"My husband is a programmer; I have no idea what that means."

http://www.renaebair.com/2010/08/11/my-husband-is-a-programmer-i-have-no-idea-what-that-means/

by acangiano • 16 years ago

417 144 16 years ago

dpritchett• 16 years ago

Site seems to have died. The entire text is reposted at this reddit comment: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d02be/my_husban...

Do you get that glazed, faraway look in your eye when you partner starts talking about a programming problem, or the newest testing framework? There’s no need to be bored. Ask questions, try to understand! When I meet women today, I don’t avoid talking about the work that I do, my love for pc gaming, or my fascination with D&D and other such geekery. Often I’ll get a response along these lines: “Programming? My husband does something like that I think.” To which I always inquire, “Oh really? What language does he work with?” Their response is always the same: “Language? huh. I have no idea. There’s more than one? I don’t really know what he does. I don’t pay attention to that stuff.” This always blows my mind. You’re married to someone, and you aren’t interested enough in the person to know anything about what they do with nearly 40-50% of their time, aside from their job title? ...

(click the link above to continue, I don't want to repost the entire text)

adambair• 16 years ago

It was dead for a while but has since been moved to a static page.

ericabiz• 16 years ago

Posted by the husband! I bet that was an interesting conversation you had with her about static vs. dynamic pages. ;)

raquo• 16 years ago

OK, obligatory inversion: What do you (programmer/etc.) know about your girlfriend's passion?

jf• 16 years ago

Yes.

My wife is an artist. Learning more about her passion is fun and has tangibly enriched my life.

mapleoin• 16 years ago

That's exactly what I was thinking. This needs to be a major factor that I'll take into consideration in my next relationships. It's not just about my interest in what the other person is doing, it's also about that person taking the time and having the patience to explain what they're doing on a daily basis to someone from outside the field.

russell2• 16 years ago

My GF is an artist who uses old masters' techniques to paint modern themes, like dead flowers and the washroom at an LA shipyard. So I know a bit about how they mixed paints, even to the point of grinding pigments myself. And color and composition and glazes and and and. I work 250 miles from home, so every evening we talk about painting. (And occasional rants about her dealings with the telecommunications infrastructure. :-)

EDIT: Her work is absolutely stunning and I am very proud of her.

docgnome2• 16 years ago

Any examples?

Hovertruck• 16 years ago

My girlfriend is a photographer.

Before I met her, I had heard a hundred and one photography terms, but never knew or cared about exposures and apertures and such. Listening to her talk about it is a great experience, because I love to hear her explain to an idiot like me what a low f-stop is. I feel like I'm genuinely learning.

I also know that a photographer has never taken enough pictures. She can take 500 pictures on a trip to the grocery store and then go home and pick through and find the ones she likes.

I'm a very self-conscious person and hate the way I look in pictures, but in the past two years I've probably appeared in hundreds upon hundreds of photographs. I've learned not to look when she starts pointing the camera, because she wants to capture what's going on and not a designed picture. Whenever I have a camera in my hands I try to actively apply the things she's taught me about photography. All in all, I'd like to think I'm not photographer, but I take great interest in what she does.

varikin• 16 years ago

I have the same experience. My wife is a photographer and I could rattle of lots of stuff about Polaroids, medium format, the darkroom, film vs digital, and other things I would never know.

I stiff can never remember what an f-stop is, but I pay attention. And she listens to me the the same way. It really matters, even when we don't know what the other is talking about.

JshWright• 16 years ago

My wife is a music teacher. I can comfortably discuss the contributions of people like Carl Orff and Émile Jaques-Dalcroze to modern music education theory. While I have never played an instrument in my life, I can hold my own in a graduate level music theory discussion (I know more about theory than any of my 'casual' musician friends).

My wife, on the other hand, is far more likely to place Django in the context of an early 20th century Gypsy Jazz guitar player than a 21st century web framework...

FraaJad• 16 years ago

My wife loves writing about cooking from her part of the world, which she thinks is core to her and her community's identity. I host & manage the website and take pictures of her cooking experiments :)

mahmud2• 16 years ago

My fiancee is a blues singer, song-writer, guitarist and actor.

