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I'm finding the growing celebrity culture of programming to be troubling. I find that programming is becoming less and less about code or architecture and more

I'm finding the growing celebrity culture of programming to be troubling. I find that programming is becoming less and less about code or architecture and more about evangelism and marketing, but I'm not sure what changed in the incentive structure for this to happen, and I would like to find out. Aside: This has made me reconsider being a career programmer.

mseebach 8y ago
It's an extremely large and diverse field. There are plenty of us who aren't celebrities and don't care about celebrities (except to the extent that it is caused by deep expertise). Just like you ignore reality TV celebrities, ignore these guys. It's just noise. Turn off Twitter and read "Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests" instead.
- davidjnelson 8y ago
  That really is an amazing book :-)
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    Man, I couldn't get through it! It seemed like its own kind of hype-y proselytizing and I didn't find its examples spoke to the kind of issues I actually have. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance, but I don't know, I had been hearing for years that it's so great and I was really excited to start reading it, and it just didn't speak to me at all. Anyway, YMMV I guess!
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - mseebach 8y ago
      It's not a religious text or anything (I suspect that the proselytising tone comes from the fact that at the time it was written, it's recommendations were still a bit controversial, especially in the kind of organisations likely to have these kinds of codebases). If it's not useful to you, then that's that. The point is, other books written ten years ago by people with deep expertise (rather than a hypey blog post by someone who just discovered some principle five minutes ago) probably will be.
      - sanderjd 8y ago
        This is a different topic than my comment that you replied to but the "ten years ago" thing stuck out to me: I think books (and blog posts!) written very recently by people with deep expertise are likely useful as well. Figuring out which ones those are is the tough part.
- Kinrany 8y ago
  Is it just me, or is the last line basically "other gurus are fake, only this guru I support is real"?
  - mseebach 8y ago
    No, it was a quip, basically intended to mean "forget about minute to minute popularity and read a book that is well respected by practitioners in the field and has stood up to the test of time". And I didn't mention the authors, it's about content, not personalities.
zeth___ 8y ago
>I'm not sure what changed in the incentive structure for this to happen, and I would like to find out. People started getting paid more for doing this because managers have no idea what programming actually is.
- freshhawk 8y ago
  Which is why it is so much more cost effective to spend your time marketing to those managers than writing code to market to the developers.
  - zeth___ 8y ago
    It doesn't help that most developers are language fanboys who have no idea what actual programming means.
    - randrose 8y ago
      I ask this in the most serious of ways, could you explain what actual programming is?
      - zeth___ 8y ago
        The minimum ability someone needs to have for me to consider them a programmer is the being able to write a parser using yacc or something equivalent. Anything a person with that ability does is programming because they know enough to realise when switching to putting legos together it more efficient.
        paublyrne 8y ago
        If not programmers, what are these people who spend their days programming, but who may not necessarily have ever written a parser using yacc because none of the jobs they've ever had have required that?
        8y ago
collyw 8y ago
I got asked if I had a blog in an interview. I am a software engineer not a self marketer.
- tjr225 8y ago
  Yikes! As someone who can't stand being the center of attention and also can't stand talking about themselves (yes I see the irony here), this is terrifying.
- zoul 8y ago
  I am a software engineer that loves to help others. Nothing to do with self-marketing, at least not intentionally, but a welcomed skill in the team. So the question makes sense to me.
  - collyw 8y ago
    I like helping others as well. I don't need to fart about writing blogs to do it.
    - criddell 8y ago
      It does increase your reach though. I work on Windows software and a blog like Raymond Chen's Old New Thing is super valuable.
    - kasey_junk 8y ago
      I have a blog no one knows about. If I’m trying to teach a concept or find something interesting I’ll write it up. The writing process itself acts as a check if I understand something. Then when people have similar questions/problems in the future I can just link. The personal value of the blog makes it worth trying at least.
      - collyw 8y ago
