
Ask HN: What's it like having a significant other who is also a programmer? - kliao
Just curious about your experiences. Pros&#x2F;cons compared to being with someone who doesn&#x27;t understand software at all. Amusing stories, etc.
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jmcgough
I really enjoy it - my partner and I will talk about code, I'll explain
concepts and share things I'm excited about. I guess if you want more of a
clear separation between your work and your home life that could be a bad
thing, but being able to share what I'm passionate about with someone who
understands it is a big plus to me.

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mreams
Me too. I'd be really unhappy if I could only talk about my day with my
husband in terms of "the computering went well" or "the computering went
badly."

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giaour
It's not so bad. My wife isn't very technical, so I tend to frame my day in
terms of projects and the people I work with. She works in a field that I
understand about as well as she understands software, so she does the same
when discussing her day.

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andymurd
It's great that we think about non-technical problems in a very similar
manner. For example, when buying a home, we used a check-list categorised into
the must-haves, nice-to-haves and undesirable features. We agreed that they
were our acceptance criteria. We allowed ourselves to develop emotional
connections with properties that we viewed, but the check-list was always
there to drag us to reality and so a complex, stressful life-change was
remarkably friction-free for us both.

We both code, but have different specialities. My partner specialises in the
RDBMS interface, but I distrust every ORM that I've ever seen. I think the
most powerful layer of the stack is the UI, she actively avoids any kind of
presentation layer, let alone HCI. And yet, she is far better at interacting
with humans than I am.

We bounce ideas off each other but in the end, the fact that my partner codes
is not too relevant - what is important is that I've found a super-smart, fun
person to share my life with. I wish you the same.

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cblock811
I've tried dating non-technical people and this experience sums it up:

My friend and I are white boarding algorithm challenges for fun, having nerd
talk. My boyfriend says, "I'm going to play video games while you guys do nerd
stuff. I don't understand it anyways"

It's funny but it would be nice to have a partner that can join in. ><

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brianmurphy
I did it once in college. It was terrible. Especially if you are the better
programmer. Every encounter with your girlfriend feels like a tech support
session. I'd much rather come home, ramble on for 10 minutes and get a "good
job" or "you'll have a better day tomorrow" response.

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sonalgoyal
I kind of like it that my husband is a programmer. We are able to brainstorm
about a lot more things as our backgrounds and day to day challenges are
similar. I am not sure how it works out if two people are in completely
different professions, but I think work does fill up a lot of our lives,
especially as we get older. So its nice to be able to speak the same language
(pun intended :-))

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mwhuang2
Both my parents were programmers. It was useful because they could help each
other with learning and career advancement.

Personally, I'd prefer a non-programmer girlfriend. I like variety and I think
it's really important to be exposed to different kinds of people.

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sharmi
We both have a programming background but we specialize in different areas. So
we have enough in common to understand each other's joy and pain, while our
specialization helps us to fill in where the other lacks.

This has been very useful as we have started our own little business in
software.

