You Shouldn't Become a Programmer

The entire point of this article is to make us all mad. Let's not be silly by giving the author what they want.

The post lost me here. Sounds like the author has just worked at some really bad places. That or I live in a bubble and what the author is describing is typical.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've worked in a large software house for over a decade and I'm enjoying a lot of creative freedom when it comes to the code I'm writing.

To me this reads more like reasons not to work at this person's particular company.

But now, I'm looking for a new job, and what I feel with permanent positions as a full stack developer I'm applying for, is that business/management people are looking for nerdy people to EXECUTE their visions ("heyyyy we need a ninja hacker, you'll have free beers and pizzas !").

Sometimes I have the feeling that if I introduce myself as a developer, I look like 10 times worse than what I actually am.

PS: I'm not living in California, developers are not considered rockstars everywhere in the world, unfortunately.

The CEO image and salary will be long gone (see what happens to banks, insurance companies, car companies). The same thing will happen to all other service aspects (e.g. law, medicine). And programmers are the one that would cause it.

When I started out in this field, I actually took a pay cut. But I loved the job, I followed trends and educated myself and was luckily to work for good managers. And I am still doing the work and did all I can to avoid being a manager.

But about 25 or so years ago, I started seeing people getting into the field just for the pay and cared little for the work. This has been accelerating since.

Some were good, but many were rather bad in various degrees at the job, so others would have to step in to fix their work. But they were all good at marketing themselves and dotting the 'iS' and crossing the 'tS', so they were able to hang on until get they got into management, which may have been to be their main goal. In fact one I know was this way but ended up being a very good manager after a year or two of moving to that position.

I wonder if he was one of those and was not able to 'move up'. (even though he may be good at is work). I just put up with the BS at work so I can feed my 'habit', which in comparison makes the BS seem trivial.

Edit: Literally the BEST decision I made was to become a programmer. Nearly EVERY door that has opened has been the direct or indirect result of my own ability to build whatever my imagination can conceive. "Mike" sounds like someone who just wants to rationalize away their insufferable job.

For a broader view, years ago I read the book, "Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don't" by Jeffery Pfeffer, and it was an excellent object lesson in understanding how and why companies work the way they work, how decisions are made, and why you can do the same job in different organizations and yet have a totally different experience one organization to the next.

LMFAO. My biggest challenge is getting my manager to tell me what the hell to do.

What an absurd assertion.

I think the real downside to becoming "a programmer" is the antisocial tendencies that arise from staring at a screen all day, hyper-analyzing esoteric patterns of symbols. This tendency leaks into other aspects of life that don't benefit from an intellectual breakdown. It's plain to see the author is upset about something, but they defer to their analysis of programming as a profession instead of the stark reality of their emotional state.

Of all my experiences at software companies that value software, I can't say many of these ring true.

So what are you going to do about it? Looks like the author chose to complain.

Disagreeing is not hatred, even derision is not hatred. Come on. Nobody hates this person. I really wish people would stop with this little bit of theatrics.