        I have tried it a couple of times (I do have a couple of posts on my github pages). I just don't have the time / motivation combination to do it on a regular basis. I find it quite time consuming writing in a way that makes it clear to others what I am doing. I'll come over to your computer and explain the same concepts in ten minutes that would take me an hour or two to write up and format in a manner that I would want to display publicly. (I find answering questions on Stack Overflow a lot less time consuming to get a useful point across).
nunez 8y ago
I think that this was inevitable given the rise of social media and the Internet. It’s still entirely possible to be a great developer without having a Twitter or Facebook account, but it’s tempting to feel like I’m missing out on information from not subscribing to the latest fight on Twitter.
freshhawk 8y ago
You're at the right place to work out what started it. The aggressive personal branding is clearly spillover of startup hype/marketing/branding styles and techniques. If your whole career has been at startups then that is just called "marketing" to you. Also: it works. "No one ever got fired for going with IBM" is now applied down to the micro-level. Few choose a project because of a code/architecture review, most choose one because it has a good reputation. The industry has fantastic expertise at manufacturing reputations by now.
sixQuarks 8y ago
Once the market is large enough, you're going to have some people at the top who excel at marketing. Look at almost any large market, it's not the "best" products that win, it's the best marketers.
harlanji 8y ago
Similar boat. I’ve been presenting passion projects to user groups / unconferences for a decade. Now, I wasn’t aware at the time but around 2013 seems like the turning point. I was getting tingles then. I never wanted to be a celebrity but it seems my aptitude has sent the wrong signals to some. I refuse to tow company lines, but acknowledge funding of open work or course. Starting to explore other outlets for sohpistic endeavors eg. live streaming (shameless plug, building an open source platform, search: ispooge live). People subscribe and keep coming back and chatting too, didn’t expect that but it’s pretty cool. I feel it can lead to a good career in some way, involving good natural collaboration. Maybe even money ;).
- bonesss 8y ago
  [Offtopic] I don't know if this is your intention, but your streaming platforms title may be sending different signals than you think: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge FreshSpooge and iSpooge sound like awesome product names if you're working for MindGeek, tho ;)
nostrademons 8y ago
Is this actually a new phenomena? I remember when I started programming c. 2000, the big-name programming gurus were folks like Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Uncle Bob, Ron Jeffries, Dave Thomas, Joel Spolsky, Jeff Atwood, Martin Fowler, et al. While some of them mostly knew their stuff, some were outright hacks (Peter Norvig's vs. Ron Jeffries' attempts to create a sudoku solver is one of my favorite examples [1]). Most of their names wouldn't be recognized by someone just getting into programming now. As I've gotten older, I've learned that there's often an inverse correlation between how good a programmer is and how likely you are to have heard of them, because the folks who get good at programming are actually programming and not writing blog articles about programming. Most of the latter are really content marketing, trying to drum up business for consultancies, and so you should treat them as advertisement rather than advice. [1] http://ravimohan.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-solvers.html http://ravimohan.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-s...
- sireat 8y ago
  Like everytime Fabrice puts out something you know it is bound to be something interesting: https://bellard.org/ https://bellard.org/ not driven by selling anything.
- matte_black 8y ago
  This is true for anything. People that are actually doing stuff have no time to talk about it, and people that are talking about it are wasting time by not doing it. So beware of gurus. No one gets that popular without spending a large proportion of their time promoting. In the decade I’ve been programming I’ve never had time to write even one damn article.
- christophilus 8y ago
  > I've learned that there's often an inverse correlation between how good a programmer is and how likely you are to have heard of them. Yep. I second this. The best programmers on my radar are terrible at self-promotion, and are quite content to be terrible at it.
- nallerooth 8y ago
  I think this is a very good point. But it's also important to remember that not all programmers/tinkerers that are creating blog posts/videos are looking for fame - some of them are just proud of something they built, and that's fine. Inspiration is a great enabler, and taking a few shortcuts to make something work may be just the thing that allows someone to actually finish one of their projects. The problem is that if you lack the knowledge to see that something is a hack - you learn things the wrong way. Still, without this inspiration - some people wouldn't start to learning at all.
accnumnplus1 8y ago
It's gone mainstream, and just like the internet going mainstream, it isn't what it used to be. These days I only enjoy the programming I do on the weekend.

