

What do you say to people when they say that programming is not demanding? - itcmcgrath
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/q/37316/2673

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rwmj
The top-rated answer (by the submitter I think?) is excellent:
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/37316/what-
do...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/37316/what-do-you-say-
to-people-when-they-say-that-programming-is-not-demanding/37334#37334)

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raghava
I had seen a post by Bruce Eckel conveying the same thought; and it certainly
puts it correctly.

 _Writing Software is Like ... Writing_
<http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=255898>

And in most of the cases, IMO, not to forget those awesome co-workers who
(have a forget-stuff-in-60-mins syndrome and) would need a lot of help on
grammar or vocab, every single day. Blessed life, I'd say!

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gaius
Try explaining being a DBA or a sysadmin - if we're doing our jobs right, no-
one will even know we're there.

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beoba
'Yeah, you're probably right.'

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scotty79
Don't you hate when your theoretical phisicist, mathematician, molecular
biologist and rocket engineer friends do that.

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twymer
I'd like to know what type of jobs the responders work. Would be interesting
to see a breakdown of answers to "how demanding is programming" by users of
different languages/frameworks or by what type of company they work at
(startup, big corporation, etc).

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sage_joch
If you get full control of the code base from the ground up, you can often
make life easier for yourself (it takes work and continual refactoring,
though). What's difficult is when you have to work through other peoples'
messes.

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mkramlich
I fire up Terminal, then stand up, offer my chair to them, say I'll be back
later.

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Joakal
Making a superfluous statement is a red flag. In most cases I'd nod and move
on.

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radioactive21
"It depends" or "that's not entirely true"

It various, I know people who do little html and consider it programming. And
obviously there are those in charge of huge software developments.

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Matt_Rose
I say: "Shhh! Don't tell anyone, then they'll all want to do it!"

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elouise
you do it

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itcmcgrath
Isn't that what caused all those business critical excel spreadsheets ;)

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webuiarchitect
Of course, you ignore them!

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itcmcgrath
Unless it's your wife... Then you say 'Yes, dear'

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techiferous
The same thing as when people say that teaching is not demanding.

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Charuru
All the problems in the first answer are people problems. If you work in a
software firm that doesn't treat its employees like code monkeys, or better
yet, work for yourself, then programming isn't demanding. It's fun, relaxing,
and awesome.

Sales is demanding. :S

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bugsy
Many times when I hear the "programming is very easy" claim it comes from
someone who is out of work: "Oh, he say programming hard? Not so! Programming
very easy! I do this job for you cheap!"

