I was thinking today how blessed I feel for being a part of the worldwide web development community (and the broader programming community). In a world where throwing shit at others is an acceptable way of climbing to the top, our industry is a breeze of fresh air. Here are a few reasons why I find our industry unique, in a very good way:
- In which other industry is it common for people to spend several hours, days or in some cases even months, working on something to give it away for free, just to help people?
- In which other industry do people help you and promote you just because they think you’re good, without getting anything out of it?
- In which other industry do people listen to you, not because of your titles, degrees and “decades of experience”, but because of what you actually know?
- In which other industry can you go to a big professional conference with jeans and a t-shirt and be in the majority? (And the best part is, even if you don’t like that kind of outfit and you prefer to wear a suit, you still fit in, cause appearances just don’t matter)
- Judging whether someone’s work is good is a very rational and objective process (unlike arts). Sure, the various criteria have different weights for every person, but the criteria are the same for everyone, more or less (correctness, speed, maintainability, readability etc).
- Even though it’s a male dominated field, I’ve never* experienced any discrimination or lack of respect due to my gender. Quite the contrary actually.
- I’ve yet to meet a developer that lacks a sense of humor.
- Work for us is our passion, not a chore. Yes, there are passionate people in every field, but in our industry it’s the norm, not the exception.
- You don’t need to hide your geekiness. Instead, you’re encouraged to embrace it.
Yes, I know that not all of them are true for every single person that happened to be a web developer. I’m talking about the part of the industry that’s active and that I meet in conferences, meetups, twitter etc.
So, what are your reasons for liking our industry, if any? Lets keep this post happy and not whine about what we DON’T like please. :)
*Well, except one bad joke once, but he recently said he’s sorry and his intentions were good throughout, so I don’t count it.