Has Apple Made Programmers Cool? 378
An anonymous reader writes "CNET suggests that Apple has totally changed the general public's perception of programmers: It's now suddenly cool to code. No matter what platform you're on. They argue that App Store millionaire success stories have 'turned a whole generation of geek coders from social misfits into superheroes.' Apparently, gone are the days when a programmer was the last person you wanted to talk to at a party: 'Mention to someone that you make apps and their interest will pick up instantly. This is an astonishing change from what a programmer in the '80s could have expected in reaction to their job description.' The App Store millionaires, or 'Appillionaires,' may have done all of us programmers a huge favor. Programming is now socially acceptable: 'Previous generations strapped on electric guitars and fought for super-stardom in sweaty dive bars, but today's youth boot up Xcode on their MacBook Pros.'"
Ugh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Appillionaires? (Score:5, Informative)
I have a feeling the author of the article made it up. There's a link in the article to a book on Amazon by the title of Appillionaires: Secrets from Developers Who Struck It Rich on the App Store which just happens to be by the author of the article. How about that. A total coincidence.
Re:Appillionaires? (Score:5, Informative)
if you look carefully you'll note TFA says explicitly:
"Chris Stevens used to write reviews and make funny videos for CNET UK. He left to start an app company, Atomic Antelope, which made the smash-hit Alice for the iPad apps. Now he's written a book about the app development scene, Appillionaires. This is an exclusive extract."
So this is just self-serving masturbatory ego-stroking hipster scenester BS. Of course Angry Birds is right up there w/ penicillin in importance. No one had EVER written a mobile game before it's hard to even imagine society before it. sheesh.
Re:No, they haven't (Score:5, Informative)
The act of programming itself is certainly not inherently social. Most programmers seem to code much better when they are left to themselves for hours/days/weeks to just fully immerse themselves in the problem that they're trying to solve. Other areas of software development can benefit from having good social skills, for example if you get involved with the customer then you can save a lot of wasted time having to re-write things when they come back and say "that's not what we asked for!".
You also have to bear in mind that not all programming is applications programming There are researchers who may be writing programs to solve specific problems where there is no end user per se. Other people may use the code or ideas that have emerged from solving this problem, but they will probably just read that that in a paper rather than strictly requiring any social interaction. Also when it comes to writing things like device drivers, the only thing you'd really expect to get back from users are bug reports.