10mo ago

What are the craziest misconceptions you’ve heard about programming from people not familiar with it?

As someone who spends time programming, I of course find myself in conversations with people who aren't as familiar with it. It doesn't happen all the time, but these discussions can lead to people coming up with some pretty wild misconceptions about what programming is and what programmers do.

I'm sure many of you have had similar experiences. So, I thought it would be interesting to ask.

You're viewing a single thread.

222 comments

I mean the classic is that you must be "really good at computers" like I'm okay at debugging, just by being methodical, but if you plop me in front of a Windows desktop and ask me to fix your printer; brother, I haven't fucked with any of those 3 things in over a decade.
I would be as a baby, learning everything anew, to solve your problem.
- fuck printers
  
  fuck you. my uncle was a dot matrix.
  
  That reminds me of one of those shit jokes from the eighties:
  "There's two new ladies in the typing pool who do a hundred times the work of anyone else."
  "What're they called?"
  "Daisy Wheel and Dot Matrix."
  
  Oh man love it. In the 80s, I used to go to my grandmother's work after school. She was a stenographer at the neighborhood newspaper in Brooklyn. If she was alive she'd probably love this. My mom ran a copy room for a high school but I think it would go over her head.
  
  Especially HP printers and honorable mention to Konica Minoltas.
  
  Yeah I feel this. Fucking huge mechanical boxes of fucking shite that should he lobbed down the stairs and anyone who wants to print should be beaten with toner cartridges till they are black and blue, or cymk
- I enjoy your comment so much because your methodical and patient approach to debugging code is exactly what's required to fix a printer. You literally are really good at computers even if your aren't armed with a lot of specific knowledge. It's the absolutely worst because troubleshooting without knowledge and experience is painfully slow and the whole time I'm thinking"they know so much more about this than I do! If they'd just slow down and read what's on the screen ..." But many people struggle to do even basic troubleshooting. Their lack of what you have makes them inept.
  
  I was gonna say, the OP here sounds perfectly good at computers. Most people either have so little knowledge they can't even start on solving their printer problem no matter what, or don't have the problem solving mindset needed to search for and try different things until they find the actual solution.
  There's a reason why specific knowledge beyond the basic concepts is rarely a hard requirement in software. The learning and problem solving abilities are way more important.
- I can definitely solve their problems, but I'd have to go through all of the same research they would have to. They're basically just being lazy and asking us to do their work for them.
- I go to excuse now is "I haven't used windows in 10 years", when people call me for tech support.
  I literally can't help them lol
  
  "I don't know anything about your apple device, I prefer to own my devices and not have somone else dictate what I can use it for"
- I think the difference is that they don't know where to even start, and we clearly do and that's the way to differentiate from perfectly working computer and a basically brick in their minds.
- I use a car analogy for these situations: You need a mechanic (IT professional.) I'm an engineer (coder.) They're both technically demanding jobs, but they use very different skillsets: IT pros, like mechanics, have to think laterally across a wide array of technology to pinpoint and solve vague problems, and they are very good at it because they do it often.
  Software engineers are more like the guy that designed one part of the transmission on one very specific make of car. Can they solve the same problems as IT pros? Sure! But it'll take them longer and the solution might be a little weird.
  
  Can they solve the same problems as IT pros? Sure! But it'll take them longer and the solution might be a little weird.
  Well the person just wants a solution that works. They didn't say it has to be the best solution of all solutions.
  
  It's funny how soon they realize they want a good one.
- I work in service design and delivery. It's my job to understand how devices actually function and interact. Can confirm that dev types can learn the stuff if they want to but most have not. Knowing how to set up your fancy computer with all the IDEs in the world is great but not the same as doing that for 5,000 people at once.

222 comments