[callmeed]

Generally it's just "I write web software for X industry"

Funny story: I was on plane and got to talking to the guy next to me. He asked what I did and I told him (the above line basically). He was thoroughly enthusiastic and kept asking all sorts of questions. I finally got around to asking what he did. He said "Oh, I'm a test pilot for Lockheed Martin" ... Never could figure why he thought my job was cool.

[helveticaman]

Maybe to him jobs can be cool. This isn't the case for a lot of people.

[lallysingh]

Software's one of the last good black arts left. Everyone gets some basic introduction to physics, chemistry[1], etc. through school and Hollywood.

But software's utterly opaque in this department.

[1] Chemistry's always been the one that I didn't get.

[run4yourlives]

Most likely a geek at heart. Test Pilots are basically hackers anyway.

[quantumhobbit]

In mindset and curiosity yes, but to a woman in a bar the equality operator returns a 0.

[beastman82]

And you wonder why

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I think so. I had a girlfriend whose dad was an ex-military test pilot. Judging by all the flight manuals in the garage, he flew pretty much everything in the USAF inventory. Anyway, although he and I never had much of a conversation, she said he was always very interested in what I was working on (medical software). He just wasn't very talkative outside his immediate family.