Programming Heroes
When was the last time you saw a Hollywood blockbuster about an Accountant? I bet you can't remember a single one. Big Hollywood movies are about people who do dangerous jobs. People who lay their lives on the line every day. People like Firefighters, FBI agents, High School teachers, etc.
For the same reason you don't see many movies where the star is a computer programmer. There are exceptions, but they almost always happen because the programmer knows something he shouldn't, or has done/can do something that the bad guys want. There is a distinction between the Action Hero type and the Programming Hero type: Action Hero chose to be that way; Programming Hero was forced into it. Think about it: the only choice Neo had was between the red pill and the blue one. He didn't know what the hell Morpheus was talking about - in fact, he probably didn't care because Morpheus was giving him a chance to get away from a worthless job working for a worthless pointy-haired boss. The conversation could have gone more like this:
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. In the meantime you'll have no hair, you'll be flushed down a sewer, forced to eat runny eggs and live in a hovercraft that's more like a rusting antique submarine, and ultimately you'll die. Won't that be nice?
Neo: Whatever. (takes the red pill.)
The rest is history; The Matrix made something like $270 million, and Neo a.k.a. Thomas Anderson, programmer for MetaCortex, became a household name.
What we, as a programming community, need is a way for all programmers to get the admiration of the non-programming majority. Some programmers think that this can be done by having "cool" names like Code Warrior or giving their development teams names like QA First Strike Team or Lethal Development Group or Cobol Mutual Assured Destruction Division. Of course they're still writing the same sort routines and wearing the same suits.
No, there's only one real way to be genuinely cool: the job of programming must be made more dangerous, more macho. In fact it should be potentially lethal.
How do we go about this? Here are a few ideas:
Environment
Most programmers work in air-conditioned offices with anti-static carpeting and the most comfortable furniture that employers can find for under $20. Instead, programmers should be working in more heroic locations such as on the flanks of active volcanoes, in the basements of flimsy skyscrapers built on the San Andreas fault, and in ocean-floor habitats under twenty thousand feet of black, icy water.
Machines
Computers are boringly safe. That can be fixed by building all commercial-grade workstations so that they are powered by their own internal plutonium fission reactor, cooled with liquid sodium. To add to the danger factor, the reactor and cooling components should be built to the exacting standards of the General Electric company (who can't make a 1,000-hour light bulb that lasts more than about 100 hours or an electric kettle that doesn't leak). The computer cases, keyboards and mice would be made of thin steel sheeting with sharpened edges. Monitor screens will, instead of being driven by 100-watt electron guns, be powered by industrial carbon-dioxide lasers in the megawatt range.
Languages
Java is the big deal these days. I propose a new programming language to be named "Lava". Compilation errors result in white-hot magma oozing from the CD drive slot.
Documentation
Online documentation makes programmers lazy. We should go back to printed manuals in thick binders like we used to have in the 80's. Remember when the manual set for the Microsoft C compiler was about a dozen books in a box that weighed thirty pounds? Like that, only we're aiming for the hundred pound range. Pretty soon all programmers will have muscles that'll make Vin Diesel look like Daniel Radcliffe.
Training
Getting a certificate for passing a training course is pretty lame, and anyway they're too easy to lose. We suggest tattoos instead.
I'm sure we can think of other measures that can be taken to enhance the image of programmers in the public eye and elevate them (us) to the heroic status we deserve. We'll know when we've succeeded, because Hollywood will recognize that the time is ripe for movies like:
Raiders of the Lost Archive starring Harrison Ford as Internet Jones.
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of JavaBeans starring Angelina Jolie as Java (Lava?) Croft.
Visual Basic .NET Database Programming for Dummies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the geeky cartoon character on the cover of all the "for dummies" books.
It's just a matter of time...
For the same reason you don't see many movies where the star is a computer programmer. There are exceptions, but they almost always happen because the programmer knows something he shouldn't, or has done/can do something that the bad guys want. There is a distinction between the Action Hero type and the Programming Hero type: Action Hero chose to be that way; Programming Hero was forced into it. Think about it: the only choice Neo had was between the red pill and the blue one. He didn't know what the hell Morpheus was talking about - in fact, he probably didn't care because Morpheus was giving him a chance to get away from a worthless job working for a worthless pointy-haired boss. The conversation could have gone more like this:
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. In the meantime you'll have no hair, you'll be flushed down a sewer, forced to eat runny eggs and live in a hovercraft that's more like a rusting antique submarine, and ultimately you'll die. Won't that be nice?
Neo: Whatever. (takes the red pill.)
The rest is history; The Matrix made something like $270 million, and Neo a.k.a. Thomas Anderson, programmer for MetaCortex, became a household name.
What we, as a programming community, need is a way for all programmers to get the admiration of the non-programming majority. Some programmers think that this can be done by having "cool" names like Code Warrior or giving their development teams names like QA First Strike Team or Lethal Development Group or Cobol Mutual Assured Destruction Division. Of course they're still writing the same sort routines and wearing the same suits.
No, there's only one real way to be genuinely cool: the job of programming must be made more dangerous, more macho. In fact it should be potentially lethal.
How do we go about this? Here are a few ideas:
Environment
Most programmers work in air-conditioned offices with anti-static carpeting and the most comfortable furniture that employers can find for under $20. Instead, programmers should be working in more heroic locations such as on the flanks of active volcanoes, in the basements of flimsy skyscrapers built on the San Andreas fault, and in ocean-floor habitats under twenty thousand feet of black, icy water.
Machines
Computers are boringly safe. That can be fixed by building all commercial-grade workstations so that they are powered by their own internal plutonium fission reactor, cooled with liquid sodium. To add to the danger factor, the reactor and cooling components should be built to the exacting standards of the General Electric company (who can't make a 1,000-hour light bulb that lasts more than about 100 hours or an electric kettle that doesn't leak). The computer cases, keyboards and mice would be made of thin steel sheeting with sharpened edges. Monitor screens will, instead of being driven by 100-watt electron guns, be powered by industrial carbon-dioxide lasers in the megawatt range.
Languages
Java is the big deal these days. I propose a new programming language to be named "Lava". Compilation errors result in white-hot magma oozing from the CD drive slot.
Documentation
Online documentation makes programmers lazy. We should go back to printed manuals in thick binders like we used to have in the 80's. Remember when the manual set for the Microsoft C compiler was about a dozen books in a box that weighed thirty pounds? Like that, only we're aiming for the hundred pound range. Pretty soon all programmers will have muscles that'll make Vin Diesel look like Daniel Radcliffe.
Training
Getting a certificate for passing a training course is pretty lame, and anyway they're too easy to lose. We suggest tattoos instead.
I'm sure we can think of other measures that can be taken to enhance the image of programmers in the public eye and elevate them (us) to the heroic status we deserve. We'll know when we've succeeded, because Hollywood will recognize that the time is ripe for movies like:
Raiders of the Lost Archive starring Harrison Ford as Internet Jones.
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of JavaBeans starring Angelina Jolie as Java (Lava?) Croft.
Visual Basic .NET Database Programming for Dummies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the geeky cartoon character on the cover of all the "for dummies" books.
It's just a matter of time...
Labels: Just Spouting
posted by Pete Ford at
1:22 PM
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