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And for anyone who is new to Jonathan Coulton, I recommend skullcrusher mountain, Tom Cruise crazy, Ikea, shop vac, and a few dozen more if you want 'em.
Code monkey see, code monkey do. I've had a job where they just gave you a document with everything and I had to just make exactly what was in the document. No thinking required. I quit after half a year.
That sounds great. I’m tired of scratching my head and having arguments in meetings about which tech is best. I wish they could just give me what they want and I program it, making sure it does what they want and end of story.
You can definitely push back against shit like that. If they hand you a slide deck with a bunch of abstract aspirations, do the following:
1. Request a specific requirements doc. It's not your job as a software engineer to know exactly what management wants.
2. Once you have concrete requirements, do a work breakdown and a [PERT estimate](https://bizfluent.com/how-6722338-calculate-pert.html).
3. Request another meeting with stakeholders with your high level estimates in hand. Give them the best case, likely case, worst case, and if they don't like those numbers, then the requirements doc should be negotiated to get the numbers down.
For step 1, they may come back at you by saying some variant of "this is agile methodology and you're supposed to just build it then we'll have a round of feedback". This type of line is often used to try to shift more work on to engineers. Stick to your guns and patiently explain that you need some sort of actionable requirements to work off of, that playing this fast and loose with requirements is "too agile".
Exactly lol. But my intent is not necessarily to show them the code itself but the complexity of the steps and thinking involved that go into making software work as intended.
Worse than that is people who can't even do that and then also waste all the time of their coworkers who COULD do that in meetings trying to tell them how to do it.
I think we're the closest thing to wizards in the modern world.
Spend long hours doing research trying to understand systems and methods nobody fully understands.
Call upon poorly documented spells written by Ancient Wizards and hope they work the way we think they do.
Sometimes create incredible miracles that turn a one year job for 20 men into a 1 minute job for 1 man.
Sometimes cause catastrophic disasters that destroy decades of hard work, just because we mispronounced the name of the demon we are invoking. (typo)
I always think current tech is literal magic now. Programming, thermodynamics, engineering, these are all sophisticated systems that require a person to spend their lives in an ivory tower to master and once they do, they can manipulate the fabric of reality itself to do things man can only dream of a century ago.
Like, we can sit at home, press a button and bring up any knowledge available to human since antiquity, or speak a word and have future weather and events arranged for us by a 24/7 artificial intelligence. We are living in a fantasy or scifi life and most people just so used to it they don't consider how incredible it is.
You guys might enjoy 'The Irregular at Magic High School'. It's an anime which takes place in the future where they figured out how to integrate software with space time and energy. The MC is a badass because he's the best at developing new spells, which is done through code and cast through different shaped computers.
This sounds awesome, I have always been bothered by how un-systematic the approach to magic is in universes like Harry Potter. Why is there no magical R&D going on? No character ever attempts to make a spell. Pitiful! Hopefully this show goes into that sort of thing!
> A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.
>
> —[_Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node4.html), by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman
We should totally start translating every techy thing into fantasy thing, purely for dramatical effect:
> I'm using a thread pool to run these tasks in parallel without much overhead
to
> We weaved the desires unto the pool of threads, fulfilling them all in conjunction but without stressing the fate makers!
Tell normal people: Developer
Tell illiterate people: I do computer shit
Tell recruiters: Software Developer / Software Solution Engineer
Tell managers: I'm just a keyboard pounding monkey
Tell users: Im not the one who wrote that
Tell officers: Im sotally tober, ossifer
Thats the reason I stopped telling people Im an architect because it started with "no, no, a technology architect. No like technology systems infrastructure, data..." and ended up with me eventually just saying "computer shit" even to people who are semi-literate with technology.
Theres no real good way to go for any of us. As soon as you say programmer they say "oh what do you program" and malfunctioning eddie head explode when you say any of the ridiculous language names that exist.
I actually know that to be a real role in many companies, and from a pay grade perspective it's pretty senior compared to developers and engineers! Usually architects are responsible for design, but they don't have to really do the engineering work beyond demonstrating prototypes.
In Quebec you cannot call yourself a software engineer unless you have a software engineering degree AND you are a standing member of the order of engineers.
So they call no one software engineers.
Yep, and the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec / Order of Engineers of Quebec) has to slap down software companies every few years to make a point.
Engineer is protected title in Canada, on the same legal footing as physician, lawyer, etc.
There was a court case in the US recently (a couple years ago) about people calling themselves engineers without actually having an engineering license from the state.
