
What does a programmer have to barter with? - MicahWedemeyer
http://blog.aisleten.com/2009/05/07/what-does-a-programmer-have-to-offer/
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patio11
Just about everyone in the world puts up with boring, repetitive #$()# which
they hate with a burning passion but can't do anything about because they
don't know how to make a computer do it for them.

You don't have that problem.

~~~
tdavis
I've never seen the advantages of programming put so succinctly! Also, you can
say "shit" on HN.

Mark Bao: earmuffs!

~~~
patio11
I'm not quite as puritanical as I was when I was younger, but I still don't
like swearing for emphasis and try to keep it to a minimum. If you had heard
me speaking you might have heard one of those Bugs Bunny equivalents best
transliterated as "strangled cry of frustration" or, perhaps, $(#$").
(Besides, more fun to type that way.)

~~~
sharkbrainguy
I didn't know what was going on when I read it. I thought it was perl.

Maybe just use an inoffensive word like "garbage" instead ... but with
_emphasis_.

~~~
patio11
_I thought it was perl._

Then my cry of strangled frustration succeeded better than I could possibly
have hoped for.

(I actually spent an hour trying to come up with executable perl code from
them. Turns out that, jokes aside, its hard with just the characters above the
numbers.)

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pingswept
This won't be much value for graphic designers, but I'm most often asked for
help with manipulation of text files.

If you don't know about regular expressions, there are all sorts of problems
that are only solvable with great amounts of tedium. There have been a few
occasions where sed s/something/or other/g has saved friends of mine hours of
avoidable typing, at a cost of a few minutes for me.

Also, I tend to have access to servers with more bandwidth than the average
person needs, which has proved useful in the past for short-lived hosting of
large files, web demos, and the like.

~~~
amalcon
Don't I know it. I've saved people many hours of copy/pasting and manual
indexing in several different Excel spreadsheets by having them export to
CSVs, running them through a quick Perl script, and having them import again.

To a non-programmer, a computer is a tool for processing data. To a
programmer, a computer is a tool for _making tools_. Most skilled programmers
don't even realize how often they make tools for seemingly minor tasks. These
tools are what we have to trade.

~~~
btwelch
Agreed. Your major competitive advantage as a programmer is probably the
ability to build tools.

If the problem calls for a particularly complex algorithm, or begins taking up
too much time, that's when I make the tool as simple as possible and then
leverage Mechanical Turk to get past the sticky bits.

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alain94040
I also believe in accumulating goodwill (or debt, if you prefer :-)

If a graphic designer helps me 10 times with a 1-hour task, eventually I owe
them a full day, correct? Which makes it easier for me as a programmer to
contribute something meaningful to them.

The trick is to keep the right balance so that you don't get into a huge
amount of debt with no way to repay it (sounds familiar?).

Also, there are many other things that you can help a graphic designer with.
Good will includes introducing that person to opportunities that you are aware
of, etc. Just like the poster did in his blog: that's free publicity, that may
(or may not) generate some business for the graphic designer.

Call it karma. Help out if you can, don't expect an immediate barter. But in
the long run, we all win.

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0x47
As a programmer I've accumulated quite a bit of hardware/software knowledge
which I find that people will readily take in exchange for things. Upgrading
machines with new memory (RAM or HDs), faster video cards, removing
malware/viruses, things of that nature. A lot of people are leery of digging
into the internals of their machines.

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marcusbooster
Practically all of the Adobe apps are scriptable with "ExtendScript", which is
Javascript with a few added things. There's lots of tedium that could be
automated, and it wouldn't take a whole lot of time to do it.

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MicahWedemeyer
Please also leave comments on the blog post itself. I'll update the original
post with good ideas from the comments (with attribution, of course).

~~~
Retric
I understand you want people to post on your blog so your updates link to
thier comment. However, if it's your blog and you are the one posting to
another site it seems rude to request people post comments on your site when
you can just read the comments here.

So, how about posting updates with a link to the HN comment.

PS: Granted, this could just be me.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
I'll watch for both, but it's easier for me to reference the comments on the
blog post itself. Some readers may never have heard of HN, so it might be
slightly confusing to say "This came from so-and-so at HN"

I just thought that people here at HN would probably have some really good
ideas, so I submitted it.

~~~
Retric
I get that and I liked the post. However, I have seen plenty of blog posts
that used this to link to posts on other sites and it seems to work well.

~~~
0x47
You might also use the posts here as an opportunity to create a follow up blog
post that contains the suggestions from here. Provided you get enough
suggestions :)

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csbartus
setting up & hosting for free wordpress blogs for seo & promo. (with no theme
design)

it takes a couple of minutes / hours and everybody is so happy

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access_denied
Programming visual effects. Some Websites / DVDs are sort of promotion
material, which is more like a brochure and less like an "internets". But
programming a showcase site for a new car or a music album is a lot of work
which the sane graphic designer won't go into. But he could easily, if he had
a coder ready.

