Someone (I couldn’t find out who, if you know, contact me please) wrote an article that says Programming Can Ruin Your Life. Of course, with that title, it must go on reddit, right?
So how can programming ruin your life?
Sadly, no one ever tells you about the ways in which it will adversely affect your life. The physical effects are obvious. You’ll spend most of your time sitting, probably in an uncomfortable chair that doesn’t promote good posture. You’ll fuel yourself with food that is readily available, meaning it’s more than likely processed and full of sugar and you’ll likely choose either coffee or soda to stave off the drowsiness. A coworker once remarked, “If it doesn’t come out of a vending machine, programmers don’t eat it.”
How stupid is that? So, because programming is so brain-consuming or addictive or whatever, your hypothetical programmer won’t know how eat properly or exercise? Sorry to disappoint you here, anonymous writer, but not all coders are anti-social fat suckers who spend all night in front of the computer.
Also, even if you learned in English class that you can close an argument in an essay with anecdotal evidence, I would recommend inventing a coworker who has not undergone lobotomy next time.
The text goes on saying that “[p]rogramming changes more than your body. Programming changes the way you think.” Well, yup.
The application of programming specific processes and habits to the everyday is where peril lies. The same traits that make you a great programmer can make you an awkward, misunderstood and miserable human being.
What the fuck?
Programming presents you with a problem and allows you to eventually solve it provided you don’t quit. A solution is out there somewhere. Make enough attempts and chances are you’ll eventually prevail. Aren’t computers great? They afford a large degree of freedom in problem solving. If nothing else, you are able to make as may attempts as you please and it will happily execute each one. This instills in you a sense that failure is not final. Any obstacle can be hurdled. This is not true in the real world. While you may find second chances now and again, the wheels that turn in the big blue room are largely unforgiving. Time marches on in one direction.
Okay, I’ll have to address this from a few different directions, because it is mind-fuckingly stupid in so many dimensions.
First we have the claim that failure is not possible in programming. Hello? Does a nontrivial problem somehow go away just because I try again? No, of course it does not.
Then, what is it with the philosophical attitude? “[T]he wheels that turn in the big blue room are largely unforgiving. Time marches on in one direction.” Somehow the author seems to think he has it all figured out: life, the universe and everything. Maybe this delusion is the reason for this rambling piece of shit text.
And finally, we have the idea (again) of the coder as a trained monkey who can only deal with his surroundings in the context of a computer. That everybody who decides to create software for fun or profit suddenly loses their connection to reality. I could maybe write a thousand words just about the stupidity of that claim alone, if I wasn’t sure that no one would read it.
The text goes on, but this is the gist: Because programmers are so terribly obsessed with what they do, and because they are also idiot savants, they are compelled to apply their silly ways of solving problems in the computer to every fucking situation in their lives. They just don’t know better.
Me, I disagree. What about you?
You’re taking this all a bit too seriously, my friend. I never said all coders were fat and anti-social. I happen to be neither. However, when working on a project on site, it’s a lot easier to quickly head to the vending machine than scare up some decent food. And the co-worker was no invention. He actually said that to me. Here’s the thing about real people, some of them are funny.
It is interesting how varied the reactions to this article have been .
I admire your stamina for being able to get that far into such dreck.
Idiotic doesn’t begin to describe the argument put forth.
well i wasnt mad at the article with programming can ruin your life, not because i took offence anyway… i just didnt like what was written, it didnt sound so specific…
i was also bored about it to an extent
sorry if this offends you though but this is the truth for me.
bye!
I can’t agree more! That post was pure nonsense. I am sorry to say it, but this is exactly how I perceive it. There are so many generalizations and assumptions about everyone else that the whole thing reads as if it was a high school essay on weather mechanisms (as I remember reading quite a horrifying one)..
Programming does make you a different person, but it doesn’t make you a crazy nerd.
I agree with devizen.
After 8 years as an enterprise developer working too many hours, I can relate to his article.
I guess it’s a personality thing, but I also really felt a lot of what he was saying. My years as a programmer really did ruin a lot of aspects of my personality. I couldn’t leave the problems at work, they were always running through my head and I became very withdrawn and constantly preoccupied. And depressed. I wouldn’t go back to being a full time programmer for a lot of money. I could see where a more experienced programmer might get past these things. But I never did.
The stupidest statement on that blog was “A good programmer would rather leave a problem temporarily unsolved than solve it poorly”. From this and the preceding lines, one gathers this guy thinks writing poor programs is an optimum solution. I feel sorry for the poor programmers who have to debug his code.
I also agreed with much of what devizen had to say but I felt some of the post was specific to his experience rather than mine.
You seem to be taking it too literally.
By the way swearing and ridiculing an argument do not help your case, it just makes you seem young.
I’m a software developer AND a personal trainer (almost). I got muscles, and I run. Ha!
Actually to further elaborate – if you’re not exercising and generally being healthy – it’s not a thing that’s limited to enterprise software development, it’s everywhere.
Another trait of good programmers is to carefully read specs and make sure you understand the verbage used. Try re-reading that sentance. He’s saying that good programmers will wait until they come up with a good solution rather than put in the first piece of tripe they come up with.
And to the argument as a whole. There are certainly different types of programmers. On the whole, those who don’t like the original article seem to be the type where programming is their job. They may enjoy it, but it’s not everything to them. The other camp (which I admittedly belong to) are the kind who can’t stop thinking about it, who go to sleep thinking about it, wake up thinking about it, and will interrupt brushing their teeth if they come up with a clean new way to do something. The kinds of people who obsess about it.
While the article wasn’t great, your knee-jerk reaction reveals even more about its author:
“First we have the claim that failure is not possible in programming. ”
What line exactly did he say that on?
“[T]he wheels that turn in the big blue room are largely unforgiving. Time marches on in one direction.”
You said: Somehow the author seems to think he has it all figured out: life, the universe and everything.
Huh?
Talk about reading too much into something.
Next time hit the gym instead of responding to dribble with your own.
@a goat,
While I fall also in the obsessive programmer group, I do recognize the need for healthy diet and exercise. Saying that just because I’m fit and healthy, it means I don’t obsess about programming is just wrong.
@anon,
The original author does say:
This implies that there are no problems in programming that can’t be solved. I do agree that it’s a tenuous implication, at best.
It’s fun. ATP Subscribe to the RCC perhaps