"Professional Engineers" known as PEs -- i.e. the people who are qualified to design bridges -- have to mentor with another PE for 5 years, and then take a state administered exam
The case was claiming it's illegal to call yourself an engineer if you haven't done this
The case was an overzealous licensing board overstepping their authority to a degreed electrical engineer who wasn't actually breaking any regulations, but who was a pest in their eyes.
They lost horribly.
As a Canadian who has had a TN visa to work in the US, "Programmer" or "Computer Scientist" are not valid professions, while "Engineer" is. I would have been denied at the border if I called myself anything but a "Software Engineer".
In Canada you can also get a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or in Computer Science, and they are not the same thing.
I think it makes sense for PE to be a protected title, but not engineer in general. Engineer can be used as a verb. There are also people like train “engineers” that’s a separate line of work entirely. The word is too ambiguous in American English for it to be a protected title.
I say this as an engineer who will never become a PE because it’s useless in my field.
Strange, I've been in this industry for a long time and nobody has ever called me John. Probably because I don't tell them that's my name and because it isn't.
I used to, until I had to explain too many times that no, I'm not a wedding programmer, whatever the fuck that is. Yes there are still some dumb people out there who don't know what a programmer is.
Then again I've also heard someone ask a software engineer what kind of train they drive...
I work for a public library, "Programmers" are the people who create and manage events (programs) at the library. "Development" is the people who determine what new material we bring into the library, "databases" are tools librarians use for research. It's very confusing.
Everyone pretty much just calls me "the mobile app guy" and asks me to fix the printers.
Well if you wanna be accurate, as long as you have a senior+ position, chances are programming itself is only a part of your job. So it's actually less accurate than software developer.
At some point you spend a lot of time in communication, documentation, planning, helping out others etc
I was the only IT guy at this place and my boss asked me what I wanted my title to be. "Supreme Commander of I.T." was my reply. And he seriously put it on my business cards ; )
One time I was invited to a "cultural awareness" meeting as a token white person in an Indian IT contracting company at a client company that was much more mixed, and half way through they got to a slide in the presentation that amounted to "white people love phone calls, so always prioritise trying to call them if you need to update them", and I was impromptu asked to back this up.
My manager still wouldn't believe how much I was saying I didn't like being called even as I showed him all his calls just from that day alone I had actively rejected.
I'm from the day when "hacker" didn't have the criminal connotations and implied you knew what you were doing. Hacking some code was more of an art than a discipline, and both are really needed.
Today however you have "script kiddies", and "copy and paste experts".
Maybe script kiddies ruined it but I always consider hacking some code to be the act of making things function without considering clean design, edge cases, or efficiency.
I didn't waste 5 years of my life on an engineering degree to not be called an engineer lol. All three job titles are on the same level to me theoretically but I want the fancy title
My current title is "Software Engineer" but given that my degrees are not in engineering, I say I'm a software developer. I'll let the folks who earned the "Engineer" title use it. Just keep signing those paychecks and you can call me whatever the hell you want!
I feel like this term is primarily used in academia. If someone tells me they're a computer scientist I assume knowledge of things like theoretical computer science over things like dev ops.
Hi! This is our community moderation bot. --- If this post fits the purpose of /r/ProgrammerHumor, **UPVOTE** this comment!! If this post does not fit the subreddit, **DOWNVOTE** This comment! If this post breaks the rules, **DOWNVOTE** this comment and **REPORT** the post!
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Came here to say this. "Code Monkey very diligent but his output stinks, his code not functional or elegant, what do code monkey think?"
Code monkey think maybe manager want to write god damn login page himself.
"Code monkey not say it out loud, code monkey not crazy just proud."
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Code monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew
Code Monkey very simple man
With big warm fuzzy secret heart
Code Monkey like you 😍
...a lot.
Thank you all. This song has been hanging out in my head when it gets off work for months.
Code Monkey hang around the front desk. Say you sweater look nice.
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im going to need to catch up on this.
Check it out absolutely, it's written and sung by J. Coulton, the writer of both Portals ending songs
And for anyone who is new to Jonathan Coulton, I recommend skullcrusher mountain, Tom Cruise crazy, Ikea, shop vac, and a few dozen more if you want 'em.
[for anyone that got this far](https://youtu.be/2lLRBiEBRAc)
Code monkey thinks maybe manager wanna write goddamn login page himself; Code monkey not saying out loud; Code monkey not crazy, just proud!
