 _Job security, job satisfaction, good pay. Pick any two._

I've been keenly aware of that for a while now. For someone like me, someone
who chooses the first two, it stings a lot until you come to terms with it and
make it your conscious choice. It all has to do with one's priorities and no
combination is bad in itself. You just need to be aware of these things or it
might be a source of unhappiness for you.

------
TamDenholm
Jacques mentioned in the article that someone doing COBOL gets paid megabucks,
i did a very quick search on UK job sites for _contractors_ and they seem to
make the same day rate as PHP developers. Is it different elsewhere? Is it
just in permanent jobs that it commands more money? Anyone know where and why
COBOL gets the big bucks?

~~~
roqetman
Personally, I think it's a myth. I did a lot of y2k work in cobol in '98-'99.
It has been on my resume ever since then, but I've not had one recruiter call
me up asking about my cobol skills, just my more recent java and db skills.

------
faragon
I am a experienced programmer, too. No "software architect" or another label
can convert the stupid into brilliant. In most cases is related to
recognition, power, and pay, so may be that's the reason of accepting such
labels as "normal" (I have no problem with others telling me X, Y or Z,
although I find it non-sense as well).

~~~
justatdotin
engineer, architect ... I wanna be a software astronaut when I grow up.

~~~
T-hawk
Are you referencing Joel Spolsky's article on software astronauts?

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html>

~~~
justatdotin
ah, no, thanks!

------
ChuckMcM
I don't think you are (a programmer).

From the article:

 _"Programmers are guys and girls that can take real-world problems, that can
analyze those problems and that use that analysis to come up with a way to
improve the world, usually in an incremental but sometimes in a revolutionary
manner by solving those problems (hopefully) once and for all."_

You are a systems analyst. The difference (to me at least) is that a
programmer solves the presented problem by writing a program, a systems
analyst solves the problem by tuning or refactoring the system. Sometimes all
that takes is programming, but sometimes it takes more than that, a new data
base schema, a different partitioning of roles of machines participating in
the solution, user education, or even getting the rules of the game changed.

~~~
drivingmenuts
Given all that, I'd still rather be called a programmer. Anything else sounds
like I'm showing off.

------
djinn
I just think the debate about identifying oneself "as", like pointed by other
comments, is specific to a cultural context. In India specifically
"programming" is as much about sector of work like "Information Technology" as
it would be individuals profession. So most of the time "programmer" or
"software engineer" inter-changeably explains the where one works for someone
outside the profession. In case the person shows further interest, one could
go further into what exactly is the span of work. So unlike Patrick's essay
tries to convey, "programmer" per se is not a restrictive definition.

------
hmigneron
The title makes it sound as if the author is in complete disagreement with
Patrick's essay (and perhaps he feels that he is) but it's not how I see it.

Both articles are about the way you present yourself, not really about the
"programmer" label. Sure, your label is part of what do for a living, but the
important point brought up by both articles is that you have to recognize what
your value is in the workplace and use that as your selling point in order to
achieve job satisfaction and/or recognition (that's the way I understood them
anyway).

------
par
I am going to change my title to janitorial engineer.

~~~
leftnode
From time to time I go by software mechanic since I spend more time fixing
existing software than writing new software.

------
lubos
I'm a software developer... who cares, really... to outsiders we are weird
kind of folks no matter what

~~~
freemarketteddy
haha true....When I talk to women at Bars...I am an iPhone/iPad Artist....They
dont realize that that involves tweaking LLVM flags and debugging segmentation
faults haha!

------
rhnoble
I agree "Programmer" is a sufficient job title, but my favourite "alternate"
title I've seen anyone use is "Technical Enabler". It says "I use technology
to solve problems and create value", which I think is very apt most of the
time. You might be programming or you might simply be sharing/applying
knowledge about computers, software, the web etc. that most people don't have.
At least that's what I feel it's like most days.

------
scottschulthess
Honestly, who besides programmers even know the difference between software
engineers and programmers?

I personally don't really think there is a difference. They are essentially
the same thing. I'm both and I don't really see a case where I'd call myself
one and not the other.

So who is making the distinction? Us (engineers) or other people?

If you really want to make the assertion that non-engineers are making the
distinction between programmers and software engineers, who do you think told
them what the difference was?

------
redcap
The problem I have with "software engineering" is that it's not real
engineering. Sure you might do thinking to create proper requirements, design,
build a prototype, build the real thing and iterate, use agile or whatever.

But comparing programming to actual, real-world engineering is a different
kettle of fish. Engineers make things with actual physical requirements - if
they're not met, people will die. You're not going to be doing proper
engineering unless you can sue the engineers for the wholes in their software
that caused people to lose money from their bank. Sure it works and may well
solve a problem, but it's not engineered.

Real software engineering is using formal methods to do your utmost to prove
that your stuff actually will work (Intel does that for some of their chip
development) or make 5 different control systems for your rocket and have them
vote on the correct course to add extra backup to prevent fuckups (NASA did
this for the Apollo iirc - the EU Ariane didn't, so they had a rocket crash at
one point).

Until that happens, you're just going to be developing sandcastles - you're
going to have buggy software that will break at some point - because software
development is so fast that it's not worth the effort to engineer from the
get-go.

In other words, coding is coding - you can have good coding that uses best
practices - but if you call it engineering you're deluding yourself in most
cases.

