What is a Programmer?

If you’re in a long term relationship or married to a man or woman of this career species, you know what a programmer is-though you probably define the word programmer differently than your code-obsessed significant other. For all you lovelies in the first blush of lust or love with a programmer, let me enlighten you…because dating a programmer is far different than living with one day and night.

A programmer is a person who lives for developing and/or using software languages (think Fortran, C, C++, Java, PHP, and other acronyms you’ve heard from your spouse’s mouth but are quite sure you’ve never seen in Glamour or Men’s Fitness). If you want a formal definition of programmer, check out Wikipedia’s entry. The problem with dictionary definitions or the programmer’s own description of what they are and what they do is that most of us don’t know half of the other words they use-but geek speak is for another post.

I define a programmer by the character traits he or she has in spades (and I’ve been swimming in programmers for almost ten years now). Programmers are people who are extremely focused, solution-oriented, and opinionated. These are great qualities! Don’t get me wrong. My husband wouldn’t be the wonderful man he is if he didn’t possess these traits. But every trait has a tipping point and programmers seem to tip frequently. Focus becomes obsession. They won’t let a problem go until they solve it (to the exclusion of everything else, including food and sleep). And while they have opinions on the latest and greatest framework or scripting language, they probably don’t know anything about the President’s latest decision, what’s new at the theater, or that it’s Saturday and you’d really like to have a night on the town (because the last time you went out, together, for pure fun and touchy-feely in the back seat of the car was when you were dating).

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