And yes, she does know what I do for work, she is my co-founder after all.

tel• 16 years ago

And people wonder why marriage is in such a downswing.

krisneuharth• 16 years ago

My wife is an attorney. I enjoy listening to the problems she faces in her cases. It is interesting to help her think of innovative solutions. It's a little like hacking code once you abstract away all the legal terms and focus on the concepts.

lmkg• 16 years ago

My girlfriend is actually the one with the CS background, not me--I'm a mathematician. She's working in Computer Vision right now, and I have a passing knowledge of the algorithms she uses, like SVMs.

More importantly, I am now an adoring fan of doom metal, and have a greater appreciation for 18th century European literature and philosophy. I'm not sure I'll ever match her encyclopedic knowledge of obscure metal sub-genres (electro-Tolkien thrash metal?) but bands like Anathema and Ulver now dominate my last.fm account, and I have a finer appreciation for non-English-language films.

Conversely, she just finished Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I'm so proud of her! I also taught her to cook, which brings me more joy than I can put in words.

cageface2• 16 years ago

Women that code SVMs, listen to Ulver, and read 18th century European literature actually exist?!?!?

Does she have sisters?

ajdecon• 16 years ago

My girlfriend plays roller derby and she absolutely loves it. I've not only learned what a blocker, pivot and jammer are, but all about the different permutations of wheels, bearings, and skates which are used to get every last bit of speed and maneuverability out of her skating. (And I've helped her learn to take them apart and put them back together!) She's only been involved in the league since January, but she's already hugely involved and helping to plan their events. It's been a huge thing for her, especially since she's only a year into living here and was flailing for something to do outside work.

jseliger2• 16 years ago

My GF is in med school, so I now know why it's vastly smarter to go into nursing than medicine, why so many doctors are unhappy, and why Penelope Trunk is right when she says that medical and law school force you to overinvest: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/02/03/dont-try-to-dodge-t... .

In addition, I know that you don't want residents making major care decisions on their own.

megablast5• 16 years ago

MY ex was a surgeon.

I am intrigued to hear your reason about why so many doctors are unhappy? More than any other overly bureaucratic profession?

neutronicus• 16 years ago

it's vastly smarter to go into nursing than medicine

My girlfriend just graduated from nursing school, so I know a lot of recently-graduated nursing students. They do not agree with you. At all.

Doctors don't have to clean feces off of people who are too obese to move.

AmberShah2• 16 years ago

But this is not just a hobby, this is their life's work. Could you image if someone said their husband was "a doctor, or something like that..." and if you asked what they specialized in (surgeon, orthopedics, etc) you would have no idea? It's not about knowing HOW they do their job, it's about knowing WHAT they do.

Anyways, my husband is a programmer and so am I so we don't have this problem, but another problem entirely...

amackera• 16 years ago

vim > emacs?

jberryman• 16 years ago

My GF is an incredible classical violinist. We met at music school, so I can relate to a lot of what she does quite well. But that doesn't mean I'm not consistently blown away by her skills and passion.

She does a good job listening and trying to understand the computer things I'm working on and fascinated by.

commanda• 16 years ago

My boyfriend is a Python programmer. My main language is Obj-c.

Of course we share a lot of languages in common, but I have an almost complete lack of Python experience, as does he with Obj-c. Together we wrote a simple url-shortener in Python (http://get.emo.gd/), and with a little of my help, he has been dabbling in an iPad app that he's been wanting to write for ages.

pbjorklund• 16 years ago

Alot, but thats because I also find it interesting which renders the question, how you say, moot. :)

GiraffeNecktie• 16 years ago

My partner deals with assholes all day long. In fact, she does colonic irrigation.

aristus• 16 years ago

My wife is a writer and painter. I regularly frame her work, correct her English, sell her paintings, and do random carpentry, plastic and metal work in service of her art.

