8 ms·

This is why calling people "coders" annoys the hell out of me. There was a popular blog post a long way back[1] about how you shouldn't call yourself a "program

by pdpi 7y ago

This is why calling people "coders" annoys the hell out of me. There was a popular blog post a long way back[1] about how you shouldn't call yourself a "programmer" because that builds the expectation that programs are the key output of your work. "Coder" takes this problem even further — your job is no longer to build a program (with all the thought and design work that entails), but rather to type out code. I'm not a coder, or a programmer. I'm a problem solver, and I tend to specialise in the sort of software infrastructure-y problems that are usually solved through code. If you think of yourself as a problem solver first and foremost, then you'll often realise that the best solution involves zero code. This ${problem}-solver versus ${solution}-user gets even worse when people go beyond define themselves as technology-du-jour users, doesn't matter if it's Rails, React, blockchains, big data, ML, AI... 1. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

RussianCow 7y ago
This is why I always respond to questions about what I do with "software engineer". I've noticed people seem to perceive "engineering" as more serious than "programming", and it helps to promote the idea that I build things to solve problems and don't just sit there turning designs into code.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  I've found myself saying "I, uh, build software" lately. I guess because I don't like any of the established terms.
  - wa1987 7y ago
    I tend to avoid the word "building" in the context of describing what I do. After all, the compiler does the building :-) "I design and develop software" is what I usually say. Would be nice if there was a word that captures the idea of someone both designing and constructing the internals of a machine.
    - RussianCow 7y ago
      I try to avoid the word "design" because most people immediately think of graphic design and get the wrong idea of what I do. Even though it's not as technically accurate, I think "building" or "engineering" are better words to use for people not familiar with software development.
- patagonia 7y ago
  From Wikipedia: Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are people who invent, design, analyse, build, and test machines, systems, structures and materials to fulfill objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. If you’re doing that you’re an engineer. Hopefully we are all doing that.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    Unless you're in certain states where engineer is a protected term.
    - patagonia 7y ago
      Exactly. I would welcome changes that would bring software engineering to a state where it was a protected term. If someone used that term I could have a high degree of certainty that they would abide by certain standards both professional and ethical. Such as “certain percentage of test coverage” and “certain big-O tolerance” for different project levels. Etc. otherwise I’d write the person off as a coder.
      - fredsir 7y ago
        Different places have different standards for engineers, and any other title. It doesn’t matter that you call yourself an engineer in any case. What matters in some cases are the standards you use; is it licensed by someone or something, or is it something else? That’s what you should be asking. What are the standards used? You can do engineering without following any official standard, and anyone who do engineering is of course an engineer, so yeah, the protected title thing is just meh.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Engineer is not a "protected term" in any US state that I'm aware of. "Professional Engineer" has a specific licensed meaning but, if I have a degree in mechanical engineering I'm pretty sure I can call myself an engineer anywhere in the US without the licensing police coming after me. (Unless, of course, I imply that I'm licensed when I'm not.)
- taneq 7y ago
  It's funny, I've gone from "I'm a coder" -> "I'm a software developer" -> "I'm a software engineer" -> "I'm a developer" -> "I make useful things."
rorykoehler 7y ago
You're spot on. Regarding your last point though my interpretation of the blockchain hype was that the problem of the business was that they needed quick and easy money. Blockchain investors solved that.
- pdpi 7y ago
  Whether you perceive the problem as one worth solving or not, Bitcoin defined a very specific, if extreme, problem it wanted to solve, and proposed an extreme solution to that extreme problem. There's a few other projects (such as Ethereum) that are also trying to solve some very specific problems. The issue is that the problems that Bitcoin and Ethereum are trying to solve imply almost generating money from thin air. That gave unscrupulous people a lot of silly ideas, on the one hand, and, on the other, gave the people desperate to prove they're "thought leaders" (whatever that means) a lot of different, but still silly, ideas.
archagon 7y ago
I dunno. I’m a programmer because I like solving problems through code, and I’m not really interested in solving problems outside this toolset. Some artists were exclusively painters, and we still call them that.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Picasso could paint a whole house, in one day - two days tops if you wanted multiple colors.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- rustyboy 7y ago
  To you that's great, the article the parent was referencing is from a marketing perspective. He gives the example of quants, they solve financial problems with code. The same is true with data scientist, they just solve analytical problems with code. In both of these situations they're a programmer, but they sound cooler and will go a lot farther when applying for jobs or moving up in a company than the person who labels themselves as "a programmer".
  - pdpi 7y ago
