[SudoNhim]

I understand the feeling of needing to "catch up" to fit in. For the first three years after I started programming I kept my work almost completely private, I felt so far behind. I wrote several hundred projects that I never showed to anybody, and didn't even keep. I still feel the gap a little bit today (five years in), but it seems mostly gone.

I fit the programmer archetype exactly, and it took me three years of near constant engagement before I felt I could even begin to fit in (culturally) with experienced programmers. I can easily imagine the task is considerably harder if you don't fit the archetype.

On the flip-side - the desire to "catch up", and the solitary nature of the challenge lent me considerably more motivation and creativity than I seem to have now that I have "acclimatized".

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I'm very interested to see how it is going to turn out for my sister. She's a very talented programmer, but she doesn't try to immerse herself in the culture of it at all, rather she is treating it as an auxiliary skill to her studies in GIS. I feel some smug satisfaction knowing she is coding circles around most of the guys in her classes, despite not taking on the identity of "I am a programmer".