[TallboyOne]

I very much disagree. I'm not talking about "glamour" in terms of a celebrity and red carpet, that's just stupid.

My definition of glamour is (and I'm sure what most of the normal world considers glamorous outside of celebrities)...

1. I can travel, where I want, when I want

2. I can buy nice things. MAYBE even a ferrari, in good time. Not right now, but it is absolutely in the realm of possibility

3. I can work from home, I can work in an office. I can work wherever I like. I can move to different states, and different cities at the drop of a hat.

4. I can take a break if I want to, and I can resume when I want to

5. I have true FREEDOM.

I mentioned my desk and working area because (although it's trivial, and not one of my main points), most people are chained to some slave job, so when they walk in my house their first reaction is usually .. "wow! this would be great to work here!"

And that to me is glamour, hardly a "trailer-park idea of glamour". That just makes it sound like you are bitter. All of the points I reiterated are ones I said in my original post but that you graciously ignored in favor of challenging my one trivial answer.

[coldtea]

Only it's not about "your definition of glamour", it's about the general definition of glamour. TFA talks about the glamorous presentation of programmers in some movies and media specifically (in which they mostly represent the top dog entrepreneur programmers -- think Justin Timberlake on the Social Network et al).

I mean, which part of TFA's "depicts a tale of the less than 1% of programmers who become extremely rich, famous and successful, practically overnight" is difficult to understand?

Not even telecommuting and having a good salary and "bonsai trees" is not the same at all as the kind of glamorous the media (and TFA) describes, it's also not representative of the 95% of programmers.

Most of the 1-5 points you note apply to a lot of professions. In fact you see all those benefits far more often in other fields than you do in programming. And it sure is not in the typical percentiles for programming jobs.

Plus point 5 is bogus. Either you have money to do anything you wont (including not working), or you don't have freedom. This has nothing to do with programming. It's not even orthogonal, as the vast majority of programmers are not rich and the vast majority of rich people are not programmers. If you mean you have "inner freedom", then that you can have also bumming in the streets.

>And that to me is glamour, hardly a "trailer-park idea of glamour".

It sure is not the general middle class idea of glamour. Which is what TFA is about (Ferraris, partying all night, red carpet events, etc).

[EliRivers]

Oh, well, if we're allowed to redefine the words as we go, MY job is way glamourous. I can drink tea out of any mug I choose to bring in with me. Oh yes. Now THAT'S glamour.

[TallboyOne]

That's not glamour because that's not what most people idealize.

People idealize freedom (money, traveling, time).

All things provided by programming. Or more specifically, things which can be reasonably obtained if you are a programmer.

[EliRivers]

The only special thing about programming is that you can do it remotely far more easily than, for example, chemical engineering or landscaping (on the downside, a lot of people do; the barrier to entry is low, so we get a lot of bad software). In all other respects, everything you've said applies equally to those and a million other jobs.