    A quant is somebody who specialised in solving very specific finance problems, and a data scientist is somebody who specialised in solving very specific statistics/data analysis problems. I wouldn't hire myself for a data science or quant role any more than I would hire a data scientist or quant for my role, because there's a whole bunch of ancillary skills that we each have that are required by our respective jobs that go above and beyond just programming.
cc81 7y ago
Problem solver can be the title of pretty much any job though. "I'm a problem solver, I fix problems by diving down and welding broken things at oil platforms" "I'm a problem solver, I make sure the books are correct at the end of the financial year" etc. I mean it is correct but if someone calls themselves a coder/programmer/software engineer (even if they are not real engineers) then I know roughly what they are doing each day even if the value they create and what they are working on can be wildly different. Just like a deep sea welder.
- pdpi 7y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't entirely clear on that bit :) There absolutely is plenty of room for a word more specific than "problem-solver". But our choice of words matters — words carry nuance. In some ways I'd consider "software engineer" as equivalent to "novelist" or "journalist" where "programmer" maps to "writer" and "coder" corresponds to "typist". Software engineer, novelist, journalist all encapsulate a lot of responsibilities, where writer and programmer both talk just about primary means of achieving the job, and coder/typist bring it down to the mechanical skills you require to get the job done.
  - danielscrubs 7y ago
    I’ve posted it before. But it gets confusing on the global stage. Software Engineer is a protected title in some countries. In mine it means studied a great amount of advanced math in college, almost nothing else. We usually prefix it with a word that tells if we studied 3 or 5 years. SE in US seems to mean just Software Developer I guess?
    - agentultra 7y ago
      In Ontario, Canada you can call yourself a Software Engineer. It's prefixing that title with, Professional that will get you in trouble if you're not licensed with the Professional Engineers of Ontario under the Professional Engineers Act. Requirements are pretty high: http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php/ci_id/2057/la_id/1.htm http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php/ci_id/2057/la_id/1.htm But I suppose industry/capitalism loves the fact that we don't require licensing in order to produce software even if use of said software should be safeguarding health, property, economic interests, etc.
avip 7y ago
And on the best of days - involves deleting code.
- monocasa 7y ago
  Classic story: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li...
  - taneq 7y ago
    Fun fact: Bill Atkinson (featured in this story) also wrote the round rect drawing routine for the original Mac. Source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      …among many other things, including writing MacPaint, QuickDraw, and HyperCard.
  - pkaye 7y ago
    My old boss of exceptional at this. He had hired a lead engineer to architect on code to support some new features and hardware. This lead was working on one of the important module.s It was 1300 lines of convoluted code and still not done. At that point the guy quit. My boss spend a day thinking about the requirements and wrote something that made perfect sense in 30 lines of code all one function.
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
machine dompteur ?
beat 7y ago
I often say "That's not programming, that's just typing". (Stole it from someone, can't remember who now.)
beezle 7y ago
Back in the ice age we were called 'programmer analyst' or even 'system analyst'
philwelch 7y ago
I totally appreciate this attitude. One of the most important qualities of software development is to solve the customer's problem with as little code as possible. "I am coder and therefore the more code I write, the more productive and valuable I am" is a blinkered mindset. At the same time, you have to actually describe your profession somehow. Everyone solves problems. Solving problems is definition of productive work. A carpenter solves problems by cutting pieces of wood apart and attaching them together. A bricklayer solves problems by stacking bricks on top of each other, with a bit of mortar in between to smooth them out. A car mechanic solves problems by fixing cars. A surgeon solves problems by cutting people open and fixing their insides. Eventually it turns into a bunch of meaningless MBA platitudes. "We don't 'build houses', we 'deliver solutions' to people's shelter-related problems." If you go to a good surgeon with a problem that isn't going to be fixed with surgery, the surgeon is going to recommend a different solution and possibly even refer you to a different kind of professional. "Hey, you just need to rest that knee and maybe get some physical therapy. Here's a physical therapist I recommend." People understand that surgeons are smart and will occasionally listen to them, so surgeons can get away with this. More importantly, surgeons understand this. Surgeons don't go around thinking, "man, I need to perform even more surgeries because I'm a surgeon and that's what surgeons do" (or, at least, they shouldn't)--they have a deep appreciation of what surgery is and when it is or is not appropriate. So I don't mind thinking of myself as a programmer, because I'm a programmer the same way a surgeon is a surgeon. If you come to me with a problem that cannot be solved by programming, I will tell you that, because to do otherwise would be a form of malpractice.
wltprgm 7y ago
this topic never stops, trust me it's time for you guys to realize this effect from calling yourself "coders"/"programmers"/"problem solvers" are nothing but marketing It's just to impress those who don't know otherwise
fredmorcos 7y ago
> I tend to specialise in the sort of software infrastructure-y problems that are usually solved through code. So basically a coder?

by pdpi 7y ago

RussianCow 7y ago

This is why I always respond to questions about what I do with "software engineer". I've noticed people seem to perceive "engineering" as more serious than "programming", and it helps to promote the idea that I build things to solve problems and don't just sit there turning designs into code.

