What is wrong with us? Why do we choose to enter a profession where we know we will be mocked, scoffed at, made sport of, abused, dismissed, and even shunned, as if we were lepers or lawyers?
Hob-nobbing and elbow-rubbing with fellow techies, you may be able to conveniently dismiss this sorry state of affairs (that programmers and their ilk, unaffectionately termed "computer nerds" by the great [un]washed masses, are viewed at best as a race of alien invaders and at worst as something the cat drug in from the beach during low tide), but let's face it: Programmers are not heroes in the eyes of the masses of humanity.
Look around, and see who it is that is put on a pedestal, esteemed for their accomplishments, and sought out for their advice, perspective, and opinion on every subject under the sun. Is it coders and hackers? Heck no! Is it actors and actresses? Yes! Musicians? Yes, indeed! Athletes? Double yes! Firemen? You betcha!
Why? Because these are things people can identify with: after all, everyone has acted at one time or another. Either you've been in a school play, engaged in a friendly game of charades, or told the boss his tie looked nice or his idea made sense. Nothing much to it, so acting is understandable, something everyone can relate to.
Musicians? Of course, for who hasn't ran their hand up and down the white piano keys, exulting in the crescendo of rising and falling notes, or beat a tom-tom, or taken a few tuba lessons, or at least sung in the shower? Although the media may key in on some of the more offbeat members of this profession, to a certain measure they are understood and accepted by the common folk.
Athletes? Sure, they're in. Why? Because so many people (men, especially) consider themselves to have been the next coming of Jim Thorpe, or Pele, or Michael Jordan, or Mark McGwire. Somehow they got sidetracked, but they "coulda been a contender". So yes, athletes are viewed with respect (albeit also with a certain begrudging envy due to the outsized salaries they make), and are accepted.
Firemen? Well, of course. They put their life on the line. They work in cramped quarters, under tight deadlines, amidst chaos and in blazing heat. So how is that different from programming? Just kidding But still, spraying water on a fire is something everybody has done. You start a fire in your wastebasket, you put it out by dropping a few glasses of water from the bathroom sink into it. You accidentally start a fire on your stove and douse it with a dash of Jolt cola. Wondering if hair is flammable, you hold a lit match to the top of your head. Immediately discovering just how flammable it really is, you quickly smother it with your hand. So what's the big deal? And every boy has dressed up in a fireman suit and (in his imagination) driven the fire truck (or hung on for dear life on the back), scaled the ladder, chopped through walls with his fire axe, stood at the forefront of the fire hose while quenching the ravages of the inferno, saved pretty ladies from the top story of burning buildings, and maybe even rescued a few frightened felines festooned in a farkleberry tree.
But who ever dressed up as a programmer when they were a kid? Cowboys, cops, "army men", maybe even crooks or clowns, but programmers? Get real. Can you picture the scene at K-Mart: "Blue Light Special! Junior-sized pocket protectors, 30% off, aisle 4! Get 'em while they last, for that pint-sized programmer-wannabe in your household!"? I didn't think so.
Part of the problem stems from the way people are raised in our society, too. Who had posters of programmers hanging up in their bedroom while they were growing up? Sure, you can get posters of Shaquille O'Neal, Eminem, Reese Witherspoon (oh, yeah!), and even fictional heroes such as Spiderman and Daredevil, but you won't be able to find posters of Chuck Jazdzewski, Anders Hejlsberg, or Linus Torvalds in the Sears catalog.
You see, the reason people don't esteem programmers and programming is because they don't understand us or it. No kid "play acts" at being a coder, scribbling childish little flow charts representing what he will do if his mother does/does not leave the refrigerator unlocked. If asked what it is that programmers actually do, most people would be at a loss to offer even the wildest of guesses. All they really know is that we're not to be trusted. After all, sometimes we refer to ourselves as "hackers", and that is an [over]loaded word. If we say to them, "You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means," they just stare back at us, with a wary expression. They see us hunkered over our machines, obviously intent on what we're doing and lost in thought. Who knows what we're up to over there? Hacking into their bank account or their college computer system? Will we find out that they painted racing stripes on their pencils in accounting class? Are we deliberately planting time bombs in the code?
When people don't understand things, they respond either with fear, anger, embarrassment, or some combination of the three. And so we are put out of mind, or relegated to a caricature that they can "digest" and laugh off. Oftentimes we get the "wimp" treatment: "Oh, those guys--they're just a bunch of 98-lb. weaklings. All they know or care about is computers." Of course, certain software magnates have done nothing to help us in this area, seemingly reveling in the "Wonder Bread meets Howdy-Doody" couture.
And alas, the beloved media, ever willing to cater to the psychoses of the public at large, has created the nerd/social misfit character and has typecast all of us into that unsavory mold. Think about it: in all the movies you've seen with programmers, aren't we usually depicted as being practically idiot savants? We can do amazing--even magical and miraculous things--with a keyboard in our hands, but we probably can't sing or dance, or even prepare a salad, and would certainly never engage in sports or even try to flatter our bosses (if we had one).
Think of who it is that is lionized in the movies and on television--Who are the "heroes" that our culture teaches us to emulate? Cowboys, boxers, even soldiers and mercenaries. Imagine what it could have done for our image and our social standing if Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis would've played programmers in their movies. On the Waterfront could have been In the Cubicle. True Grit could have been Verified Optimized, Rambo would be Bitflipper, Die Hard would be Code Hard, and Die Hard with a Vengeance would instead be entitled Code Hard with a Beta Release Compiler.
If only that were the case! When they saw us coming, men would step aside ("a lot of men didn't, and lot of men died"). Women would swoon when we strut down the boulevard! It's a PR problem, plain and simple. Hollywood and Madison Avenue are behind a conspiracy to subdue and suppress us. But are we not men (most of us, anyway)? Rise up! Stand up for your rights! Just because you sit on your butt all day every day (oops, I fell victim to the stereotype myself there) doesn't necessarily mean you're out of shape.
As the man said in "Cool Hand Luke", the problem is a failure to communicate. We need to let people know that we are just like them. We are not out to unbalance their checkbook, unravel their past, and unscramble their eggs. We do play music, engage in sports, and even kiss up to the boss from time to time. How can we get our message across? We've got to start in our own neighborhood.
Invite your neighbor over for a "show and tell" of what it is, exactly, that you do for a living. If his eyes glaze over, offer him a doughnut. Explain to him how the compiler works, what syntax checking is, how typecasting is accomplished. You'll learn the real meaning of "Extreme Programming" when your neighbor smacks you upside the head with your 1,600 page copy of "Delphi 7 Developer's Guide" and knocks the plush penguin toy off the top of your monitor as he stalks out the door.
So, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. It's never too late to change professions, though. You could become an actor, a musician, an athlete, or a fireman! It's all easy enough--child's play, in fact. And if that's not an option, you can at least adopt the persona of the practitioners of those fine professions. Practice melodramatic scenes and crocodile tears while begging your boss for a raise; dangle your baby precariously from motel balconies; every time you finish a piece of code, pull a Sharpie™ out of your pocket protector and sign the listing with it; and when you walk by a cat stuck up a tree, for cryin' out loud put the poor thing out of its misery.
