Sunday, March 31, 2013; 5:01:42 PM Eastern
Why don't programmers speak for programming?
- I've been watching for this for a few weeks. When public discourse turns to programming, the people who speak are people who don't program for a living. Sure some of them took computer science classes in college, or at one time were professional coders. But not people who today do it as their primary thing. In one particularly egregious case, they were quoting NBA players on why you should learn to code! That is so weird.
- So why is this? I think I finally figured it out, and it was the NBA connection that did it for me. Programmers don't generally speak in politically correct terms. And we don't have many, if any, spokes models who will talk in vague enough terms to be sure that they will never actually say anything meaningful. This disqualifies us from participating in public discussions. We simply can't be trusted to never say anything we mean.
- Maybe that's not it? But I don't like it. I'd like to see some developers be heard. I'd like to just once nod my head and say yeah that person knows what they're talking about when it comes to technology.