[fit2rule]

I make roads for a living. (Well, my software does.)

Actually this has been a bit of a boon for me - whereas in the past peoples eyes would glaze over when I told them about SIL-4 practices and other such nonsense involved in keeping the trains running on time (safely), nowadays I can just point at the road and say - software makes this happen, now.

Software is boring. What the software does - now _that_ captures peoples interest!

[arethuza]

My view is that software is fascinating and the real world problems you can solve with it are also fascinating - so it is a double win!

[fit2rule]

I of course meant in the social context - if I didn't think software was interesting I wouldn't be involved with it. But I have to say that this is an article about the social effect of explaining what you do to people - so many times, young developers come to the scene wanting to be rock stars, whereas that's just simply not going to happen in software. If you want to be a rock star, learn to play the guitar and rock ass.. but if you want people to understand why your job as a developer is so cool, you have to be prepared to explain it to them. If a person doesn't have the humility to describe your task in a way that people will understand - they've got a ways to go as a developer.

Saying "I make a logistics/analysis/solver system for mowing lawn - i.e. I'm a gardener" is not so easy when all you want is praise for doing something cool .. right .. coz mowing lawns isn't cool. Well it sure is, if you're using software to do it ... better.