~~~
danso
Er...what...?

Bad code won't kill people? I think any longtime reader of HN can think of a
few real-life stories that would contradict this.

I studied computer engineering and yes, I remember those of us more on the
hardware side thinking the ones on the "soft" side of the engineering were the
lazy ones. Having been more involved in programming projects since then, I've
seen the great value in being able to "engineer" software that meets highly
specific specs and anticipates future needs, upgrades, and maintenance.
Neither of those are necessarily related to good programming, and the failure
to achieve both in mission-critical software _will lead to deaths_

* and as far as I can tell, "real" engineers do not get individually sued for physical failures, unless there's a rare instance in which an individual engineer can be proven to be malicious or grossly negligent.

~~~
redcap
I was thinking more of the web stuff that people do, so may be overstating my
case. There are cases where you really need to make things safe - NASA's
Apollo rockets and medical equipment to name a few. Also, when I talk about
suing engineers I meant suing a big company such as Microsoft for the glaring
security problems in earlier versions of Windows. Some Windows machines would
be hacked within minutes of connecting them to the internet - in my mind
that's simply negligence on the part of the developers - them being liable for
creating an insecure product would force them to develop a properly secure
solution - in other words to actually engineer it properly.

Where you have a hardware-centric approach, I'd assume that the whole system,
software included has been pretty well tested and engineered to a great deal.

But banking software and I postulate most software that hacker news
contributors write is probably going to be inherently flaky in some respect.
The main fault for this is that writing software is so quick and easy compared
to creating something physical that will last.

It's due to the push to get something to market and the "easy" nature of
software development that leaves true engineering discipline by the wayside.

Yes, you can be in a situation (especially when people's lives depend on it
directly such as medical equipment) when you are properly engineering a
solution, but I still stand by my premise that most software development is
not software engineering - you're just making sandcastles.

~~~
jarek
> Some Windows machines would be hacked within minutes of connecting them to
> the internet - in my mind that's simply negligence on the part of the
> developers - them being liable for creating an insecure product would force
> them to develop a properly secure solution - in other words to actually
> engineer it properly.

If software developers were actually engineers, or at least some of them were
and were required to sign off, they would actually have authority to influence
decisions that had huge impact on this situation - deprioritizing of security,
bad project management, etc, not originating from the development side of the
organization.

------
hessenwolf
It agrees with my view that programming and mathematics are no different. I
build models with my toolkit. End of story.

------
emmelaich
There's an inverse snobbery in effect here to an extent. If you've made it /
made a name for yourself you can call yourself a programmer.

I don't know know whether it was the recently departed dmr or ken, but one of
them answered 'programmer' when asked what he put as a profession on his
landing/visa/immigration card.

~~~
piccadilly
That isn't because they were so big that they could say programmer, it is
because that is what it used to be called before self-promotion inflated all
job titles to the point of hyperbole.

------
prophetjohn
_as long as you are calling other peoples modules you're not yet programming_

How about while you're _not_ calling other peoples' modules, you're not
programming _effectively_?

Why am I supposed to waste my time rewriting code available in the STL, or
better, why is it held against me that I don't waste my time on such?

------
YourAnMoran
_As a ground rule, as long as you are calling other peoples modules you're not
yet programming, but that doesn't mean that what you do can't be meaningful or
useful._

Oh, I see. Do I also have to code my own compiler before I start rewriting
glibc?

------
gerggerg
\-- _...but the fact of the matter is that I'm a programmer. It's what I do
best and it is the job title that I associate with most_

and then

\-- _What you call yourself or what other people call you is utterly
irrelevant._

I am utterly confused and no better at my job.

------
arashsharif
I don't know about this one. I have a degree in comp sci and a master in
software Eng. I've worked too hard in my life to be treated as a janitor. Why
shoudnt we get the respect other engineers get?

------
Vivtek
" _Glorified translator_?"

Now I feel like a Geico caveman.

------
mattmiller
"My main occupations are being owner/operator of ww.com"

This guy is not a programmer. He is a business owner that can program. He can
call himself a trashman and not loose a dime.

~~~
randomdata
_Everyone_ is a business owner. If you sell 40 hours of your time per week to
"Major Corporation X," you are still running a business.

With that, I don't see many businesses marketing themselves with titles. You
don't see "Google - Search engine engineers", you see "Google". The former
would be pretty foolish marketing in my opinion. As such, I refuse to use
titles at all.

------
zafka
I am an information Manipulator.

------
freemarketteddy
Here is something constructive to take away from Patrick's essay.

If you work in a bureaucracy dont whine about code quality ,better testing etc
coz guess what ...No one really gives a shit!

If you really want to do good work do where its actually going to matter.WORK
ON OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS.

When you are at work.Keep in mind that the only thing the management cares
about is increasing profits and cutting costs.So go ahead and make them the
ugly PHP5 form that they want.It will take you very less time anyways.Spend
the rest of the time working on open source projects.This is a complete win-
win strategy.

Yes years later when your companies stock value is in single digits ,some
people in upper management will maybe understand the value of good source
control,good testing procedures etc.But guess what they are not going to give
much of a shit even then.All they will care about even then is (Repeat After
Me)"Increasing profit and reducing costs".

