In the End, I'm a Programmer!

The reasons I don’t call my self an engineer or developer are engineer tight with plumbing and developer tight with contractor of house. Yes, seriously! The word of programmer is the most saved and make sense for me. When someone ask what’s my occupation, I will answer I’m a programmer.

Two years ago, I watch Leslie Lamport’s interview by Quanta Magazine. Until this day and forever, his quote about programming is really hit nails in my brain:

Computer scientist tend to think in terms of programming languages. One of epiphanies in my career was the realization that I was not writing programs as a computer scientist. I was designing algorithms. I came to realize that if I’m not writing the program I shouldn’t use programming language. People confuse programming with coding. Coding is to programming what typing is to writing. Writing is something involves mental effort. You’re thinking about what you’re going to say. The words have some importance but some sense that even they are secondary to the ideas. In the same way, programs are built on ideas. They have to do something and what they’re supposed to do. I mean is like what writing is supposed to convey. If people are trying to learn progamming by being taught to code, well they’re are being taught writing by being taught how to type and that doesn’t make much sense.

If you don’t design right from the beginning, every piece of code is a patch - Leslie Lamport in Changelog Podcast.

You should also watch a clip from Leslie Lamport’s interview in Changelog Podcast about Think Outside The Box Code.

I see the more phenomenon arise that because of progamming language and framework, we forget the fundamentals as a computer scientist and I’m afraid that I will be one of them.