BurningFrog 7y ago
I've found myself saying "I, uh, build software" lately. I guess because I don't like any of the established terms.
- wa1987 7y ago
  I tend to avoid the word "building" in the context of describing what I do. After all, the compiler does the building :-) "I design and develop software" is what I usually say. Would be nice if there was a word that captures the idea of someone both designing and constructing the internals of a machine.
  - RussianCow 7y ago
    I try to avoid the word "design" because most people immediately think of graphic design and get the wrong idea of what I do. Even though it's not as technically accurate, I think "building" or "engineering" are better words to use for people not familiar with software development.
patagonia 7y ago
From Wikipedia: Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are people who invent, design, analyse, build, and test machines, systems, structures and materials to fulfill objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. If you’re doing that you’re an engineer. Hopefully we are all doing that.
- monocasa 7y ago
  Unless you're in certain states where engineer is a protected term.
  - patagonia 7y ago
    Exactly. I would welcome changes that would bring software engineering to a state where it was a protected term. If someone used that term I could have a high degree of certainty that they would abide by certain standards both professional and ethical. Such as “certain percentage of test coverage” and “certain big-O tolerance” for different project levels. Etc. otherwise I’d write the person off as a coder.
    - fredsir 7y ago
      Different places have different standards for engineers, and any other title. It doesn’t matter that you call yourself an engineer in any case. What matters in some cases are the standards you use; is it licensed by someone or something, or is it something else? That’s what you should be asking. What are the standards used? You can do engineering without following any official standard, and anyone who do engineering is of course an engineer, so yeah, the protected title thing is just meh.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Engineer is not a "protected term" in any US state that I'm aware of. "Professional Engineer" has a specific licensed meaning but, if I have a degree in mechanical engineering I'm pretty sure I can call myself an engineer anywhere in the US without the licensing police coming after me. (Unless, of course, I imply that I'm licensed when I'm not.)
taneq 7y ago
It's funny, I've gone from "I'm a coder" -> "I'm a software developer" -> "I'm a software engineer" -> "I'm a developer" -> "I make useful things."

rorykoehler 7y ago

You're spot on. Regarding your last point though my interpretation of the blockchain hype was that the problem of the business was that they needed quick and easy money. Blockchain investors solved that.

pdpi 7y ago
Whether you perceive the problem as one worth solving or not, Bitcoin defined a very specific, if extreme, problem it wanted to solve, and proposed an extreme solution to that extreme problem. There's a few other projects (such as Ethereum) that are also trying to solve some very specific problems. The issue is that the problems that Bitcoin and Ethereum are trying to solve imply almost generating money from thin air. That gave unscrupulous people a lot of silly ideas, on the one hand, and, on the other, gave the people desperate to prove they're "thought leaders" (whatever that means) a lot of different, but still silly, ideas.

archagon 7y ago

I dunno. I’m a programmer because I like solving problems through code, and I’m not really interested in solving problems outside this toolset. Some artists were exclusively painters, and we still call them that.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Picasso could paint a whole house, in one day - two days tops if you wanted multiple colors.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rustyboy 7y ago
To you that's great, the article the parent was referencing is from a marketing perspective. He gives the example of quants, they solve financial problems with code. The same is true with data scientist, they just solve analytical problems with code. In both of these situations they're a programmer, but they sound cooler and will go a lot farther when applying for jobs or moving up in a company than the person who labels themselves as "a programmer".
- pdpi 7y ago
  A quant is somebody who specialised in solving very specific finance problems, and a data scientist is somebody who specialised in solving very specific statistics/data analysis problems. I wouldn't hire myself for a data science or quant role any more than I would hire a data scientist or quant for my role, because there's a whole bunch of ancillary skills that we each have that are required by our respective jobs that go above and beyond just programming.

