I quit my programmer job to become a chicken | Hacker News Reader

I quit my programmer job to become a chicken

sebastiancarlos.medium.com

509 pointssatvikpendem118 comments

Learning how to speak chicken is not becoming a chicken. That's a frequent misconception that borders cultural appropriation. Chickens aren't just about a few bock-bock and cockle-doodle-doos. They have a rich set of physical expressions as well (flap flaps, head kicks, grating the soil, etc) and a vibrant culture that is transmitted between generations. Their philosophy on death and their capacity to always see life on the sunny-side is both unique and deep, the fruit of seeing their children being picked for food on a daily basis. This should be celebrated. The article completely missed the point on that aspect.

Pretending you became a chicken because you're now performing a few chicken-like sounds is plain wrong, an insult to the poultry community.

You are absolutely correct about the nuance, but I disagree with this 'no true chickenman' argument. We all started somewhere below expert-level.

Clicks on name: Karma >900.

Moment of destiny

Wow the m̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶s̶e̶l̶f̶ chicken herself

On the other hand, learning to talk like a duck and walk like a duck does quality a programmer to identify as a duck, provided they work in Python.

The code in the article is Javascript, written by a chicken and I feel there’s a lesson there somewhere.

By default, talking and walking like a chicken doesn't make you one, but you can always muck around with your prototype if you want to count as one.

Trigger Warning: may elicit images of graphic violence.

Although I agree with your general sentiment, I feel your comment should have been prefixed with a trigger warning. Use of the term ‘sunny-side’ is problematic and insensitive, particularly when used to describe children of chickens.

Life does not begin at laying.

I just knew this would devolve into chicken and egg philosophy.

On the other hand, the first programmer identifying as a chicken occupies a truly unique niche in the DIE ecosystem ...

Of course, within mere weeks, more and more are going to start flocking to interviews.

> identifying as a chicken

Just woke nonsense. If you didn't hatch out of an egg you are not a chicken - end of!

You need to prime the cycle somewhere though, i.e. Either someone started identifying as a chicken and laying eggs, or someone started identifying as an egg and transformed into a chicken.

That whole pure astral energy egg inception has no scientific basis and comes entirely from poultryian cults chickenshit

I don’t think anyone was implying that at a literal level, no need to get triggered.

I think GP was understood the joke as was continuing the parody... Buy with all the people having conniptions about "litter boxes in schools" it's honestly hard to tell.

“Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken” - Chuck

I can't tell if you're actually quoting the show Chuck or just summarizing charles_f's comment and attributing it to "Chuck", which is a nickname for Charles.

It's a quote from the book, Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk.

A more appropriate way of putting was

"chucking up feathers up your cloaca doesn't make you a chicken"

I think it's attributed to an anonymous chuck, since that's also slang for a hen.

The comment has many levels.

Many layers?

I'll save that for Tor jokes

Or to quote Wellington (accused of being irish), being born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse.

Now you are just bickering. Please show more respect for op and their accomplishments

They didn't do all that to be roasted on the internet

Yea, this is chickenwashing.

This happens all too often and furthermore is a problem beyond the chicken realm. Attention to detail is an integral part of human life and it is disgusting to see mere humans pretend to comprehend the intricacies of escaping beyond their mortal self, just for internet points.

> life on the sunny side

Yeesh

I wonder if this is a parody of all those comments/articles about quitting programming to go into carpentry, or woodworking, or farming, etc.

I no longer build software - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24541964

Why software engineers like woodworking - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687378

Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492110

---

The author also has some other hilarious articles:

- How to get over your Impostor Syndrome and become a Professional Fraudster

- Programmers, Please Stop Referring to your Significant Others as "Sugar Babies," You are Not That Rich (Also, They are Not That Hot)

- How to Reassert Dominance in the Zoom Era as a Tech Bro

- Book Review: 95 JavaScript Theses - I’ve been reading a lot of JavaScript books lately, and I have to say that "95 JavaScript Theses" is the best thing since the Protestant reformation.

As both the guilty party behind "I no longer build software" and the keeper of some chickens, I'd just like to suggest that anyone who wants to get out of software strongly consider woodworking over becoming a chicken.

I still have all ten fingers.

For comparison, we have acquired fifteen chickens over the last two and a half years and now have five. We lost two to a bear that broke into the coop[0], turned an aggressive rooster into soup, and the rest to foxes. They mostly stay cooped up lately unless we're around :-/

EDITED TO ADD:

Oh yeah, I really do still write code from time to time!

https://github.com/longwalkwoodworking

[0] The coop now has an electric fence around it like some kind of cock-a-doodle-gulag.

Maybe you can make it a sort of cage fighting ring for chickens? Apparently needs to be strong enough to keep out a bear.

Sounds like you need a guard dog

And this video of his is also quite funny

https://youtu.be/8Gi3MLBLMUE

Just another wage-slave burnt out programmer casting off the yolk of bondage.

…after having been left a shell of their former self.

Feeling like life was whisked away.

At least he only quit to become a chicken. Better that than to become a pig!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_and_the_Pig

Most slave-labouring humans aren't much more than pigs in the fable's sense.

Git should have been called pig, because they commit.

It made me think of

Eat, Pray, Herd. How an I.T. Guy Found Career Happiness Owning 78 Camels https://www.wsj.com/articles/camel-herder-career-change-cana...

For those who would like a slightly more technical overview of this subject, I can recommend this research paper: https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

Yeah, the paper provides good insight into the phenomenon. Doug also gives a really good presentation on the same material: https://youtu.be/yL_-1d9OSdk

This! Holy mother of chickens, this. Exactly this and nothing else, as a matter of fact.

