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Here is the discussion that started on the BCB mailing list on this topic.....

From: mansi baranwal <mansimumbai1985@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Apr 1, 2008 6:27 pm

As a newbie to the IT industry, I would love to hear people's views on this topic and learn from their experience. It seems like a marathon task to get there - to be called "a programmer". There is just too much you need to take care of - the perfect algorithm, the perfect complexity, performance, security, extendibility and what not. Want to hear from all people out there who think that programming is an art and a code is like a poem which goes through its own life cycle as the poet learns and matures, and who would like to share their own development story.

From: "sachin vijayvargia" <sachin.vijayvargia@...> Date: Tue Apr 1, 2008 7:35 pm

might sound astounding..BUT those poetic ('programmatic') days used to be..now its more of tweak, tune and plug and need to be smart on that front... I might be wrong but thats my opinion, does anyone share a similar thought ?

From: "Banibrata Dutta" <banibrata.dutta@...> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 11:02 am

All kinds of folks continue to exist, although the glory & glamour certainly seems to have shifted to folks who can "show glamour & value" more easily and in more material terms.

There's still a lot of intensive design, programming that happens at lower-levels of any kind of application stack, or appliance. Lot of development still happens at middleware level, embedded systems, protocol stacks etc., but the glamour, aura, appeal that used to be associated to this level of programming, the "rocket-science" flair that was associated with it, seems to have faded out a bit. People don't seem to talk about those nerdy things as nerdy things anymore. Kind of, become little obscrure, and faded into background. Become unimportant.

The buzz is certainly around things that people can see-touch-feel. Due to pressure from various angles, economic, competitive, work force, shrinking timelines etc., people have moved into "Cookie-cutter" frameworks. Most modern day frameworks work very well for their vertical applications, so all the funky programming (so called), happens in form of decorations, customization and a little fine-tuning. However, remember that people are still spending nights grokking the millions of LoC (okay, maybe thousands), of the underlying Framework, and other sub-frameworks, middleware, foundation-blocks that ensure that the solution/application at the top works nicely.

Only my personal opinion on this subject :-). Feel free to flame or drench.

cheers, Banibrata

From: mansi baranwal <mansimumbai1985@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 11:14 am

i think the real charm of programming lies in these 1000 LOCs :)

From: "Bhasker" <bhaskervk@...> Date: Thu Apr 3, 2008 4:06 am

--- In bangalore_barcamp@yahoogroups.com, "sachin vijayvargia" <sachin.vijayvargia@...> wrote: > > might sound astounding..BUT those poetic ('programmatic') days used to > be..now its more of tweak, tune and plug and need to be smart on that > front... > I might be wrong but thats my opinion, does anyone share a similar thought ? > > Regds > >

with all the talk about langauge rants, and perceptions of the "proverbial s/w programming life", i just had to plug this in!! 8 )

http://bosky101.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-doesnt-matter-what-language- you.html

From: "Banibrata Dutta" <banibrata.dutta@...> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 12:03 pm

About a decade or so back, my dear fellow friends who were working on the Kernel, device-drivers, or doing anything in Assembly language considered us "user-land" programmers are lesser mortals too ;-)

The glamour has always been rising with the "end-user-appeal" value, and decreasing with complexity at guts. However, remember that lot of cool, fancy things have been happening at the interface level, where a lot of apparent magic happens. Take RESTful WS architecture.

Anyway, to me what matters most is the kind of work which gives me higher satisfaction, greter adrenalin rush and a fatter pay-check :-)

From: "Indian Pandey" <"s.pandey.india@..."> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 12:35 pm

There is a fine difference.

Today the term programmer has been appropriated by code assemblers. People who take one object from here another from there and put up the front end also call themselves programmers. And that is why the glamour for these assemblers aka programmers is no more there and rightly so.

But hardcore programming still exists and glamour is still there for those who do it.

Moreover, branding of softwares have made the programmer anonymous, the way they preferred it from start.

From: "Siddharta Govindaraj" <siddhartag@...> Date: Thu Apr 3, 2008 1:45 am

--- In bangalore_barcamp@yahoogroups.com, "Indian Pandey" <"s.pandey.india@..."> wrote: > > Today the term programmer has been appropriated by code assemblers. > People who take one object from here another from there and put up > the front end also call themselves programmers. And that is why the > glamour for these assemblers aka programmers is no more there and > rightly so. > > But hardcore programming still exists and glamour is still there for > those who do it. >

(Sorry about the philosophical rant that now follows.. feel free to skip this message)

Programming is not (and never was) about glamour. It is not about being 'hardcore' and working with low level code and embedded systems. Is it not about working on something cool. Being a programmer doesn't mean you have to be doing complex, technically challenging things all the time.

