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It seems like a significant subset of the developer community, or at least that proportion of that posts online, is hung up on questions of identity as related

It seems like a significant subset of the developer community, or at least that proportion of that posts online, is hung up on questions of identity as related to their career. E.g. whether they're a programmer or not, whether they're a "real" programmer, whether they're a skilled programmer, why type of programmer they are, and all manner of critique of others answers to these questions and the set of assumptions and prejudices that underlie them. While I can understand the instincts that drive this phenomenon, does anyone else not think it's all a bit self-absorbed and unnecessary? Like, why is it so important? Is your self-actualisation really so dependent on how you label the activities by which you make money? Bear in mind, to the vast majority of the population, the difference between somebody who "is" a programmer and somebody programs as part of an IT role is a barely existent irrelevance.

tombert 8y ago
I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel like these sort of ontological questions come up a lot when you're a dropout. I had it drilled into my head that if you don't graduate college you will be relegated to a job flipping hamburgers. When I dropped out and managed to achieve roughly the same level of success I would have likely achieved if I had stayed in, it did lead to this feeling of it being "unearned". Especially at first, I had problems with thinking people were judging me all the time, or didn't take me seriously because I didn't have the letters "B.S." or "B.A." after my name. While this was probably true for some people, I think a vast majority of them seriously did not care that I wasn't qualified on paper, since I could do my job OK. I don't disagree that these kinds of problems are self-absorbed and the standard definition of a "first world problem", but I found it kind of unavoidable.
macintux 8y ago
At the very least, when job hunting it helps to have useful labels to hang your hat on. Plus the social aspects: it's very hard to answer the question "so what do you do?".
WorldMaker 8y ago
So much of programming is systems analysis happening entirely in one's head. It doesn't seem surprising to me that sometimes these systems analysis processes get distracted and break the fourth wall / start eating on other parts of one's mind. It seems like an inherent and necessary risk of the profession, even to the extent that maybe someday we'll all look back on and wonder how we ever let programmers exist without serious mental health safety nets in place.
dclowd9901 8y ago
I don't think they're _unimportant_ questions. For just one example, how much money you demand for yourself is directly related to how you value yourself, your value to the company and the value of your work. If you go into those negotiations thinking you're a glorified macro, you're not likely to aim high for what you deserve. If this problem is widespread enough, you have a consistent cultural downward pressure on wages (like basically every other industry suffers). The _only_ reason developers make as much as they do is that a critical mass of them understands how valuable and difficult their work is, how much their work allows the company to grow and profit, and they ask for what they deserve. If we lose that, we're fucked.
commandlinefan 8y ago
I think it's partly driven by fear - a fear that I myself share in spite of having a degree (or maybe because I have a degree?) that the standards are going to change, the ground is going to shift underneath their feet and they'll find themselves no longer employable as programmers, or as anything else after having nothing except programming in their background.
- mikelyons 8y ago
  Every failed interview feels like this has already happened. Which is really not good for someone with a history of depression.

tombert 8y ago

I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel like these sort of ontological questions come up a lot when you're a dropout. I had it drilled into my head that if you don't graduate college you will be relegated to a job flipping hamburgers. When I dropped out and managed to achieve roughly the same level of success I would have likely achieved if I had stayed in, it did lead to this feeling of it being "unearned". Especially at first, I had problems with thinking people were judging me all the time, or didn't take me seriously because I didn't have the letters "B.S." or "B.A." after my name. While this was probably true for some people, I think a vast majority of them seriously did not care that I wasn't qualified on paper, since I could do my job OK. I don't disagree that these kinds of problems are self-absorbed and the standard definition of a "first world problem", but I found it kind of unavoidable.

macintux 8y ago

At the very least, when job hunting it helps to have useful labels to hang your hat on. Plus the social aspects: it's very hard to answer the question "so what do you do?".

WorldMaker 8y ago

So much of programming is systems analysis happening entirely in one's head. It doesn't seem surprising to me that sometimes these systems analysis processes get distracted and break the fourth wall / start eating on other parts of one's mind. It seems like an inherent and necessary risk of the profession, even to the extent that maybe someday we'll all look back on and wonder how we ever let programmers exist without serious mental health safety nets in place.

dclowd9901 8y ago

I don't think they're _unimportant_ questions. For just one example, how much money you demand for yourself is directly related to how you value yourself, your value to the company and the value of your work. If you go into those negotiations thinking you're a glorified macro, you're not likely to aim high for what you deserve. If this problem is widespread enough, you have a consistent cultural downward pressure on wages (like basically every other industry suffers). The _only_ reason developers make as much as they do is that a critical mass of them understands how valuable and difficult their work is, how much their work allows the company to grow and profit, and they ask for what they deserve. If we lose that, we're fucked.

commandlinefan 8y ago

I think it's partly driven by fear - a fear that I myself share in spite of having a degree (or maybe because I have a degree?) that the standards are going to change, the ground is going to shift underneath their feet and they'll find themselves no longer employable as programmers, or as anything else after having nothing except programming in their background.

mikelyons 8y ago
Every failed interview feels like this has already happened. Which is really not good for someone with a history of depression.