Why Chinese programmers are called coders

In fact, the IT industry is not particularly poor in China, and the programmer's salary is not low, but why are Chinese programmers often referred to as code farmers or hard-pressed programmers? What is the difference between programmer life in China and that in Europe and America?

Programming activities, like mechanical electronics, can be considered as a craft (craftsmanship). people engaged in such technological activities can be called craftsmen or engineers. European and American countries that have experienced the industrial revolution have profound engineering roots. From machinery to electronics to software, they are the pillars of the national industry and nourish the middle class with the backbone of society. Engineers generally have a high social position. They have the inheritance of technology, cultural circles, and industry history.

The current domestic software industry is very similar to the manufacturing industry, and the low-level repetitive labor of material processing has dominated. It is like farmers rely on God to provide seeds, soil, sunshine and water. Chinese programmers rely on foreigners to provide equipment, technology, and ideas, from the microprocessor, operating system, programming language, compiler, IDE, programming framework to the application, in addition to the sand for wafer production, there is almost nothing to do with yourself, the daily work is mainly to assemble what others already have according to their own -- or even their own -- needs. There is no creativity, and there is little technical accumulation and inheritance in the industry, even if there is one, it cannot be spread out. After all, the programmer's cultural level is generally not high-"there is knowledge, there is no culture", that is to say, this situation. I remember that in the era of poor-quality and pirated VCD, a programmer made an ugly but error-tolerant player that fits the national conditions and became famous. The result was easy to write, few sentences are fluent. The poor status of such technical books has been maintained until now, and the poor methods are more diversified. There is no technical inheritance, no cultural circle, and no one knows nothing about programming before going to college. Computer Learning is just because computers are "popular. Like an arranged marriage, there is no love, and finally programming is the industry, just because nothing else will be done.

On the other hand, programmers in China, regardless of their salaries, are indeed bitter. Many people are forced to work overtime for a long time and eventually become a voluntary habit. Productivity and product quality have not improved as a result. Just like farmers who have used hoes and sickle for thousands of years, few want to learn and improve their tools and habits, even irrational resistance to emerging trends and methods. Life is so miserable, but not so enterprising, very similar to the problems of farmers. In addition, just like the folks in the eyes of the city, programmers are dull, dirty, unemotional, and earthy. However, they are conceited and look down upon each other.

All in all, as a programmer in China, there are very few things that make people feel decent in their work. In this situation, many industries like self-deprecation and self-deprecation in the whole society, so as to make great efforts to belittle their profession, there will be no psychological burden in self-ridicule and group quarrel. However, it is like a black man can claim himself or call him a "black man". However, if a white man dares to speak, he will immediately get into trouble. He prefers to use this as a self-proclaimed programmer and cannot tolerate others' calls.

Finally, there is a similar saying in English that the office with a partition is called cube farm, which is common in traditional software companies. The software company's daily life-themed cartoon "Dilbert" has many projects in the lattice office. But What cube farm says is not that programmers are like farmers, but that they are like crops or fruit trees in the ground, producing results and waiting for harvesting. After all, farmers in developed countries in Europe and America often have better life than programmers. High income, agricultural machinery work, large private land, and quiet rural life. If it is not desirable for farmers to live there, at least it is not derogatory.