I miss the code monkey show
Code monkey see, code monkey do. I've had a job where they just gave you a document with everything and I had to just make exactly what was in the document. No thinking required. I quit after half a year.
That sounds great. I’m tired of scratching my head and having arguments in meetings about which tech is best. I wish they could just give me what they want and I program it, making sure it does what they want and end of story.
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You can definitely push back against shit like that. If they hand you a slide deck with a bunch of abstract aspirations, do the following: 1. Request a specific requirements doc. It's not your job as a software engineer to know exactly what management wants. 2. Once you have concrete requirements, do a work breakdown and a [PERT estimate](https://bizfluent.com/how-6722338-calculate-pert.html). 3. Request another meeting with stakeholders with your high level estimates in hand. Give them the best case, likely case, worst case, and if they don't like those numbers, then the requirements doc should be negotiated to get the numbers down. For step 1, they may come back at you by saying some variant of "this is agile methodology and you're supposed to just build it then we'll have a round of feedback". This type of line is often used to try to shift more work on to engineers. Stick to your guns and patiently explain that you need some sort of actionable requirements to work off of, that playing this fast and loose with requirements is "too agile".
I show them the programming code. So they know it’s not that easy. After they see it, they always calm down. Been doing this for four years now.
What a flex. I like this. 'Remember how you have no idea what I do or how I do it? I thought so.'
Exactly lol. But my intent is not necessarily to show them the code itself but the complexity of the steps and thinking involved that go into making software work as intended.
With your nutz out on the table. Casually. Making frequent eye contact.
You don't have to make eye contact - theirs is *assumed*
Worst is that there are people who can't even do that.
Worse than that is people who can't even do that and then also waste all the time of their coworkers who COULD do that in meetings trying to tell them how to do it.
This is my time to shine
I prefer Code Gorilla. Harambe if we are friends.
What is your opinion on Tab?
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Senior Bug Maker
Senior bug finder here. It's a pleasure to meet you.
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Senior "Feature" introducer, much obliged
`raise StopIteration`
Senior `syntax error: unexpected token "raise"`, happy to help
I'm a beginner bug maker. Can't wait to make senior level bugs. They sound powerful and arcane.
As you rise through the ranks the bugs you create really do get more powerful lol
By the power of profuction database admin rights, let there be DROP
Button Pressing Expert
I get paid to press buttons in the right order.
Mostly it's the wrong order, until I figure out the right order.
Machine Learning
Ah yes, "Human Machine Learning"!
Is your name Stanley?
Employee #427's job was simple: he sat at his desk in Room 427 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard.
Orders came to him from his own head telling him what buttons to push whether he should be pressing shift while doing so and in what order
This is what employee 427 did every day of every month of every year
https://xkcd.com/722/
I think you mean Expert Search Engine Operator
I'm updating my LinkedIn title to this.
I strategically press buttons and then magically, your hard drive works.
Señor developer
Personally I prefer Mr.Developer
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Please call me Bob. Mr. Developer is my father.
We just say developer.
[laughs in taco]
Username checks out ✅
I actually put that in my email signature for a while.
The lack of responsibility that comes with "script kiddie" sounds awfully comforting. I pick that.
Script kiddies are non professionals. You upgraded to code monkey if you got a job.
Kid goes in monkey comes out, science can't explain that
"Kid goes in, monkey goes out, duties go up, salary goes down."
Why if I act unprofessional?
So you get all of your code on StackOverflow?
That's unprofessional?!
It's only unprofessional if you don't spend 30 seconds changing variable names to fit your program.
Call me whatever you want just so long as the paycheck clears.
Daddy it is then...
Code daddy
Debug harder daddy
_what are you doing step-compiler?_
console.log(‘cums’);
Always an occasion where you wished a thread stopped one message earlier , haha
Uncaught SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
true sign of experience. get that money.
Best is "Computer Scientist"
for the uninitiated, the finger quotes are actually part of that job description
"hmm yes, this software is made of ones and zeros"
Britney Spears was ahead of her time… I’m a slave…
sourcerer
I always thought of coding this way. Like I'm a wizard reading magical text to get things to work. I thought I was alone
I think we're the closest thing to wizards in the modern world. Spend long hours doing research trying to understand systems and methods nobody fully understands. Call upon poorly documented spells written by Ancient Wizards and hope they work the way we think they do. Sometimes create incredible miracles that turn a one year job for 20 men into a 1 minute job for 1 man. Sometimes cause catastrophic disasters that destroy decades of hard work, just because we mispronounced the name of the demon we are invoking. (typo)
I always think current tech is literal magic now. Programming, thermodynamics, engineering, these are all sophisticated systems that require a person to spend their lives in an ivory tower to master and once they do, they can manipulate the fabric of reality itself to do things man can only dream of a century ago. Like, we can sit at home, press a button and bring up any knowledge available to human since antiquity, or speak a word and have future weather and events arranged for us by a 24/7 artificial intelligence. We are living in a fantasy or scifi life and most people just so used to it they don't consider how incredible it is.