For her part, she is also my first editor, and knows a lot about what I do, and has taught me so much about both language and art.

edit I'm struck by the coincidence of geeks and artists in this thread. I'd suspected there was a correlation before, but, damn...

enneff• 16 years ago

My partner is also an artist, and I am a programmer. Funny.

teamonkey• 16 years ago

I had an Atari ST while growing up, she had an Amiga 500, and yet we're still together.

mahmud2• 16 years ago

You married up ;-)

dejv• 16 years ago

My GF is scientists in molecular genetics (working on some type of cancer) so this is tricky field for people without background in biology, chemistry and medicine. I am in stage that I know what she does, but don't understand core principles.

tjmc• 16 years ago

My wife is an optometrist and runs her own independent practice. The field is fascinating but the clinical side doesn't pay the bills. So success means being a good retailer as well.

TallGuyShort• 16 years ago

My wife's an Interior Designer, and I make sure we go to all sorts of expos together. It's been really good for me to learn about something totally different - and I've always appreciated that she asks me to explain what I'm doing, even if it takes me a few tries to make it understandable.

agentultra• 16 years ago

My wife is a homeopathic doctor.

I know quite a bit about the practice and have many intense debates with her about it. I take the scientific stance in these debates and we've often talked about the efficacy of homeopathic treatment, regulation, and so forth. I know quite a bit about it now and have been able to reach my own conclusions (which I won't discuss here).

I don't think she has as strong a knowledge in programming, but I think that's partly my fault as I don't talk about it much. She know what computer languages I know and that there are quite a few out there. She knows a few of the projects I've worked on. But that's about it.

The article provides some good advice. I took up knitting at one point just so I could spend more time with my wife doing things she likes. She's taken up cycling with me and has learned to appreciate graphic novels and some of my favorite poets. If you're going to spend a lifetime together you might as well make it as enjoyable as you can.

XFrequentist• 16 years ago

You should spread the logical core of your arguments out over several thousand conversations. That should make the arguments much more potent.

jollyjerry• 16 years ago

My girlfriend is a chemical engineer. We both try to talk to one another about what excites us about our work. When she starts talking about nanotech materials, she can't help throwing in a lot of technical jargon that fly over my head. She's always good about thinking of an analogy that I can understand. On the flip side, she rarely has trouble understanding what I do as a web programmer. I think the fact that her work involves all this sci-fi future black magics makes it a little harder to explain.

I love having that we have such 2 distinct passions in life. Sure, there's some overlap in engineering, but the subject matters are totally different. As a result of what she does, I get to travel to where her research takes her and meet people with backgrounds completely different from myself. It's freaking awesome.

The 2 of us are moving down to Pasadena next month because she's starting at Caltech. It's a bummer to leave the Bay Area, but I'm excited about our new adventures.

mattwdelong• 16 years ago

It means that when your site goes down, there is a pretty good chance your husband can put it back up for you.

mbubb• 16 years ago

Happened to my wife and I during her citizenship interviews. Brief panic. Mumbling - eventually she came out with, "he does something with computers". Good enough for the INS

dennisgorelik2• 16 years ago

Great observation. That [lack of knowledge about husband's profession] reflects reality of most marriages.

run4yourlives9• 16 years ago

Citation please.

techiferous• 16 years ago

I'm a computer geek and met my future wife at college. She also "lived directly across the hall from me". She thinks programming is cool and enjoyed the programming course she took in college. She became a teacher for a while and I thought that was cool and joined her (at the same school) for three years. So I totally agree with this blog article. Be interested in what your significant other is doing; it's better that way.

joelhaasnoot• 16 years ago

This is a good read! Ran into something today where I used the same i variable for two nested for loops, and told my gf about how it was frustrating but simple once found. It was wonderful to hear she actually understood, having taken some basic college (web) programming courses. That kind of simple understanding really can make your day, and reinforce the relationship.

Infomus• 16 years ago

"It was no accident that years later I knew that “Ruby on Rails” wasn’t a rebellious act of sacrificing precious gems on railroad tracks in hipster neighborhoods."

News to me!

Mgccl• 16 years ago

Is it me or am I reading too much into "Finding out that he also played guitar sealed the deal. " My first thought was this comic: http://www.explosm.net/comics/897/

run4yourlives9• 16 years ago

Wife with remarkably similar interests to husband takes interest in his passions, story at 11.