The industry I'm in, it's very weird. Why did I choose this life, again?

It looks like TFA uses some diagrams from that pdf without attribution. I get that we’re firmly in the realm of absurdity, but it still feels… cheep

Cheep. Cheep.

Cheep cheep cheep.

For those who prefer the video format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk

I forgot about chicken.pdf... it's great to print to a buddy's networked printer as a prank

Presentation and slides: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk

Chicken!

I’m happy that the author was able to become a chicken. I am! However, I think he is a bit brazen with regards to this attitude of his:

> Bwok bwok bwok, puk puk pukaaak! Cluckity cluck cluck, puk puk pukaaak! Bwwwaaaaaaaaaak!

I know many engineers who would love to become chickens. But they also have responsibilities. They can’t just drop everything and commit to the faunamorphosis. Not to mention that faunamorphosis costs so much that pretty much only FAANG salaried folks can go through with their chicken dream -- and especially now in this economy.

On a similar note.

"It's not a question of wanting to be a mouse — it just sort of happens to you... All of a sudden you realize… that's what you want to be."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_Problem

Of course, becoming a mouse is ambiguous in the programming world. If you want to become a mouse, please specify the correct namespace first.

Becoming a chicken is much easier. It just autoloads without any extra specification.

This c̶l̶i̶c̶k̶chickbait article fails to answer the question on why the programmer crossed the road to become a chicken, and whether they went from programmer → egg → chicken, or just programmer → chicken.

Your comment had me wondering how you did the strikethrough, since HN doesn't support it. U+0336 "Combining Long Stroke Overlay", clever.

I really did not expect to learn anything here, of all places.

I think he addressed it right in this excerpt!

> Cluckity cluck Cluck-cluck-cluck Bwak pukaaak Bwak Cluck. Cluck-a-buh-gawk Bwak Waaak Bok Waaak Cluck-cluck-cluck. Cluckity Cock-a-doodle-doo!

GPT-3 says otherwise: https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-Image-2022-11-20-08-0...

How many roads must a programmer cross down before you can call them a chicken?

This is from the same guy who wrote the absolutely wonderful NAND gate article[1] that also featured on HN about a year ago (and was taken surprisingly serious) [2].

[1] https://sebastiancarlos.medium.com/the-nand-gate-one-gate-to...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28756727

It’s fascinating because it (inadvertently, maybe) shows that you can’t do satire without understanding the topic. The author seemingly set off to make fun of digital something, couldn’t grok it, and settled for documenting an afternoon sort of trying.

The nerds missed the joke and jumped in wanting to help, marking one of the first times I’ve seen this dynamic play out at this level of engagement in web space, although it happens all the time irl.

The author even comments he was trying to capture the “saudade” of trying to understand something using web sources.

If anyone else struggles with the concept of "saudade", the Portuguese entry to this year's Eurovision Song Contest explains it beautifully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQul-rkcGPQ

I was programming at home for my job last week and heard my free reigning chickens make a lot of noise.

Went outside and saw a coyote with one of them in it's mouth.

I chased it away. I'm sick of being in front of a screen all day, but grateful I don't have to worry about being killed by wild animals on a daily basis.

Do chickens actually worry about this?

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

But what do electric sheep dream of?

I was just feeling down as I completed a 3 hour code screen where I was supposed to be recording my screen the whole time I worked, but somehow I botched it and don't have any recording to show. Awkward and my own fault...

Those chicken diagrams got a legitimate smile and chuckle out of me though. Thanks for the day brightener!!

Reminded me a bit of this "Microservices" youtube sketch which also includes a surreal architecture diagram (and is very funny):

https://youtu.be/y8OnoxKotPQ

In all seriousness, part of me wants to replace all coding questions in future interviews with the code from this article. It isn't hard to follow, it just looks absurd. So if people can follow it, they can code -- No more FizzBuzz - just CluckCluckity.

I'm surprised the code is not written in Chicken [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_(Scheme_implementation...

Or in Braincluck

Reminds me of this great HN thread [1]

[1]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326511

wow this was fantastic. thank you!

This is the first article I’ve clicked before going right to comments in months

This is the kind of high quality technical content I come here for.

Bok bok cluckity SQUAAK

Just a reminder that classic joke:

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"To get to the other side!"

Is not just a stupid anti-joke about crossing the road, it is a dark joke about a chicken going to the other side of life (death).

That’s likely ret-conning the joke - first, the earliest references (mid 1800s) say “to get on the other side” which doesn’t track to the dark interpretation as well.

Also, in the mid 1800s, crossing a road wouldn’t pose any danger to a chicken. A railroad track - yes, a factory floor - sure, but a road? Used mostly for foot or carriage traffic? No danger whatsoever - a chicken can move more than fast enough to get out of the way of even a quickly driven carriage.

Third, and most importantly, it was a common minstrel show line, and minstrel shows were filled with anti-humor.

Sometimes the easiest and most obvious answer is actually the right one.

This feels like my brain after a week of agile/scrum/bullshit meetings and processes that get in the way of creating software. Takes the weekend to go return to normal.

Cluckbait.

What the cluck? At first I thought this would be the “chicken printer” story I’ve read before but was pleasantly surprised! Peep on clucking on!

Is this because AI has destroyed all the software jobs? Is it really more lucrative to become a factory farmed chicken these days? I'm worried.

It’s difficult to tell from the photo, but I suspect this developer still had enough privilege to elect a more free-range lifestyle.

I expected chicken scheme

Reminds me of the paper "Chicken Chicken Chicken" which made us chuckle at the lab some years ago

https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf