jbhouse

check out termux. it's a command line on android

Anecdotally speaking, I would disagree and would argue that the social status of software developers is actually quite high, given two prerequisites

1: You must overcome the immediate uber-nerd stereotype by being in relatively good shape and having basic social skills (small talk)

2: You need to give people a minute to google "average software developer salary"

Sure, you won't have the social cache of a Doctor, but I'd say it puts you pretty high in the social hierarchy based on personal experience.

Dropping the Java class =/= dropping out of college. At most it means dropping/switching their major.

I agree with your points about perceived burnout and ageism. I disagree with the anecdote about difficulty of the Java class. I don't have any first-hand experience with calculus, or any other STEM classes (was a communications major before self-teaching/bootcamp) but I would imagine the difficulty there would be pretty comparable

How common is this 55+ hours a week thing, really? I've only been a developer for 2.5 years now, and I spend some of my own time, say an hour a day (3 hours a night, once every three nights usually) working on side projects, and another hour reading technical articles or tech blog posts.

But I've never had a manager ask or pressure me to work more than 40 hours a week. In fact, they opposite is true, they've actually often discouraged me from working outside of core work hours because they don't want their developers to get burned out. Maybe I'm just fortunate that I'm smart enough, and productive enough, to get everything done in the 40 hour work week and I should feel blessed to be as smart as I am? (generally in the top 3-5% on all standardized tests throughout my life)

But to the best of my knowledge, my coworkers weren't being pressured to work more than 40 hours a week either. Or maybe they felt ashamed of having to work more than 40 hours to keep up and didn't mention it? Maybe the pressure wasn't direct pressure from management, but an indirect pressure just to keep up with everyone else?

Maybe it's the benefit of working in the Midwest?

I don't honestly know. But I can say that in my (short) time at both companies I've worked for, I've only met one developer that reported being asked or pressured to work more than 40 hours a week. So it just seems so strange to me to keep hearing it as a truism on here.

Sounds super interesting, though it's not something I've heard of before. Is this a common practice I haven't heard of or a process unique to your company?