Hrm. Not that I disagree, but it is abundantly clear that this husband and wife combo are very similar people. At least on her end.

If she is suggesting that she learned Ruby and started writing a blog because she wanted to know her husband better I'm calling BS. She did these things because she herself is interested in them.

If I am to be cynical: She shares her husband's interests, that much is clear, but is the experience mutual, and if not is she in any position to critique others?

He was a trooper.

This is what you say when you know someone is participating in an activity simply because they know you enjoy it, not so much because they are avid hikers (or rubyists) themselves.

None of that bothers me. In fact it seems to be - at least on her part - the key to enjoying life with another person.

What bothers me is that she openly mocks women that don't seem to have an passion for all the things their husbands do. It ignores that there (should be) a whole lot more to a person that a single passion. It ignores that many of those particular things may be what is shared. Most importantly it ignores the fact that she actually isn't doing what she claims to be doing at all.

There is no reason why any particular passion should be elevated to a level that it cannot be "excluded" from an important relationship, provided there are shared experiences in other areas.

To suggest otherwise says more about the person with the passion than the one forced to accept it, really.

kscaldef• 16 years ago

She doesn't say that couples have to have the same passions. She says that you should at least know something about what your partner does, beyond just their job title.

run4yourlives9• 16 years ago

And that's what I question, for two reasons:

1. The example of herself is invalid. Her interests in Ruby go beyond an interest in her husband's passion. They are her own passions. For some reason I don't think his interest in ballet is of the same quality. I'm sure there is something that she "tolerates" rather than "also enjoys", but she doesn't provide any data here.

2. I don't think it's required for my wife to know my programming passion to the levels of knowing that I prefer Python as a language any more than she should be required to know that the pilot-in-common sits on the left side of the aircraft in that profession.

The fact is that your programming passion in many cases is just one of your many interests. Provided that there are many areas that overlap with a significant other, in my mind it is silly to criticize those that don't share this particular one.

abstractbill3• 16 years ago

Anyone who says "Programming? My husband does something like that I think." deserves, if not mockery, then something more like pity.

Passion isn't necessary, but why bother being in a close relationship with another person if you're not even going to learn what it is that they spend their time working on?

run4yourlives9• 16 years ago

Programming? My husband does something like that I think." deserves, if not mockery, then something more like pity.

Issues with programmer ego aside, how is this any different from suggesting that your husband is a doctor without saying he is a pediatrician, a lawyer without saying he specializes in tax law, or a pilot without mentioning that he flies F-16C's?

but why bother being in a close relationship with another person if you're not even going to learn what it is that they spend their time working on?

For the same reason that you have no idea what this year's hot brand of shoes is: it's not a common interest.

Now, not having ANYTHING in common isn't exactly promising. However suggesting that this particular passion is more important than others - simply because you happen to share it - isn't exactly insightful.

renaebair3• 16 years ago

In one sentence you summed up what took me 10 paragraphs to explain. :)

RiderOfGiraffes• 16 years ago

I disagree with you entirely.

My wife has no real interest in programming, but is learning about it through conversations because she cares about me, and therefore cares about what I do. If I were to suddenly die or otherwise leave her life, she wouldn't continue any connection with programming.

I have no real interest in embroidery or painting, but I am learning about it as I talk with her about her loves and interests. If for some reason I were to lose her, embroidery and painting would cease to be part of my life.

I don't see the original author mocking anyone, I see her deploring the fact that so many people don't take a genuine interest in what their life partner does, and which is sometimes their passion.

I see the original author suggesting that a genuine effort to understand one's partner's interest will enrich both lives.

I've heard that Churchill once said: "If over dinner you find yourself seated next to a manufacturer of glass eyes, take the opportunity to learn about it - you will probably never get the chance again."

I've not been able to track down the definitive source, but I don't care - I believe the sentiment to be true, and by following that precept my life is much richer than it once was.

run4yourlives9• 16 years ago

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment at all. As a curious learner it is most certainly something I employ myself.

I don't restrict that to my wife's passions however. I also don't insist on the behaviour from her towards my passions.

It should not be hard to be engaged in your partner’s interests. If it is that hard, you might want consider the possibility that you might be full of yourself

This is what I have an issue with. She says this, yet she herself "is interested" in a passion she shares.