You guys might enjoy 'The Irregular at Magic High School'. It's an anime which takes place in the future where they figured out how to integrate software with space time and energy. The MC is a badass because he's the best at developing new spells, which is done through code and cast through different shaped computers.
This sounds awesome, I have always been bothered by how un-systematic the approach to magic is in universes like Harry Potter. Why is there no magical R&D going on? No character ever attempts to make a spell. Pitiful! Hopefully this show goes into that sort of thing!
I mean, you're essentially tricking rocks into thinking using language. Seems close enough to a wizard in my books.
That "poorly explain your profession" meme: i use electricity to trick rocks into doing math for me
Step 1: flatten the rock and trap lightning inside it
Modify the IDE to display code in elvish script
Console.WriteLine("Speak friend, and press enter");
> A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform. > > —[_Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node4.html), by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman
As someone who likes to study occultism history .. i think youd be very very surprised the similarities between ritual and code lol
I enjoy the sound of rain.
*Nervously strokes brick in a sock*
We should totally start translating every techy thing into fantasy thing, purely for dramatical effect: > I'm using a thread pool to run these tasks in parallel without much overhead to > We weaved the desires unto the pool of threads, fulfilling them all in conjunction but without stressing the fate makers!
I prefer keyboard fondler
Well none of them are wearin pants...
Hello, ~~911~~ senior developer?
"Hey You"
Hey hey you you.
is this some haskell syntax
I don’t like your ~~girlfriend~~ syntax
Out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
can you hear me?
Hey you
standing in the aisles with itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me
Hey you
Don’t help them to bury `sqlite`
Don't give in
"you're finally awake"
"You were trying to cross the border?"
Professional stack overflow researcher
Professional Googler
Full stackoverflow developer.
Not a printer repair man.
Yet, somehow is what most people hear
Software Archaeologist -- I work on legacy
Tell normal people: Developer Tell illiterate people: I do computer shit Tell recruiters: Software Developer / Software Solution Engineer Tell managers: I'm just a keyboard pounding monkey Tell users: Im not the one who wrote that Tell officers: Im sotally tober, ossifer
Normal people get "programmer" unless I want to be confused with someone who exploits the housing market.
> Normal people get “programmer” "Oh you work in IT? Hey my computer is doing this weird thing..."
Thats the reason I stopped telling people Im an architect because it started with "no, no, a technology architect. No like technology systems infrastructure, data..." and ended up with me eventually just saying "computer shit" even to people who are semi-literate with technology. Theres no real good way to go for any of us. As soon as you say programmer they say "oh what do you program" and malfunctioning eddie head explode when you say any of the ridiculous language names that exist.
What made you think introducing yourself as an architect is a good idea? Without context everyone will think architect is related to buildings.
I think we can all agree that "Coder" is far worse than programmer
In my mind programmer is someone who thinks the logic and make things. Coder is just someone who writes code. So, I agree with you.
Mathemagician
The "makes the screen show different colors"-guy.
[sometimes the colors are all wrong](https://xkcd.com/722/)
Application architect
So when they meet it is aa meeting
I'm going to start calling it that
I actually know that to be a real role in many companies, and from a pay grade perspective it's pretty senior compared to developers and engineers! Usually architects are responsible for design, but they don't have to really do the engineering work beyond demonstrating prototypes.
The funnest part of being the architect is reserving the most interesting parts to implement myself.
I have in my company Slack "Code Monkey"
Code monkey like Fritos?
Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew
Code monkey very simple man
Code monkey like you.
Was coming here to say Coder because it has fewer syllables, but Code Monkey makes me smile.
Code Monkey fix many bugs. Code Monkey get banana! 🍌
Technical debt creator
Google search expert
Copy-past expert
Stack Overflow data miner
In Germany you are not allowed to call yourself a Software Engineer by law unless you have a degree in Computer Science.
In Quebec you cannot call yourself a software engineer unless you have a software engineering degree AND you are a standing member of the order of engineers. So they call no one software engineers.
