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by doktrin 4758 days ago
That's hazy territory. While I understand what you're trying to get across, there's really no point adding layers of hidden meaning and subjectivity to the term "programmer".

(non-software) engineers, lawyers, graphic designers, accountants, chemists, doctors define themselves by occupation and not some subjective non-metric of passion. Why exactly should programming be different?

I'm not arguing that programmers shouldn't be passionate about their work, or work on side projects. However, there's really no point in prevaricating over what a "Real Programmer"(tm) is, beyond the very simple working definition we have.

1 comments

Because we're talking about programming here. If we were talking about music for example, the same will apply. There are singers and there are artists and there is a clear difference in a song well made and a commercial song. Even if the last one makes you more money. But for programmers there's just that one term to use. So the need to point the hidden meanings.
There are no "hidden meanings". You're making them up.

edit :

Words, like functions, work best when their meaning is simple and clear. Like functions, there's nothing wrong with combining them (e.g. "good programmer", "passionate programmer", "programming craftsman", "software composer"), but shoehorning multiple definitions into a single word will just inevitably lead to confusion.