Real Programmer: Difference between revisions

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The term '''Real Programmer''' is [[computer programming|computer programmer]]s' [[folklore]] to describe the archetypical "hardcore" programmer who eschews the modern languages and tools of the day in favour of more direct and efficient solutions – [[low-level programming language|closer to the hardware]]. The alleged defining features of a "Real Programmer" are extremely subjective, differing with time and place, in the fashion of the "[[no true Scotsman]]" fallacy.

The archetypal Real Programmer is [[Mel Kaye]] of the [[Royal McBee]] Computer Corporation who is immortalised in [[The Story of Mel]], one of the most famous pieces of hacker folklore. As the story infamously puts it, "He wrote in machine code – in 'raw, unadorned, inscrutable [[hexadecimal]] numbers. Directly."'

==Modernization of the real programmer==

Over the years, the figure of the "Real Programmer" was taken up and adapted as new and more powerful programming languages were created. If the real programmer of the 1980s did it "all in [[FORTRAN]]" instead of [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]],<ref>[http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html ''"...&nbsp;Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche Eaters use PASCAL&nbsp;..."'']</ref> one of the 1990s might have done it "all in [[C (programming language)|C]]", rather than [[C++]] or [[Java (programming language)|Java]], or "all in [[Perl]]" rather than [[Python (programming language)|Python]] or [[Ruby (programming language)|Ruby]].

The term is often used to describe a more bare-metal way of doing something&nbsp;&mdash; for example: "Real Programmers don't use [[integrated development environment|IDEs]], they write programs using <code>cat > [[a.out]]</code>" (that is, they write machine-readable binary files from beginning to end without making any mistakes). Each generation tends to slightly redefine a Real Programmer, as coding techniques change. For instance, a young [[Java (programming language)|Java]] programmer might refer to an older [[C (programming language)|C]] programmer as being a Real Programmer. In turn, these C programmers refer to older [[Assembly_language#Assembler|Assembly]] programmers in the same way.

==See also==

* ''[[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.

==References==

<references/>

==External links==

*[http://www.multicians.org/thvv/realprogs.html "Real Programmers Don't Write Specs": A list of 'Real programmers...' assertions]

[[Category:Computer jargon]]

[[Category:Computer folklore]]