4 ms·

A lot of this problem is people's misconceptions of the idea of what kind of person a programmer is. The public at large has a big part of this problem. But an

A lot of this problem is people's misconceptions of the idea of what kind of person a programmer is. The public at large has a big part of this problem. But another huge part of this problem is the people among us who try and propagate the stereotypes of the 'hacker' of yore. I was at my community hackerspace yesterday, and there were some visitors who were perfect embodiments of the "loud and obnoxious computer nerd who will talk your ear off about something even if you clearly don't understand" The enemy is us. We need the loudest and most opinionated voices among us to not be the ones who try and mystify computers and programming, the ones who love to use unnecessary jargon with the public. We need the most well known of us to be the smartest, the best spoken, the charming.

simonsarris 16y ago
I agree. Ideally we would have Richard Feynmans and Carl Sagans of programming and computing. Both these people did wonders for the public's perception (and understanding!) of science.
- axod 16y ago
  The thing is, IMHO Programming to most people is boring. It's like telling them you're a builder. Yeah you lay some bricks and cement and build stuff. (Well actually, they ask you to fix their PC, since you must know about such things if you're a programmer). We're not on the cutting edge of science, we're often not inventing anything new, we're just doing boring grunt work shoving things together. We're factory workers. In 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation. We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'. The public doesn't want some 'stellar factory worker' championing assembly lines, because it's boring. I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. Of course there are stereotypes that are very real here. Just like the average man in fashion is camp, the average sysadmin is scary. People who work with computers often do have real 'people' issues. Perhaps that's why they gravitated to computers in the first place. There's no point denying such things. Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone.
  - _pi 16y ago
    You say: >I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. And: >Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone. But really, when was the last revolutionary product made? The last revolutionary way to increase revenue that was sustainable in the long run? I've seen many revolutions in software, distributed version control for instance ie git, LLVM, gaming and visualization software, and hybrid synchronization systems such as unison. In OSS the 'As Seen on TV' type products generally don't see the light of day, they get buried and forgotten, it's only incorporate environments I've seen crappy interfaces using decrepit languages from the 90's, because those programmers have stopped, or never even started caring about programming. If they did they might take the initiative to fix up the program themselves. As for the factory worker analogy, I think it's dead wrong. It's like saying anyone who ever designed a product is a factory worker. Programmers have to do a lot of design decisions, interop systems etc. Yeah if you're programming in Java, or making corporate program in programing lanaguage du jour you're probably not really innovating, like any part of life programming is self driven, for every Google there's a struggling business and for every git, there's a Java webapp for accessing an Access database. Also if you think AI is going to obsoltete us in 50 years you're kinda pushing reality there. MS tried to make programming easy and accessible, look at every <LANGUAGE> in 24 hours book. They download MSVS and run through a bunch of wizards, that's about as much control and innovation as you get with a Java webapp that accesses an access database. Not only that but who's going to program all the new features into the the automation AI? When Intel releases a new architecture or something happens there's always gonna be a need for programmers to translate and incorporate data. Essentially if what you said was true SIGGRAPH wouldn't exist. There's plenty of innovation going on in the software field, and plenty of talent, like every field there's a bunch of idiots, and plenty of talent. If anything you made a great social commentary, people care only about money, the easiest way to get money is working in middle management. Your argument is based on the corporate programmer stereotype.
  - rdouble 16y ago
    The average man in fashion is not "camp"...
api 16y ago
"We need the loudest and most opinionated voices among us to not be the ones..." Aren't the loudest voices always the ones that represent any group? Look at religion... most religious folks do not agree with hate-mongering fundamentalists or crazed wild-eyed apocalyptic preachers, but look who gets on TV.
- moxiemk1 16y ago
  That's exactly why we need other people to step up and be louder for us - lest we get viewed like that.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Is that true? Every time I see someone preaching on TV it seems to be a kindly-looking badly-dressed dude repeating some platitudes about how love is nice. The preachers who get on TV are the Oprahs of the world, the ones who are best at raising money by mumbling things that everyone agrees with, rather than ones with fringe opinions. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of people who want to believe that all Christians are hate-hongering fundamentalists.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - sesqu 16y ago
    Good point. I'm not well versed in such TV, but it seems that the Christians who get on TV are pastors or community organizers or what have you, very nice people who you might tire of in a half hour. In contrast, the loud, obnoxious, and persistently followed loudmouths who get on TV claim to be Christians.

