Longklaw.com

I’ve noticed behaviors and opinions in other programmers that I’ve gone to school with, worked it, or come across in other various ways. These behaviors make me feel like I’m a shitty programmer.  I’ve listed a few.

• I’m not in love with the command line. I started out on the command line, but I love my graphical interfaces. I’m more comfortable in Windows than Linux. Even in Linux, I look for graphical tools. I hate typing out a command to do something that 2 clicks will handle just as well. I heard someone smugly say recently, “We don’t use file explorers in Linux”. I do. People complain about bugs in Windows, but Linux seems far more unstable to me.

• I am not in love with vi. On Solaris systems, I tended to use emacs, but on Linux I started using gedit. When it comes to development, I prefer an IDE. I know that IDEs have a lot of features you don’t need, but the ones that I like make it worth it.

• I don’t like to talk about programming ALL THE TIME. At my first job in this industry, my co-workers had a rule that we didn’t talk about work away from the office. In the years since, I’ve tried to adhere to that rule. I’m the kind of person that needs a break. Some of the co-workers I’ve had since then have made it difficult, talking about work or programming in general throughout lunch, while walking to and from meetings, in the car on the way to some place, etc. Just let my mind have a break.

• I don’t like to participate in random arguments/discussions. I don’t want to argue about which language is better, which framework is better, etc. If it’s related to a specific task, that’s good, but otherwise what’s the point?

• I’m not app crazy. I’m not constantly looking for new apps to do what I can already do pretty well.

• I don’t do a lot of development outside of work. I have ideas for projects that I want to work on in my free time, but I never get around to them because I would rather watch TV or read a book. I can only spend so much time hunched over a computer in a week.

• I have an iPhone. It seems like the majority of programmers love Android phones. I thought about getting an Android phone earlier this year. I even went to the Verizon store to get one. In the end, I kept my iPhone. I have an Android tablet and I love it, but I like Apple devices more. That’s probably because I’m more used to it.

• I don’t speak on every subject like I’m an expert. If I don’t know a lot about something, I’ll tell you I don’t know much about it.

• I don’t like to “read the docs”. I can see some smug, smart ass jerk on stack overflow telling someone to read the docs, maybe even posting a link. Some people don’t learn well that way and I’m one of them. Some documentation is terrible, but I have a hard time focusing on the good documentation long enough to get anything useful out of it. A short explanation and even an example will do much more for me than the docs.

I know I’m not a shitty programmer. I always get great employee evaluations and I’ve been employed for all except 6 weeks since I got my first real job after grad school 8 years ago. I know that many in my profession and other professions feel like others know way more than them. Sometimes I wonder if people think less of me because of the reasons I listed above. It’s probably all in my head.