mseebach 8y ago

It's an extremely large and diverse field. There are plenty of us who aren't celebrities and don't care about celebrities (except to the extent that it is caused by deep expertise). Just like you ignore reality TV celebrities, ignore these guys. It's just noise. Turn off Twitter and read "Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests" instead.

davidjnelson 8y ago
That really is an amazing book :-)
- sanderjd 8y ago
  Man, I couldn't get through it! It seemed like its own kind of hype-y proselytizing and I didn't find its examples spoke to the kind of issues I actually have. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance, but I don't know, I had been hearing for years that it's so great and I was really excited to start reading it, and it just didn't speak to me at all. Anyway, YMMV I guess!
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mseebach 8y ago
    It's not a religious text or anything (I suspect that the proselytising tone comes from the fact that at the time it was written, it's recommendations were still a bit controversial, especially in the kind of organisations likely to have these kinds of codebases). If it's not useful to you, then that's that. The point is, other books written ten years ago by people with deep expertise (rather than a hypey blog post by someone who just discovered some principle five minutes ago) probably will be.
    - sanderjd 8y ago
      This is a different topic than my comment that you replied to but the "ten years ago" thing stuck out to me: I think books (and blog posts!) written very recently by people with deep expertise are likely useful as well. Figuring out which ones those are is the tough part.
Kinrany 8y ago
Is it just me, or is the last line basically "other gurus are fake, only this guru I support is real"?
- mseebach 8y ago
  No, it was a quip, basically intended to mean "forget about minute to minute popularity and read a book that is well respected by practitioners in the field and has stood up to the test of time". And I didn't mention the authors, it's about content, not personalities.

zeth___ 8y ago

>I'm not sure what changed in the incentive structure for this to happen, and I would like to find out. People started getting paid more for doing this because managers have no idea what programming actually is.

freshhawk 8y ago
Which is why it is so much more cost effective to spend your time marketing to those managers than writing code to market to the developers.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  It doesn't help that most developers are language fanboys who have no idea what actual programming means.
  - randrose 8y ago
    I ask this in the most serious of ways, could you explain what actual programming is?
    - zeth___ 8y ago
      The minimum ability someone needs to have for me to consider them a programmer is the being able to write a parser using yacc or something equivalent. Anything a person with that ability does is programming because they know enough to realise when switching to putting legos together it more efficient.
      - paublyrne 8y ago
        If not programmers, what are these people who spend their days programming, but who may not necessarily have ever written a parser using yacc because none of the jobs they've ever had have required that?
        8y ago

collyw 8y ago

I got asked if I had a blog in an interview. I am a software engineer not a self marketer.

tjr225 8y ago
Yikes! As someone who can't stand being the center of attention and also can't stand talking about themselves (yes I see the irony here), this is terrifying.
zoul 8y ago
I am a software engineer that loves to help others. Nothing to do with self-marketing, at least not intentionally, but a welcomed skill in the team. So the question makes sense to me.
- collyw 8y ago
  I like helping others as well. I don't need to fart about writing blogs to do it.
  - criddell 8y ago
    It does increase your reach though. I work on Windows software and a blog like Raymond Chen's Old New Thing is super valuable.
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    I have a blog no one knows about. If I’m trying to teach a concept or find something interesting I’ll write it up. The writing process itself acts as a check if I understand something. Then when people have similar questions/problems in the future I can just link. The personal value of the blog makes it worth trying at least.
    - collyw 8y ago
      I have tried it a couple of times (I do have a couple of posts on my github pages). I just don't have the time / motivation combination to do it on a regular basis. I find it quite time consuming writing in a way that makes it clear to others what I am doing. I'll come over to your computer and explain the same concepts in ten minutes that would take me an hour or two to write up and format in a manner that I would want to display publicly. (I find answering questions on Stack Overflow a lot less time consuming to get a useful point across).