It's disingenuous, and the only other examples she gives are that of her husband.

renaebair3• 16 years ago

When I met Adam, we had very few similar interests. I was a political science and philosophy major. Very social, nature-loving, etc. He was programming, hacking phone lines and owning at video games from a young age. When Adam introduced himself, my computer at the time was a Packard Bell 486 and I remember asking Adam if he could put Windows 98 on it so I could try to play a couple video games with him. He laughed at me, and simply said, "Nope, that's not going to work." :) I was never in the D&D or computer nerd crowd growing up. My small town Maine school was focused strictly on athletics. The most I had used a computer was to send aim messages to my HS boyfriend while he was at college. My own geekery really only started because I took the time to listen to Adam and pay attention to what he was doing. I was able to see how much fun he was having with his hobbies, and I wanted to be a part of that. My interests grew over time, but I'm quite sure that I wouldn't know a thing about programming, or the Ruby ecosystem today if I didn't make an effort to be engaged in his personal interests, even though they were so foreign to me at the time.

balding_n_tired• 16 years ago

"Is it dangerous to draw a correlation between high divorce rates and the lack of interest that people have in their partners lives?"

Perhaps not, but "in their lives" need not mean "in every aspect of their lives". I think it's great for anyone, in a relationship with a programmer, or not, to learn about programming. But simple observation tells me that a relationship does not rely on the s.o.'s ability to talk learnedly about Perl v. Python v. Ruby.

philwelch5• 16 years ago

This is my girlfriend's mentality too, but I'm so used to people not knowing or caring about my geeky interests that I'm often reluctant to tell.

cparedes• 16 years ago

Same here (at least with other people not really caring too much about my own interests.) A lot of people I've talked to have even actively refuse to take interest.

My girlfriend is redoing her Java assignments and is going to do the OCW MIT course on Python very soon; I'm very very happy for her and she seems to really enjoy programming. Right now, I'm trying to get her to play a few of my computer games with me. :)

dkarl2• 16 years ago

This always blows my mind. You’re married to someone, and you aren’t interested enough in the person to know anything about what they do with nearly 40-50% of their time, aside from their job title?

This is underappreciated. I had a girlfriend who was an accountant. At the end of the day, she'd want to vent about work, and guess what? I couldn't follow her without asking some questions about accounting. Suddenly, I was interested in accounting, because I wanted to understand why she was annoyed or stressed or happy or relieved when she got home from work, and I didn't want to just nod and say "uh huh, uh huh" while she was talking about something that was an important part of her life. Now I don't give two shits about accounting.

If that's unusual, sign me up for an unusual woman.

kmfrk• 16 years ago

I can't see how it could be any other way. If I get a girlfriend from a different country, I'll at least try to learn the basics of her language and be able to have some decent conversations. Anything else would be a conscious disinterest in your girlfriend and what makes her tick. It's almost a blessing to have such an glaring chance to learn more about your significant other.

megablast5• 16 years ago

I have a theory that most people just don't like being alone, so finding someone to fulfill that need is enough. It doesn't matter what that person does, what they look like etc... As long as they are reasonably inoffensive, then they are a winner. It is called settling, most people do it.

GrandMasterBirt2• 16 years ago

Yea... With my wife's study I try to involve myself. I think my wife does not want to completely understand programming or is intimidated by it.

She did get the geekiness aspect though, in fact when I didn't want to join my college's sci-fi club she signed us both up (and became the president who all feared and respected). We had a blast there and made some life-long friends. Then she watched star trek: tng and the love of ST began :).

dasil0032• 16 years ago

The thought process that programming requires is tiresome and tedious to my wife. The fact that her eyes glaze over when I talk about the details of my day does not mean that she doesn't care about what programming means to me in the greater human sense.

One of the reasons I married her is precisely because she is so different from me, and the fact that I must describe things to her as a layperson actually improves my communication skills greatly. I would never dream of being offended that she does not want to put forth the effort to grasp the gritty details of what I do.

