What profession is coding like?

[DerekT P]

firefighter (on occasions!) A new client calls you, you know nothing about the system which is DOWN and the client is losing £10k/hour. There is a certain amount of stress involved and you're in damage-limitation mode. Afterwards when things are wet and smouldering you step through doing a forensic investigation to find out what caused it all and then specify a new fire detection system and sprinklers.

[BryanFazekas]

Doctor. If the job gets exciting, it means something has gone badly wrong for someone.

[V 0]

Like marriage... At first it starts like a romantic dream, but soon enough, it becomes more like "accepting your fate".

V.

[Slow Eddie]

"Blood Sweat and Tears"

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[Slow Eddie]

"Blood Sweat and Tears"

[Member 14840496]

A mental rollercoaster ride. Just make sure you keep a copy of everything you developed so that when you need to develop something else a year later or more, you may be able to find the solution in your past applications; rather than spend hours or days searching Google only to find yourself wasting time because a large percentage of the posts do not work.

[BBar2]

Cabinet Making. Sometimes you make a beautiful finely finished product. Sometimes you make a plywood box.

[Lost User]

On a good day, it's like being a mathematician. Usually it's like being a copy editor, and the text you're dealing with was written by a monkey and in some fake language that has rules so convoluted that you cannot remember more than half of the rules at the time.

[Dan Neely]

Greg Utas wrote:

But we dress it up and call it refactoring. :)

Unless I'm certain management isn't around in which case it's de:elephant:toring. :-\

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius

[agolddog]

Dentistry. Extract the bad stuff, fill it in with slightly less (in your opinion) bad stuff.

[James Curran]

As I tell people who need help with their PCs: Programming is like writing a novel. IT support is like operating a printing press.

Truth, James

[Bruce Greene]

I tell my kids that writing a complex C# program is like writing a novel except that if one word is misspelled then no one can read the entire thing.

[KarstenK]

I compare it with manual blacksmith work: you have some pieces of code and are hammering on the keyboard til the mud (bugs) are out. Maintenance is like reshaping a nail and support is horse shoe business. :~

Press F1 for help or google it. Greetings from Germany

[englebart]

Being a sculptor where the users choose the medium, but management already has picked out the paint brushes you have to use!

[Daniel Pfeffer]

It is one step below being God: In what other profession would my Word create worlds? And yes, I am perfectly serious.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.

[den2k88]

This is true on so many levels... :-\

GCS d--(d-) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++*      Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X

[BillWoodruff]

Like being a combination of: 1 plumber 2 janitor 3 magician 4 flunky

«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch

[jan larsen]

Artist or Creator :) I'm really bad at math, and while I sure would like to get better, it seems like I got a phobia. But I got Google and the customers for any formulae they need in the system. I believe that the most important part of my job, is to be able to envision the solution, and write readable and re-usable code, that I can recognize the purpose of, when I inevitably needs to revisit it 10 years in the future :-D (Not kidding, it happens too often these days).

"God doesn't play dice" - Albert Einstein "God not only plays dice, He sometimes throws the dices where they cannot be seen" - Niels Bohr

[englebart]

The closest thing to coding is writing geometry proofs. You start with a given state or inputs, and you want to reach a different result or output state. The non-coding aspects of the job are covered well on other posts.

[svella]

I've always thought of it most like an animator. [How to MAKE A FLIPBOOK - YouTube](https://youtu.be/Un-BdBSOGKY)