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>You don’t go around telling people you only code for the money while you still need a coding job, that’s suicide. You have to say you code for the challenge at
by jasode 12y ago
>You don’t go around telling people you only code for the money while you still need a coding job, that’s suicide. You have to say you code for the challenge at minimum, or the beauty of naked logic or the unlimited power to create, if you want to really sell it. [...] I am not a sociologist, but I believe pretty firmly that this is the most fundamental thing keeping tech from being more diverse. It asks us to fundamentally change how we portray ourselves, to be programmers first and everything else merely in the last twenty characters of our twitter bio.
Two observations...
First, I'm not sure why this was submitted to HN since I presume that HN's demographic genuinely likes/loves to program and they do not wear a fake mask pretending they do. HN is the wrong audience for this message.
Second, whenever a topic about companies expressing a preference for "passionate programmers who also do it as a hobby", many forum posters will emphatically push back with "it's enough I code for 8 hours a day". What's unknown is what % of programmers worldwide express that sentiment publicly among their coworkers (and possibly managers) as opposed to keeping it a secret.
- sp332 12y agoYou might be overestimating the passion people here have for programming. If you're starting a company, programming is really a means to an end. Some people here are non-technical cofounders who don't code at all.
- adestefan 12y agoThen I'm one of the few that hate it. I have no idea how people bang out another CRUD app in the latest fad language/framework/pattern du jour. I don't get excited when someone announces a new language. I know C, I know enough python to get by, but I sure as hell can rip apart a stack down the logic level if you want me to. What I do love to do is solve problems. Sometimes the problem is to come up with a clever algorithm, sometimes it's to fix a piece of broken software, usually it's figure out how the hell something works. In the end I despise any time that I actually have to write code. I know that I'll never get a job because of my programming. I'll never have any wiz bang open source project to show someone. But in the end I have plenty of opportunities because I solve problems.