My apologies. I did not think you expected respect free of charge. Your description of your job as that of a "code monkey" suggested to me that you were at the

My apologies. I did not think you expected respect free of charge. Your description of your job as that of a "code monkey" suggested to me that you were at the most entry level of programming work, and had yet to "pay your dues", as it were. Since you've been working hard at becoming a good programmer, I suspect you'd have the respect of a lot of folks on this forum, but obtaining the respect of those who control the corporate world is a whole other story, and one that I don't claim to understand. I will thus leave you with one more apology for misunderstanding your initial post, and bid you a welcome to Hacker News.