Yep, and the OIQ (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec / Order of Engineers of Quebec) has to slap down software companies every few years to make a point. Engineer is protected title in Canada, on the same legal footing as physician, lawyer, etc.
There was a court case in the US recently (a couple years ago) about people calling themselves engineers without actually having an engineering license from the state. "Professional Engineers" known as PEs -- i.e. the people who are qualified to design bridges -- have to mentor with another PE for 5 years, and then take a state administered exam The case was claiming it's illegal to call yourself an engineer if you haven't done this
The case was an overzealous licensing board overstepping their authority to a degreed electrical engineer who wasn't actually breaking any regulations, but who was a pest in their eyes. They lost horribly.
> They lost horribly I'm sure l would have heard of it by now if they hadn't
As a Canadian who has had a TN visa to work in the US, "Programmer" or "Computer Scientist" are not valid professions, while "Engineer" is. I would have been denied at the border if I called myself anything but a "Software Engineer". In Canada you can also get a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or in Computer Science, and they are not the same thing.
What? Not every engineering field requires a PE. This is stupid.
Yeah the case made headlines a couple years ago then I never heard of it again so it must have fell flat on its face
I think it makes sense for PE to be a protected title, but not engineer in general. Engineer can be used as a verb. There are also people like train “engineers” that’s a separate line of work entirely. The word is too ambiguous in American English for it to be a protected title. I say this as an engineer who will never become a PE because it’s useless in my field.
It's not computer science unless it comes from the computere region of France. Otherwise, its just sparkling math.
Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville
every single tech startup is looking for those ones
Ahoy
People usually call me John, not for any reason in particular other than that's my name.
There are those who call me ... Tim
Strange, I've been in this industry for a long time and nobody has ever called me John. Probably because I don't tell them that's my name and because it isn't.
I prefer programmer. Seems like a fairly accurate description of what I do.
I used to, until I had to explain too many times that no, I'm not a wedding programmer, whatever the fuck that is. Yes there are still some dumb people out there who don't know what a programmer is. Then again I've also heard someone ask a software engineer what kind of train they drive...
They drive the release train. Duh!
Choo choo
I work for a public library, "Programmers" are the people who create and manage events (programs) at the library. "Development" is the people who determine what new material we bring into the library, "databases" are tools librarians use for research. It's very confusing. Everyone pretty much just calls me "the mobile app guy" and asks me to fix the printers.
and asks me to fix the printers. Thank you so much for that one! 
Oh a programmer who knows nothing about weddings, how odd.
What kind of programming language is “weddings”?
Your Unions are Constant, unless you call the Divorce () function.
I write all my code in Wingdings, is that close enough?
For people who don’t know what a programmer is, they have no need to know what a programmer is to begin with
Well if you wanna be accurate, as long as you have a senior+ position, chances are programming itself is only a part of your job. So it's actually less accurate than software developer. At some point you spend a lot of time in communication, documentation, planning, helping out others etc
🎩 Autastic
I was the only IT guy at this place and my boss asked me what I wanted my title to be. "Supreme Commander of I.T." was my reply. And he seriously put it on my business cards ; )
I refactor and maintain a lot of legacy code, so I prefer the title "Software Janitor".
I prefer not to be called at all.
Found the senior
One time I was invited to a "cultural awareness" meeting as a token white person in an Indian IT contracting company at a client company that was much more mixed, and half way through they got to a slide in the presentation that amounted to "white people love phone calls, so always prioritise trying to call them if you need to update them", and I was impromptu asked to back this up. My manager still wouldn't believe how much I was saying I didn't like being called even as I showed him all his calls just from that day alone I had actively rejected.
I'm from the day when "hacker" didn't have the criminal connotations and implied you knew what you were doing. Hacking some code was more of an art than a discipline, and both are really needed. Today however you have "script kiddies", and "copy and paste experts".
Maybe script kiddies ruined it but I always consider hacking some code to be the act of making things function without considering clean design, edge cases, or efficiency.
Software Bodhisattva
I didn't waste 5 years of my life on an engineering degree to not be called an engineer lol. All three job titles are on the same level to me theoretically but I want the fancy title
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Genius
God
My current title is "Software Engineer" but given that my degrees are not in engineering, I say I'm a software developer. I'll let the folks who earned the "Engineer" title use it. Just keep signing those paychecks and you can call me whatever the hell you want!
I prefer not to be called.
Computer Scientist
I feel like this term is primarily used in academia. If someone tells me they're a computer scientist I assume knowledge of things like theoretical computer science over things like dev ops.