nunez 8y ago

I think that this was inevitable given the rise of social media and the Internet. It’s still entirely possible to be a great developer without having a Twitter or Facebook account, but it’s tempting to feel like I’m missing out on information from not subscribing to the latest fight on Twitter.

freshhawk 8y ago

You're at the right place to work out what started it. The aggressive personal branding is clearly spillover of startup hype/marketing/branding styles and techniques. If your whole career has been at startups then that is just called "marketing" to you. Also: it works. "No one ever got fired for going with IBM" is now applied down to the micro-level. Few choose a project because of a code/architecture review, most choose one because it has a good reputation. The industry has fantastic expertise at manufacturing reputations by now.

sixQuarks 8y ago

Once the market is large enough, you're going to have some people at the top who excel at marketing. Look at almost any large market, it's not the "best" products that win, it's the best marketers.

harlanji 8y ago

Similar boat. I’ve been presenting passion projects to user groups / unconferences for a decade. Now, I wasn’t aware at the time but around 2013 seems like the turning point. I was getting tingles then. I never wanted to be a celebrity but it seems my aptitude has sent the wrong signals to some. I refuse to tow company lines, but acknowledge funding of open work or course. Starting to explore other outlets for sohpistic endeavors eg. live streaming (shameless plug, building an open source platform, search: ispooge live). People subscribe and keep coming back and chatting too, didn’t expect that but it’s pretty cool. I feel it can lead to a good career in some way, involving good natural collaboration. Maybe even money ;).

bonesss 8y ago
[Offtopic] I don't know if this is your intention, but your streaming platforms title may be sending different signals than you think: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spooge FreshSpooge and iSpooge sound like awesome product names if you're working for MindGeek, tho ;)

nostrademons 8y ago

Is this actually a new phenomena? I remember when I started programming c. 2000, the big-name programming gurus were folks like Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Uncle Bob, Ron Jeffries, Dave Thomas, Joel Spolsky, Jeff Atwood, Martin Fowler, et al. While some of them mostly knew their stuff, some were outright hacks (Peter Norvig's vs. Ron Jeffries' attempts to create a sudoku solver is one of my favorite examples [1]). Most of their names wouldn't be recognized by someone just getting into programming now. As I've gotten older, I've learned that there's often an inverse correlation between how good a programmer is and how likely you are to have heard of them, because the folks who get good at programming are actually programming and not writing blog articles about programming. Most of the latter are really content marketing, trying to drum up business for consultancies, and so you should treat them as advertisement rather than advice. [1] http://ravimohan.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-solvers.html http://ravimohan.blogspot.com/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-s...

sireat 8y ago
Like everytime Fabrice puts out something you know it is bound to be something interesting: https://bellard.org/ https://bellard.org/ not driven by selling anything.
matte_black 8y ago
This is true for anything. People that are actually doing stuff have no time to talk about it, and people that are talking about it are wasting time by not doing it. So beware of gurus. No one gets that popular without spending a large proportion of their time promoting. In the decade I’ve been programming I’ve never had time to write even one damn article.
christophilus 8y ago
> I've learned that there's often an inverse correlation between how good a programmer is and how likely you are to have heard of them. Yep. I second this. The best programmers on my radar are terrible at self-promotion, and are quite content to be terrible at it.
nallerooth 8y ago
I think this is a very good point. But it's also important to remember that not all programmers/tinkerers that are creating blog posts/videos are looking for fame - some of them are just proud of something they built, and that's fine. Inspiration is a great enabler, and taking a few shortcuts to make something work may be just the thing that allows someone to actually finish one of their projects. The problem is that if you lack the knowledge to see that something is a hack - you learn things the wrong way. Still, without this inspiration - some people wouldn't start to learning at all.

accnumnplus1 8y ago

It's gone mainstream, and just like the internet going mainstream, it isn't what it used to be. These days I only enjoy the programming I do on the weekend.