What is hardcore programming? Would you say writing an app in Visual Basic is hardcore programming? What about a device driver? What about distributed applications?

IMHO being a programmer is about continuously learning about programming. You dont even have to be good, just better than what you were last year. A Visual Basic programmer can be as much of a programmer as a kernel hacker (My view: do both)

One of my high points (long ago) was when I read a book about a simple type of game and then typed out the source code in the book. In fact, I have this book in front of me right now as I type this. The twist is that the code is in BASIC, the same BASIC that they teach 5th grade kids in school. But it was a lot of fun, and I learnt something out of it.

Question: If I showed this book to a fresher from college, how many would even open it, let alone read it?

From: "Banibrata Dutta" <banibrata.dutta@...> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 2:26 pm

> Moreover, branding of softwares have made the programmer anonymous, the way they preferred it from start.

Not so true in the world of Open-source... look at every successful Open-source project / product. The programmer's name always shines!

BTW, now a days, the word "Programmer" is becoming relegated to work on technologies, that have begun to be labelled as "legacy". Taking one object from here, borrowing another from there... is like conducting an Orchestra. Inspite of some many instruments playing, each providing melody, harmony in their own right, in the end, making them play together, to result in a pleasing composition, is what it takes. All in the hope of selling a million copies :) We've seen the "abstration" growing...

1) Procedures 2) Remote procedure calls 3) Objects 4) Remote Objects & method invocation 5) Services, SOA 6) Mash-ups

if you see, the basic premise has not changed... and re-use has only increased. The thrill of (many a time, wasteful) "re-invention" is dissapearing. The thrill that programmers used to derive by creating something, almost the feeling of "parenthood" :-)... Now we are getting grown-up, ready-made babies, so it doesn't sound so interesting. All we need to do is give them some education, and the grown-up babies, start socializing, and become productive. Quite anologous to the how are so called "programs" are made.

The "Rapid" in RAD, will never be "rapid-enough", and humans will always continue to strive, and make it easier, faster, better, more elegant... as we can see, as a result the people who are using these "easier", "faster", "better", "more elegant" tools/frameworks, need to be skilled in some other ways, and new ways.

Talk to the folks who used to program using Mnemonics, and assembly... they can tell you what their idea of Programming is, and what the kids these days are doing :-)

From: "Siddharta Govindaraj" <siddhartag@...> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 2:08 pm

--- In bangalore_barcamp@yahoogroups.com, mansi baranwal <mansimumbai1985@...> wrote: > > As a newbie to the IT industry, I would love to hear people's views on this topic and learn from their experience. It seems like a > marathon task to get there - to be called "a programmer". There is > just too much you need to take care of - the perfect algorithm, the > perfect complexity, performance, security, extendibility and what > not. Want to hear from all people out there who think that > programming is an art and a code is like a poem which goes through > its own life cycle as the poet learns and matures, and who would > like to share their own development story. >

Nice question.

My favourite quote on programming - http://siddhi.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-program.html

And my favourite article on programming - http://norvig.com/21-days.html

And my favourite book on learning - http://siddhi.blogspot.com/2006/01/book-review-mastery-keys-to-success.html

"Even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music." - Peter Norvig, Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

> It seems like a marathon task to get there - to be called "a > programmer".

It _is_ a marathon.. with no finish line :)

From: "Sarcar, Shourya C (GE Healthcare)" <Shourya.Sarcar@...> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 3:34 pm

Great links.

Like with any skill, programming requires a certain degree of continuous practice. http://codekata.pragprog.com/

- Shourya

From: Darkseid <lorddaemon@...> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 4:22 pm

> might sound astounding.. > > BUT those poetic ('programmatic') days used to > be..now its more of tweak, tune and plug and need to be smart on that > front... > I might be wrong but thats my opinion, does anyone share a similar > thought ? >

Depends on what you're doing. Hackers will be hackers, whether they're working on the kernel, using powerful languages (map, fold, macros) or doing complex integration (REST). The 'tweak, tune and plug' side of things seems to happen mostly on maintenance projects AFAIK, so where you work really starts to matter.

I would also recommend Paul Graham's 'Hackers and Painters' to anyone who cares about their code.

Best, Sidu. http://blog.sidu.in

From: mansi baranwal <mansimumbai1985@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Apr 2, 2008 11:55 pm

interesting article. i guess the task does require a lot of patience..... the book certainly goes to my "must read" list :)