Often when you see people talking about why they don’t want to become a programmer, their argument is that it’s a job where you just do things alone.
Especially in many news articles complaining the lack of interest girls and women have in IT careers and programming, many girls or women interviewed think the job is boring and lonely.
Then, people want to encourage others to study tech, so they loudly proclaim in those articles how programming is not a lonely job for nerdy nerds.
But those who say that are rarely programmers. What do they know?
The human elements in programming
When you work as a programmer, there is definitely human interaction going on.
You need to talk with your client/boss about what they want you to do. Typically this involves some sort of requirements gathering, and unless someone else in your team (if you have one) is doing it, you actually need to be a decent interrogator to figure out exactly what people want.
Now, if you have that team, you usually need to talk with the other guys/gals in your team. What are you working on, what are they working on, what should be focused on, any problems you have etc. etc.
In addition to this, you may need to talk with people from marketing (if you’re making a product) or the end-users, the testers or whoever else is involved.
So far, I’d say there’s a lot of communication involved. So not quite so lonely job?
The non-human elements in programming
However, a large part of what you do as a programmer is, in fact, sit in front of a computer, staring at the source code. You need to write code, usually on your own, with no one else there.
Of course there are cases like pair-programming, but the vast majority of programming isn’t done in that fashion.
So usually you sit in front of your computer, typing away. You often need to be able to concentrate well, so it’s good if you can shut out the distractions – which is usually all the people. In this way, programming is a “lonely” job: You *have to* ignore people to be able to focus properly.
Your coworkers
You may also want to take into account the kind of people who often work in programming jobs. Forgive me for using stereotypes here, but let’s face it: Many programmers are more comfortable with computers and code than with people. I’m a little bit like that myself too, but I’m not the worst case ;)
In general, people may be less chatty. Maybe because of what I said above, or maybe because they are trying to focus on whatever they are working on – in any case, this can put off people who enjoy a more social working environment.
The bottom line
So we can say that there are definitely a lot of social elements in being a programmer – at least if you want to be good at it, you must be able to work well with other people. With this regard, the complaint that programming is not a “people job” is not correct, but in some other ways it is, as you do still spend a considerable time thinking of how to solve problems and hacking at code.
I believe it’s a good intention to try to make people interested in IT careers. However, it is not the most social job one can have. If someone finds that something they don’t want, maybe they should look at something else. Not everyone is the same and can be made to enjoy the same things. There’s always a few who like programming, but if the majority don’t, why should we try to convince them otherwise with untrue claims?