simonsarris 16y ago

I agree. Ideally we would have Richard Feynmans and Carl Sagans of programming and computing. Both these people did wonders for the public's perception (and understanding!) of science.

axod 16y ago
The thing is, IMHO Programming to most people is boring. It's like telling them you're a builder. Yeah you lay some bricks and cement and build stuff. (Well actually, they ask you to fix their PC, since you must know about such things if you're a programmer). We're not on the cutting edge of science, we're often not inventing anything new, we're just doing boring grunt work shoving things together. We're factory workers. In 50 years our jobs will all be obsoleted by automation. We just happen to be in a time where there's still value in being able to manually translate 'what I want' into 'what computer understands'. The public doesn't want some 'stellar factory worker' championing assembly lines, because it's boring. I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. Of course there are stereotypes that are very real here. Just like the average man in fashion is camp, the average sysadmin is scary. People who work with computers often do have real 'people' issues. Perhaps that's why they gravitated to computers in the first place. There's no point denying such things. Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone.
- _pi 16y ago
  You say: >I think we need to get real. Programming isn't something most people are interested in, it's not glamorous, it's factory work. Lets not delude ourselves that we're at the cutting edge of new discovery. And: >Building companies, developing products, increasing revenue are all far more interesting to everyone. But really, when was the last revolutionary product made? The last revolutionary way to increase revenue that was sustainable in the long run? I've seen many revolutions in software, distributed version control for instance ie git, LLVM, gaming and visualization software, and hybrid synchronization systems such as unison. In OSS the 'As Seen on TV' type products generally don't see the light of day, they get buried and forgotten, it's only incorporate environments I've seen crappy interfaces using decrepit languages from the 90's, because those programmers have stopped, or never even started caring about programming. If they did they might take the initiative to fix up the program themselves. As for the factory worker analogy, I think it's dead wrong. It's like saying anyone who ever designed a product is a factory worker. Programmers have to do a lot of design decisions, interop systems etc. Yeah if you're programming in Java, or making corporate program in programing lanaguage du jour you're probably not really innovating, like any part of life programming is self driven, for every Google there's a struggling business and for every git, there's a Java webapp for accessing an Access database. Also if you think AI is going to obsoltete us in 50 years you're kinda pushing reality there. MS tried to make programming easy and accessible, look at every <LANGUAGE> in 24 hours book. They download MSVS and run through a bunch of wizards, that's about as much control and innovation as you get with a Java webapp that accesses an access database. Not only that but who's going to program all the new features into the the automation AI? When Intel releases a new architecture or something happens there's always gonna be a need for programmers to translate and incorporate data. Essentially if what you said was true SIGGRAPH wouldn't exist. There's plenty of innovation going on in the software field, and plenty of talent, like every field there's a bunch of idiots, and plenty of talent. If anything you made a great social commentary, people care only about money, the easiest way to get money is working in middle management. Your argument is based on the corporate programmer stereotype.
- rdouble 16y ago
  The average man in fashion is not "camp"...

api 16y ago

"We need the loudest and most opinionated voices among us to not be the ones..." Aren't the loudest voices always the ones that represent any group? Look at religion... most religious folks do not agree with hate-mongering fundamentalists or crazed wild-eyed apocalyptic preachers, but look who gets on TV.

moxiemk1 16y ago
That's exactly why we need other people to step up and be louder for us - lest we get viewed like that.
hugh3 16y ago
Is that true? Every time I see someone preaching on TV it seems to be a kindly-looking badly-dressed dude repeating some platitudes about how love is nice. The preachers who get on TV are the Oprahs of the world, the ones who are best at raising money by mumbling things that everyone agrees with, rather than ones with fringe opinions. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of people who want to believe that all Christians are hate-hongering fundamentalists.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- sesqu 16y ago
  Good point. I'm not well versed in such TV, but it seems that the Christians who get on TV are pastors or community organizers or what have you, very nice people who you might tire of in a half hour. In contrast, the loud, obnoxious, and persistently followed loudmouths who get on TV claim to be Christians.