4 ms·

“Identity” is an overloaded word. It can mean a category flag someone waves, an identifier we ask others to respect, a group we choose to belong to, a way of u

“Identity” is an overloaded word. It can mean a category flag someone waves, an identifier we ask others to respect, a group we choose to belong to, a way of understanding what it is we like about ourselves, or something we quietly aspire to.

actionfromafar 8mo ago
Or just enjoy doing very much. To clarify/nuance. Even if there was no economic nor social incentive for me to program; I'd still tinker with it, AI coding agent enhanced or not.
jacquesm 8mo ago
Or literally a part of the self, which is what the OP was getting at I think. And there is plenty of that in the software world. "I'm a Rubyist", "I'm a Pythonista", "A rustacean" and so on. There is plenty of identity ridiculousness. I've been a C programmer but I've also been a basic programmer an assembly language programmer, a PHP programmer, a FORTH programmer and a whole list of others. To me that collapses to "I'm a programmer" (even if the sage advice on HN by the gurus is to never call yourself a programmer I'm more than happy to do so). It defines what I do, not what or who I am, and it only defines a very small part of what I do. That's one reason why I can't stand the us-vs-them mentality that some programming languages seem to install in their practitioners.
- zabzonk 8mo ago
  > "I'm a Rubyist", "I'm a Pythonista", "A rustacean" it suddenly struck me that there has never, AFAIK, a single-word noun for a C++ programmer. not sure what, if anything, this implies.
  - christophilus 8mo ago
    “I’m a null pointer exception debugger.”
    - aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
      > “I’m a null pointer exception debugger.” NullPointerException is the Java world. In C++, dereferencing a null pointer is rather undefined behaviour.
      - namrog84 8mo ago
        So it's perfectly fitting the noun for c++ dev is undefined behavior :D
  - saghm 8mo ago
    I feel like it implies "it's harder to make a word out of 'C++' than it is for things that already naturally evolved as words people say like 'Ruby', 'Python', or 'Rust'".
  - netule 8mo ago
    I think it’s because C++ programmers tend to define themselves by the domain they work in. Game developer, embedded systems engineer, firmware developer, etc.
  - steve1977 8mo ago
    I'm a Swiftie! Oh wait... oh no...
  - hcs 8mo ago
    A Seymour
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]

actionfromafar 8mo ago

Or just enjoy doing very much. To clarify/nuance. Even if there was no economic nor social incentive for me to program; I'd still tinker with it, AI coding agent enhanced or not.

jacquesm 8mo ago

Or literally a part of the self, which is what the OP was getting at I think. And there is plenty of that in the software world. "I'm a Rubyist", "I'm a Pythonista", "A rustacean" and so on. There is plenty of identity ridiculousness. I've been a C programmer but I've also been a basic programmer an assembly language programmer, a PHP programmer, a FORTH programmer and a whole list of others. To me that collapses to "I'm a programmer" (even if the sage advice on HN by the gurus is to never call yourself a programmer I'm more than happy to do so). It defines what I do, not what or who I am, and it only defines a very small part of what I do. That's one reason why I can't stand the us-vs-them mentality that some programming languages seem to install in their practitioners.

zabzonk 8mo ago
> "I'm a Rubyist", "I'm a Pythonista", "A rustacean" it suddenly struck me that there has never, AFAIK, a single-word noun for a C++ programmer. not sure what, if anything, this implies.
- christophilus 8mo ago
  “I’m a null pointer exception debugger.”
  - aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
    > “I’m a null pointer exception debugger.” NullPointerException is the Java world. In C++, dereferencing a null pointer is rather undefined behaviour.
    - namrog84 8mo ago
      So it's perfectly fitting the noun for c++ dev is undefined behavior :D
- saghm 8mo ago
  I feel like it implies "it's harder to make a word out of 'C++' than it is for things that already naturally evolved as words people say like 'Ruby', 'Python', or 'Rust'".
- netule 8mo ago
  I think it’s because C++ programmers tend to define themselves by the domain they work in. Game developer, embedded systems engineer, firmware developer, etc.
- steve1977 8mo ago
  I'm a Swiftie! Oh wait... oh no...
- hcs 8mo ago
  A Seymour
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]