[rrmm]

I kind of wonder about the 'high-stress.' Why is programming (or whatever you want to call it) high-stress? I mean there doesn't seem like there would be an inherent reason for it to be high-stress just considering the task. And what about women in jobs like nurses and teachers?

[usmeteora]

Programming is high stress in a lot of situations. Its very mentally challenging work but I completely understand your question, especially in relation to nurses who are dealing with life and death situations on a daily basis or teachers who are privileged with venues of essentially being able to teach parent and influence young minds and pivot their future.

I don't want to do programmers a disservice by making the comparison to wallstreet, but I only make the comparison in that stakes are high maybe not with life or death situations (but it could be, because software applies to many things, including technology equipment in healthcare and military or otherwise where peoples well being depends in some way on it) but in general, there is a lot of work to be done, with hard deadlines, and alot of money to be lost or made depending on the rollout, and quality of the code.

Furthermore when the money is good (the ability for the next "unicorn" to make billions or say google to roll out a feature that engages literally billions of users and make money off of that) the pressure it high. You don't want to mess things up. Furthermore, when the money is good, as in potential to make lots of money or otherwise have a huge impact on a lot of people or both, there is alot of competition. You may if you are not in tech think of programmers as esoteric nerdy elites, but in general, getting a job at google say, is not a walk in the park. Many people apply, few are given offers to put it short. The level of rigor is high, and its generally expected that you will put in the hours you need to to get the job done, because theres probably someone more or equally qualified than you that would love to have your position in the next round of tends of thousands of applicants places like Google gets annually.

You do what you need to do to get the job done, meaning nights or weekends, and you are compensated well, treated well, have access to good healthcare food etc. The goal is to alleviate stress caused by financial strein in other areas of your life, so you can focus on work.

In the same way, there is a lot of freedom. If you excel and get the job done in 8 hours a day good for you, but with that level of rigor its also expected that you are probably motivated to do even more outside your job role, which is why Google has 20% time, where employees work on their own projects or projects with other people, and alot of google most successful rollouts to the public and probably internally as well, are a result of employees taking their own initiative outside of their explicit job roles to build and contribute.

These things are all possible I'm sure with nurses and teachers, but those jobs are highly regulated, and in general those jobs allow you to leave at certain times everyday. Being a nurse, as some of my family members are nurses I know is alot of work in school and on the job, but you are on shift, and you can leave when shift is over. This is not the case for a programmer.

You are given work, expected to get it done in your own way, however much time that takes for you, as long as its done on time and it works and has the expected or above quality, and then contribute even more typically and consistently show initiative beyond your job role.

Many programmers work on live components like the internet. An example is when someone at a big tech company last year or maybe earlier this year, entered a typo in a command line while executing a script/small computer program that brought down servers hosting roughly 1/3 of the internet websites hosted in the Unites States, think of the impact.

The same goes for software running wallstreet and otherwise. If the software were to crash, the consequences are dire whether in terms of money, global telecommunications and the busineses that utilize them or in some cases software directly related to human health etc.

Hope that answers some of your question.

[rrmm]

Thanks for the nice reply. I do confess though my comment was a bit rhetorical as I'm a programmer myself.

The list of things you point out consists of mostly external factors. I know where they come from and that they seem essential since those are the conditions that all of us are familiar with, but to a large degree, they are ultimately historical impositions: that is how the job has come to be practiced. (There are of course practical concerns that shape how this came to be; namely, the difficulty of getting all the pertinant information necessary to make any changes on a piece of software or debug it).

So there is definitely a cultural aspect of it, but much of the culture may not be strictly necessary to the product. Consider for example Torvalds' rather blunt manner. I am fond of being blunt and I enjoy being a bit combative and adversarial when it comes to advocating ideas. I've seen this attitude commonly in various academic/industry/scientific. To an extent it's useful. But it can become a sport unto itself and mean-spirited easily, especially in unskilled hands. I suspect a great many people would not like to work in such an environment.

My own suspicion is that technical fields tend to attract a lot of people who have trouble reading/relating to emotions and males who've had little contact with women, a lot of contact with bullies, fragile egos, and a need to fit in. It gets ugly fast.