Comment by fragmede
11 years ago
Two other more contemporary examples are the Android app Tasker, and the website IFTTT ( https://ifttt.com/ ).
There's something about calling it programming that turns certain people off. I remember a story about a freshman in a physical mechanics class that complained about all the MATLAB code they had to write. The professors retort was that they were free to use a slide rule instead, and that particular freshman stopped complaining.
But you're right. The mere act of calling it programming is somehow a problem. It's as if doing programming pigeonholes you into being a programmer until the end of days.
> The mere act of calling it programming is somehow a problem.
There are some words that carry with them unshedable connotations that people want to get away from so strongly that they will call themselves something else at the first possible instant. "Programmer" is one of them.
"Poet" is another. No one makes money from poetry because as soon as a poet makes money they are something else: a musician, a performer, a copy-writer, whatever.
Just don't call them a "poet", because "poets" are poor, sad people with no future, just as "programmers" are neckbearded nerdboys who smell bad, and no matter how many programmers (or poets) fail to live up to those stereotypes people will continue to impose them on reality come hell or high water.
Until one shoots out the top. Then he/she can be a "poet" again.
Kind of like how calling programs for proofs seems to make most programmers uneasy. (Not that most programs that you'll run into are proofs in any interesting sense.)