[cursork]

For this comment I'll try to stick to one specific thing. I'll focus on the mechanic analogy, but I do think the premise of the article is flawed. I have some thoughts about burnout in programmers etc. but they aren't well enough formed for a 1am UK time post...

I actually think the analogy of car mechanic is really appropriate. Many people (myself included) could not fix even the most trivial of problems. I have fixed some very very trivial problems by poking around / research, but as a general rule the car has just gone into the garage, and someone else has fixed it for me.

I've also once had a car in the garage for over a week. I briefly mentioned the problem, over the phone, to my non-mechanical grandmother, only to have her diagnose exactly the issue at hand. Simply: She has had the same thing happen to one of her cars. Those mechanics hadn't seen it. So she was correct. But that anecdote doesn't really mean anything. It was just one of those things. Experts can't know everything and those car mechanics will always know more than my gran about cars!

'So at the end of several days' worth of programming, and problem-solving, and forward-thinking, all a programmer might get is a "thanks, now here's the next thing I need you to do."' - yes! That's exactly how mechanics (amongst others) are treated! Who pays a mechanic and says "amazing job" when they don't understand the original problem? It's meaningless faint praise to say good job for something you don't have an inkling of the difficulty of.

The whole article sounds like the author wants programming to be treated as art. I tend to agree that it takes great skill and dedicated learning to become a good programmer. But I don't think that is what defines art. It takes skill and dedication to become a good carpenter, a good brick-layer, a good joiner... But no one gives these guys a round of applause when they do something subtly brilliant. It's only others in their craft that go "hey, that's really pretty nice, well done".

* Sorry. Building references just came to mind. People don't notice when they do a good job, but oh boy do they notice when a not-quite-good-enough job is done!

[thaumaturgy]

I'm actually not really convinced of the programming-as-artform treatment that's popular in a lot of programming circles.

The main difference I was trying to illustrate between mechanics and programmers is that people occasionally get exposed to at least a little bit of the complexity that mechanics have to deal with. That might not make them treat their mechanics as well as they should, of course.

But, in programming, we want to hide as much of the complexity from people as possible. Error messages have to be meaningful to the layperson, interfaces need to be intuitive, and so on.

I haven't been able to think of another discipline quite like that. If anybody else can, I'd love to hear about it!

[cursork]

All analogies break down. Of course.

How about (staying with the building analogies because I'm in a building right now and looking around trying to think of analogies...) the electrician who has wired your flat? You don't think anything of the lights coming on when you flick a switch. Live in a place that's got slightly mediocre wiring, you don't really notice generally, But once in a while it bugs you that the light just blows sometimes. For no reason.

Of course, there's no error messages for a light failing. It doesn't tell us why it failed.

In truth I think our discipline is a unique discipline. Just like everyone else thinks theirs is (tell a plumber they're basically equivalent to a gas engineer or vice versa - but we 'normals' treat them that way). But we tend to concentrate on our new, unique-ish-ness. Our field is young, it has a long way to go. But essentially I don't see why programming needs to be, or should ever be, elevated to a particularly special status.

Point I didn't bother making explicit in my first post: Great music and art both have an effect on people who are not versed in music and art. Great programming only has an effect on fellow programmers.

EDIT

I think my basic point is that we should see our jobs as those where we get our work done. And we do the best job that we possibly can.

That's it. Not over-burdening ourselves for 'just one more push' (I'm currently failing somewhat with this in my current contract - do what I say; not what I do..). We as a group need to realise that like other people, we need to go home sometimes and relax too... That's the most beneficial thing. Not believing that our job is somehow exempt from the work/play balance