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I came to the comment section looking for the mercenaries like you, knowing I'd find them, because I knew it was by far the largest group and oddly omitted from

I came to the comment section looking for the mercenaries like you, knowing I'd find them, because I knew it was by far the largest group and oddly omitted from the article. > We self-select into communities of our peers based on these ideals. We use coded language to express these ideals to our peers. But, maybe most of us actually _don't_do this. We all know of the annoying fetishization of "passion" in programming that alienates the majority and it's getting weirder and weirder to keep ignoring it in the real world. Tribalism be damned, deep down, most of us are doing this because it's a pretty fun way to keep our families fed and our minds occupied.

cortesoft 6y ago
People who write about programming in their spare time are people who really like programming. You aren't going to read a blog post by a software 'mercenary' describing their tribe because mercenaries don't work for free. There are many people in all sorts of 'tribes', but only a few of the tribes wrote blogs.
- elliotec 6y ago
  Yeah, I see plenty of articles on either side of the extreme (that obnoxious "Programming sucks" post comes to mind). You have a great point. The large mercenary class in the industry is just not as visible because the nature of it creates a non-vocal majority.
bayindirh 6y ago
Actually, I'm a developer from the second camp: I am a hacker. I make hardware dance to my tune. Why? First of all I enjoy doing things. Understanding the computer, the compiler, how to make use of it more, how to extract more performance from my code while being absolutely correct is making me extremely happy. I feel accomplished. I also apply this knowledge in some scientific applications so, they're not all lost. OTOH, I don't throw eggs to other so-called tribes or the mercenaries, because We're humans and we're different. We have different reasons. I live in this stuff since C64. Not everyone has to. Some likes poetry, others don't. Some listen to classical, others listen to death metal, rap, whatever. I don't expect everyone to like, understand or endorse what I do. The correct baseline is we're expressing ourselves here, including the mercenaries. So, as long as you don't throw eggs at me, we're friends. I'd gladly help you with my knowledge and more importantly, I want to learn from you to broaden my horizon and augment my ideas with yours to try, see and do new things. Tribalism is not inherently bad, the quiet war and fetishization of these tribes are the toxic parts of it. Similarly, being passionate about programming sans the zealotism is not harmful IMHO. These camps provide a nice foundation and philosophy when used correctly. OTOH, I agree that this is a double edged sword and very sharp one indeed. Why not discuss further?
- elliotec 6y ago
  Sure, that's good and all makes sense. I am somewhere in the middle of a venn diagram that includes all these tribes, plus mercenaries and many other things that aren't described, as I'm sure many of us are. I do think it should be discussed further but my original point was that we may be missing out on discussing the unseen majority as much as we do these passionate ones. Then again, perhaps those groups are just not as worth discussing other than in side notes like these HN comments and that's just fine too.

cortesoft 6y ago

People who write about programming in their spare time are people who really like programming. You aren't going to read a blog post by a software 'mercenary' describing their tribe because mercenaries don't work for free. There are many people in all sorts of 'tribes', but only a few of the tribes wrote blogs.

elliotec 6y ago
Yeah, I see plenty of articles on either side of the extreme (that obnoxious "Programming sucks" post comes to mind). You have a great point. The large mercenary class in the industry is just not as visible because the nature of it creates a non-vocal majority.

bayindirh 6y ago

Actually, I'm a developer from the second camp: I am a hacker. I make hardware dance to my tune. Why? First of all I enjoy doing things. Understanding the computer, the compiler, how to make use of it more, how to extract more performance from my code while being absolutely correct is making me extremely happy. I feel accomplished. I also apply this knowledge in some scientific applications so, they're not all lost. OTOH, I don't throw eggs to other so-called tribes or the mercenaries, because We're humans and we're different. We have different reasons. I live in this stuff since C64. Not everyone has to. Some likes poetry, others don't. Some listen to classical, others listen to death metal, rap, whatever. I don't expect everyone to like, understand or endorse what I do. The correct baseline is we're expressing ourselves here, including the mercenaries. So, as long as you don't throw eggs at me, we're friends. I'd gladly help you with my knowledge and more importantly, I want to learn from you to broaden my horizon and augment my ideas with yours to try, see and do new things. Tribalism is not inherently bad, the quiet war and fetishization of these tribes are the toxic parts of it. Similarly, being passionate about programming sans the zealotism is not harmful IMHO. These camps provide a nice foundation and philosophy when used correctly. OTOH, I agree that this is a double edged sword and very sharp one indeed. Why not discuss further?

elliotec 6y ago
Sure, that's good and all makes sense. I am somewhere in the middle of a venn diagram that includes all these tribes, plus mercenaries and many other things that aren't described, as I'm sure many of us are. I do think it should be discussed further but my original point was that we may be missing out on discussing the unseen majority as much as we do these passionate ones. Then again, perhaps those groups are just not as worth discussing other than in side notes like these HN comments and that's just fine too.