That said, she does know what Ruby on Rails is :)

megablast5• 16 years ago

There is a difference between boring someone with what you do, and talking about what you did that day. It can be a fine line, but there is always a way to explain in layman terms what you do.

Do you not talk to your wife about what she does during the day?

dasil0032• 16 years ago

Of course, we always talk about our day. Depending on what it is it's very easy to talk about (ie. office politics or user-facing features). On the other hand if I spent all day debugging a race condition I might go into an analogy or I might just jump to how it made me feel, etc.

seldo• 16 years ago

Reading this just makes me think it should be laughably simple to date another gay male (mostly PHP) programmer[1]. We'd automatically share interests! But WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS?!

[1] see http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1927#c...

theturtle32• 16 years ago

Well, I'm here... but I'm not sure where the rest of us are...

GrandMasterBirt2• 16 years ago

that comic is priceless!

davidw• 16 years ago

It's brave to come out and admit so publicly that you use PHP.

nuclear_eclipse• 16 years ago

Hi. My name is John, and I use PHP.

henrikschroder2• 16 years ago

I've only done PHP a few times, I was drunk, and the guy who asked was kinda cute, and one thing led to another.

I really hated myself the morning after, so I can't recommend it for the curious.

camtarn• 16 years ago

Here :)

Happily engaged to a proud history/biology geek: I chat about the difference between static and dynamic typing, and get a brief history of the French revolution or an explanation of plant cell growth in return (it's a lot more fun to learn history over a few beers and accompanied by plenty of swearing and enthusiastic gesturing ;) )

tlrobinson2• 16 years ago

Funny she mentions LEGO, I credit my desire to become an engineer/programmer to my childhood obsesession with LEGO. Apparently it's a cliche?

quantumhobbit• 16 years ago

Well I'm supporting that cliche too. When I was a kid I took over the spare bedroom with LEGO trains and cities. I spent hours obsessively building, sort of how I write code now. Just hearing her one mention of LEGO made me want to get the blocks out and play.

samdk• 16 years ago

I just did get my Lego blocks out to start playing!

sofal• 16 years ago

I used Construx. Y'all are a bunch of rich kids.

scott_s2• 16 years ago

No, not really - that's not what cliche means. A cliche is an idea that's presented so much that its originality is lost. Lots of people saying they became interested in programming because of a simple programming language designed to teach kids means it was a success.

tlrobinson2• 16 years ago

Huh? I think you're confusing LEGO [1] with LOGO [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

While it might be a liberal use of the word "cliché" I think it applies: I assumed I was fairly unique in recognizing LEGO as an influence on my career choice, but in fact it's common enough among programmers that this woman cites her lack of LEGO experience as an example of why she isn't a programmer.

henrikschroder2• 16 years ago

It's the other way around, some kids just build the thing on the box and play with it as it is, and some kids build, tear down, build something else, tear it down, etc.

The latter group is more likely to become some sort of engineer, but I would guess it's a personality trait that expresses itself through Lego in an early age.

sigstoat2• 16 years ago

am i the only one who thinks that the language they work in is not the most interesting or fundamental aspect of their programming career?

Charuru2• 16 years ago

This only applies if you're working on an uncool language, like Java or .Net, otherwise the language is part of your identity.

hugh3• 16 years ago

If that's so, you need a bigger identity.

powrtoch• 16 years ago

She mainly mentions Ruby. Which, more so than other languages, actually does seem to be much more than just a language to the developers who use it. Knowing her husband loves Ruby to her also speaks to his programming philosophy, community involvement, etc.

roc• 16 years ago

My question is: how many geeks work only in one language or write to only one platform?

Some of us do a lot more than I think you can reasonably expect a non-industry spouse to follow with any technical depth.

It's like expecting a prolific musician's wife to identify all the instruments her spouse plays and have some understanding of why he chooses one over another for a given piece, just because you could reasonably expect a blues guitarist's wife to know that her husband plays predominantly blues guitar.

elptacek• 16 years ago

Sure, it's all wine and roses... until the day you find yourself fighting with your spouse over a bug.