cc81 7y ago

Problem solver can be the title of pretty much any job though. "I'm a problem solver, I fix problems by diving down and welding broken things at oil platforms" "I'm a problem solver, I make sure the books are correct at the end of the financial year" etc. I mean it is correct but if someone calls themselves a coder/programmer/software engineer (even if they are not real engineers) then I know roughly what they are doing each day even if the value they create and what they are working on can be wildly different. Just like a deep sea welder.

pdpi 7y ago
Yeah, I wasn't entirely clear on that bit :) There absolutely is plenty of room for a word more specific than "problem-solver". But our choice of words matters — words carry nuance. In some ways I'd consider "software engineer" as equivalent to "novelist" or "journalist" where "programmer" maps to "writer" and "coder" corresponds to "typist". Software engineer, novelist, journalist all encapsulate a lot of responsibilities, where writer and programmer both talk just about primary means of achieving the job, and coder/typist bring it down to the mechanical skills you require to get the job done.
- danielscrubs 7y ago
  I’ve posted it before. But it gets confusing on the global stage. Software Engineer is a protected title in some countries. In mine it means studied a great amount of advanced math in college, almost nothing else. We usually prefix it with a word that tells if we studied 3 or 5 years. SE in US seems to mean just Software Developer I guess?
  - agentultra 7y ago
    In Ontario, Canada you can call yourself a Software Engineer. It's prefixing that title with, Professional that will get you in trouble if you're not licensed with the Professional Engineers of Ontario under the Professional Engineers Act. Requirements are pretty high: http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php/ci_id/2057/la_id/1.htm http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php/ci_id/2057/la_id/1.htm But I suppose industry/capitalism loves the fact that we don't require licensing in order to produce software even if use of said software should be safeguarding health, property, economic interests, etc.

avip 7y ago

And on the best of days - involves deleting code.

monocasa 7y ago
Classic story: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li...
- taneq 7y ago
  Fun fact: Bill Atkinson (featured in this story) also wrote the round rect drawing routine for the original Mac. Source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    …among many other things, including writing MacPaint, QuickDraw, and HyperCard.
- pkaye 7y ago
  My old boss of exceptional at this. He had hired a lead engineer to architect on code to support some new features and hardware. This lead was working on one of the important module.s It was 1300 lines of convoluted code and still not done. At that point the guy quit. My boss spend a day thinking about the requirements and wrote something that made perfect sense in 30 lines of code all one function.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

machine dompteur ?

beat 7y ago

I often say "That's not programming, that's just typing". (Stole it from someone, can't remember who now.)

beezle 7y ago

Back in the ice age we were called 'programmer analyst' or even 'system analyst'

philwelch 7y ago

I totally appreciate this attitude. One of the most important qualities of software development is to solve the customer's problem with as little code as possible. "I am coder and therefore the more code I write, the more productive and valuable I am" is a blinkered mindset. At the same time, you have to actually describe your profession somehow. Everyone solves problems. Solving problems is definition of productive work. A carpenter solves problems by cutting pieces of wood apart and attaching them together. A bricklayer solves problems by stacking bricks on top of each other, with a bit of mortar in between to smooth them out. A car mechanic solves problems by fixing cars. A surgeon solves problems by cutting people open and fixing their insides. Eventually it turns into a bunch of meaningless MBA platitudes. "We don't 'build houses', we 'deliver solutions' to people's shelter-related problems." If you go to a good surgeon with a problem that isn't going to be fixed with surgery, the surgeon is going to recommend a different solution and possibly even refer you to a different kind of professional. "Hey, you just need to rest that knee and maybe get some physical therapy. Here's a physical therapist I recommend." People understand that surgeons are smart and will occasionally listen to them, so surgeons can get away with this. More importantly, surgeons understand this. Surgeons don't go around thinking, "man, I need to perform even more surgeries because I'm a surgeon and that's what surgeons do" (or, at least, they shouldn't)--they have a deep appreciation of what surgery is and when it is or is not appropriate. So I don't mind thinking of myself as a programmer, because I'm a programmer the same way a surgeon is a surgeon. If you come to me with a problem that cannot be solved by programming, I will tell you that, because to do otherwise would be a form of malpractice.

wltprgm 7y ago

this topic never stops, trust me it's time for you guys to realize this effect from calling yourself "coders"/"programmers"/"problem solvers" are nothing but marketing It's just to impress those who don't know otherwise

fredmorcos 7y ago

> I tend to specialise in the sort of software infrastructure-y problems that are usually solved through code. So basically a coder?