Real programmer

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The term Real Programmer is a sarcastic, sometimes pejorative term used by computer programmers to describe an archetypical, "hardcore" programmer. A real programmer eschews modern or graphical tools, such as integrated development environments, or languages other than assembly language or machine code, in favour of solutions which are more direct, or "closer to the hardware".

The term is often used to justify a more complicated or time-consuming way of doing something, for example: "Real Programmers don't use IDEs, they write programs using echo "foo" > bar.c , and like it!"

Each generation of programmers tend to slightly redefine a Real Programmer, as coding techniques change. It is not uncommon to hear a young Java programmer sarcastically refer to an older C programmer as being a Real Programmer. In turn, these C programmers refer to older FORTRAN programmers in the same way.

The archetypal Real Programmer (and the patron saint of hackers and Real Programmers alike) is Mel Kaye of the Royal McBee Computer Corporation, who is immortalized in the "Story of Mel", the most famous piece of hacker folklore. As the story infamously puts it, he wrote in machine code—in "raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers. Directly."

[edit] External links

• The Story of Mel, one of the most famous real programmers
• Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal A 1983 parody of Real Men Don't Eat Quiche exploring the psychology of, and prospects for, the Real Programmer.