It happens.

dmor• 16 years ago

make sure to use source control... lots of married couples don't ;)

but seriously, we've had fights over that

rlachenal• 16 years ago

My wife was the company nurse in a training outfit I attended in the 90s. Her "guitar" caught my eye too.

zackattack3• 16 years ago

Exactly. Commonalities are just a useful pretext/rationalization for starting a conversation.

wslh• 16 years ago

My wife is a dentist, and I took part of her time to explain what I do showing some naive sort algorithm.

At the end she asked why I need to do all that stuff if she can click on an excel option to sort the data!

nailer2• 16 years ago

Sort algorithms are a shitty way of learning to program. Yes, I'm aware of that's how programming is typically taught.

You need to make something before you can make it fast. Hopefully something interesting and cool. Why not show her a 10 line app that loops through all her Facebook friends and gets their phone numbers?

doki_pen• 16 years ago

Another hoax, huh?

:wink:

vl• 16 years ago

Ironically, if you work at large corporation you quite often just can't talk about what exactly you are doing. The amount of secrecy at some companies is worse than at terrible, however enjoyable, TV series "The Unit".

philwelch5• 16 years ago

"What did you do at work today?" "I'll tell you next year."

Jun82• 16 years ago

Proggit has a wonderful comment for this story. For those of you who don't go there often, here it is:

Back in my early 20's, when I was just out of university and doing any old contract job that came around, I happened to be working on a particularly complex project that involved a heavy amount of annoyingly complex javascript (before the days of jQuery). I ended up burning myself out trying to hit an impending deadline. I collapsed into bed in the middle of the day.

A little while later, my (then) girlfriend (now wife) came into the bedroom to ask if everything was ok and, waking up in a stupor and not really being conscious about what I was saying, I mumbled that it was all going wrong and I was hoping she would help me (she's not a programmer and wouldn't know where to start). I woke up a few hours later to find her stressing over one of my javascript reference books and looking at me with sad eyes, saying she didn't make much progress, because it was all a bit confusing.

emeryc• 16 years ago

That is amazingly sweet. Could you link to the comment opn proggit itself as well?

Jun82• 16 years ago

Here's the link: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/d02be/my_husban...

mxavier• 16 years ago

This article is of particular interest to me. I spend a good deal of my time as a young single guy immersed in technology and hacker culture. However, when I'm around women or trying to meet women, I instinctively will only discuss generalities as in "I write web applications" and leave it at that unless they are adamant about finding out more, which very rarely occurs.

I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing but at the end of the day it does feel kind of bad to feel the need to push a pretty big part of your personality off into the corner because a majority of the women you'll meet don't care and will get annoyed if they have to hear about it. Nothing feels worse than telling a story and watching your audience dart their eyes, grow bored and try to think of ways to feign interest.

GBKS2• 16 years ago

I'd say something like "Last week I build a website where you can do x and y. Somebody just did z on it and it was so cool because of...". Frame it in practical real-world terms and present it as an exciting, high-tech thing you're doing.

Don't give facts, tell a story.

rue• 16 years ago

Being "around women or trying to meet women" does not imply a serious relationship, so I think the standards are a bit lower there.

GBKS2• 16 years ago

My wife is like that for a specific reason. While I do a lot of coding and development, it's not really my main interest. My main interest is making awesome interactive experiences.

Programming is my hammer. I know how to use it, but I prefer talking about what I do with the hammer. In turn, my wife knows about what you can do on my latest web project, and has no clue about coding.

Might be a slightly different context than the article, but I wanted to point out that there is a difference in the technical aspect of somebody's work and what "they do".

CRASCH• 16 years ago

TLDR: I have a somewhat funny story...

I got married in 1997 the same year I started working on local number portability. Local number portability is the system that allows people to keep their phone number and change their carrier. Wire line local number portability happened first and then wireless number portability went live in November 2003. I had been working in this area for about six years.

About a week before the system went live. I'm on site and in a meeting. We were covering all the test results and launch plan details. I get a call from my wife. I figured it was important because she knew I was on-site. I take the call. she says, "Guess what I just heard. You are going to be able to change cell phone companies and keep your number! Isn't that cool?" "Um, Hun what do you think I've been working on for the last six years?"

"My husband is a programmer; I have no idea what that means."

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