"I'm a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings".
Not being career programmers, or not having
the professional mindset set in, Perl programmers
don't go to meetings. This is a vague
generalization and such is in valid except to
the degree that it is true.
(Read: there is a tendency for Perl programmers,
tend not to go to meetings).
To be a true professional, you must have had
your fun ruined. Rather than considering your
own amusement or even your sanity, you only
consider the client, the requirements, the
corporate structure, the company, the business
plan, the investors, stock performance, the
purity of the branding... well, you know.
Selfishness means asking yourself what you need
from a work arrangement to be able to maintain
sanity. It can also mean doing what you need
to do to maintain pleasure from your work.
Professionalism systematicly strips this away
unless your pleasure is making lots of money
and being a big cheeze, which are the only
professionalism-compliant ways to enjoy a job.
Meetings aren't fun. They're boring. Meetings
are agenda driven. The driving agenda is
someone elses agenda.
Case in point: There is a Java Users Group,
JUG, in town. Approximately 5 to 10 times
as many people show up for meetings there
as do at Phoenix Perl Mongers. No, this isn't
proof, just evidence. If you must argue with
this, argue with whether or not this
constitutes evidence (which would be
stupid) or argue that the evidence
supports the premise (which would be annoying
but not out of the realm of reason) or
argue that my logic is flawed (logic isn't
something you make up, there are rules to
the game). These people show up to meetings
that are primarily a sales presentation by
the meeting sponsor, but in exchange, they
get free food and sometimes drinks afterwards,
at a resturant. So they're suffering someones
agenda. I suggest as an assumption to this
argument that they suffer this agenda because
their goal is not fun but professionalism -
they want to put their group membership on
their resume, make contacts, and actually
learn technical things - three things that
Perl programmers have little desire in.
Suffering through a presentation about how to
use a software producting supporting Java
requires patience.
Admitting that your programming skill and
professional standing could be improved
requires modesty.
Getting off your duff and going to a social
event requires energy.
In short, I submit to you, my patient
reader, that
Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris (false or
otherwise) prevents many (or even most) Perl programmers from
going to such activities as Perl Mongers.
(Suggesting that this is "wrong" would imply
that none these things happen to more than a
small degree as my conclusion is that the
effect applies to many, meaning numerous,
Perl programmers - I did not say "everyone"
or "always". Note that "many" or "most"
is a disjunction and an argument against
this should apply to both cases, not either.
For some reason, pointing out flaws in things
that people like, no matter what the intention,
seems to cause people to abandon logic).
-scott
Re:Valid Points
warp-9.9 on 2004-05-03T04:02:55
Why bother worrying about it? I don't understand. Meetings are not going to make better programmers. Going [back?] to college is going to teach you more theory, which will make you a stronger programmer. However, school also tends to teach you nothing about practical programming concerns and practices. This is experience is gained by going out on the net, searching, downloading other people's code, reading bug reports, trying software, doing performance tests, weighing features and drawbacks, and if you're working in a group, evaluating the use of administivia and management software, which probably will not even have anything to do with Perl (i.e. CVS). Going to school might even teach someone to use Java, Scheme or Prolog instead of anything "intellectually inferior" that is based off an ad-hoc C language, unstable language definition and many platform dependent issues.;-) In any case, I can better spend my time in the comfort of my own home, gathering all theknowledge of the world at my fingertips, than going to some meeting where otherpeople happen to be louder, more vociferous, more charismatic, and have their stupid questions answered and idiots sucking up the meeting time. Other people may occasionally be interested in something that I am interested in, but no one is going to be interested in exactly the same things I am interested in, and at the same time, and to the same degree, and have the same amount of free time for research, and same access to all of the internet. When I want to interact with my mind, it's more efficient to look at a conversation online, skip the drivel and slow points, and get right to the important stuff. When I want mindless entertainment that I am not a part of, and not able to control, I watch movies or TV. Meetings fall in the same category. All the travel time is time away from my computer,time changing gears, and all that eats into my time to research or to capture some developing idea down while I am inspired, as my memory of some things may not last 5 minutes, when confronted with all the other stimuli in daily life (phones, doorbells, emails, music,etc.), and my memory most likely will not survive an hour meeting where I am bored, annoyed, stifled, or otherwise afflicted with disinterest.
My theory about why Perl programmers do not attend meetings and Java people do is very simple. Java programmers are by their very nature insecure people. They are people who live with great ignorance and fear of the world, and need a rigid set of rules laid out before them to compensate, so that they feel comfortable. The world of rules is sterile of new ideas and stifling to the point of death of the art of programming and innovation. Java people need to put something on their resume which is known in popular culture, though it does little to address their lack of fundamental programming and engineering skills. It makes the management and money-grubbers happy. Money-motivated people who know nothing about technology, and out of fear of losing money, they just go with what is popular, or what someone else advertises better, or creates a slick windows GUI, or implements cathedral-like extreme paranois and control over every aspect of development and deployment.
Perl programmers by their nature snub central authority, they promote mind over money, they posess confidence that is unbounded, they fear nothing, and embrace everything in the computing world. They make a set of rules in order to create an intellectual "scaffolding" to perform some work. But the rules are never elevated to dogma, as there is no love of religion, and no love ofauthority, no love of slavery of the mind. The rules are pliable. They may even be changed or rearranged to suit the need of achieving the task more efficiently. Perl programmers code with the idea that "you should stay out of my living room because you were notinvited,not because I have a shotgun." (Paraphrasing a perl doc or book about OOP with Perl, and they were of course making a snide remark about the strictness {to the point of paranoia or being a control freak}, of Java). Perl programmers by contrast measure themselves not by what their bosses might look on a resume or a stats page to report X-number of "certified" programmers to investors, but they measure themselves by personal achievement of themselves or others. This is closer to a meritocracy as opposed to the aristocracy of Java programmers, where the programmers are devalued to the role of serfs for the money-grubbers instead of masters of their own "fate".
they want to put their group membership on their resume, make contacts, and actually learn technical things - three things that Perl programmers have little desire in.
I take issue with at least two of those. Two of the reasons I go to london.pm meetings is to meet new and interesting people, who are doing new and interesting technical things -- or, at least, old things in a new and interesting fashion. They're not just excuses to go along and drink beer...
Re:Not so sure
WebDragon on 2004-04-06T18:47:29
...not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you..
