Explaining our Hobby to Non-Programmers

[Colonel Kernel]

I think I was lucky... My wife has a business degree, and the kind of software I've worked on in my career has always been very business-oriented. First it was Business Intelligence, multi-dimensional databases to analyze business data like retail sales numbers, etc., and now I work on a platform for search and display advertising. Because of this, I've always been able to "talk shop" with her about my work, at least from the business point of view.

For the younger ones out there, just remember: Life gets way, way better when you're out of school and out in the world making real money and meeting mature interesting people. For me, like most smart people I think, life between the ages of 9 and 18 was like living through "Lord of the Flies". It really does get better!

<edit>
Oh yeah, my OS dev hobby... That's a lot more difficult to talk about with my wife without her eyes glazing over. But a lot of my co-workers find it interesting (but they're all programmers).
</edit>

[JackScott]

My girlfriend is studying a bioinformatics degree. Yesterday I told her I wanted my own Beowulf cluster to play around with, and she said back to me "Cool! When we live together you can build one and I'll study genomes with it." Now if that isn't damn cool I don't know what is.

[Troy Martin]

Now if that isn't damn cool I don't know what is.

What, the Beowulf cluster or that your girl wants to move in with you?

[earlz]

yeah, because of the monopoly-fights of Microsoft are people seeing Microsoft is not the only software producer. They see that Windows is their product, and not binded to the PC.

When telling about technical parts, they are watching me like a am an idiot. And when we do some word-games in class, they always say: 'No computer things Jos!'

// PHPnerd

"I'm a PC" commercials make me want to punch babies.. It should freaking be "I'm a windows user!"

edit:

Now if that isn't damn cool I don't know what is.

What, the Beowulf cluster or that your girl wants to move in with you?

well here troy goes with another one of his drunken forum postings rofl

[chibicitiberiu]

"I'm a PC" commercials make me want to punch babies.. It should freaking be "I'm a windows user!"

I agree, they are very annoying. The ones from microsoft and the ones from Apple ("I'm a Mac... And I'm a PC..."), they say that just like windows would be binded to the PC, and many 'ordinary' people think like that.

[Masterkiller]

if people know that you ... have yourself a good fucking time.

Before I read this post, I think that I was victim from computer knowledge. There isn't a day without someone ask a help with their computer, website, windows and so on. Yeah, I know web programming, high-level programming for windows and low-level programming and a little hardware (that what I had learning in school), I'm a computer nerd. Well it is not exactly as in the movies, I'm handsome and smart but most of the time I prefer just telling "I don't know to computer related questions, because sometimes ppl get really annoying.
After read this post, I think it could be far more worse

[Troy Martin]

"I'm a PC" commercials make me want to punch babies.. It should freaking be "I'm a windows user!"

I agree, they are very annoying. The ones from microsoft and the ones from Apple ("I'm a Mac... And I'm a PC..."), they say that just like windows would be binded to the PC, and many 'ordinary' people think like that.

I don't mind the Mac vs. PC ones that Apple makes, but the ones with the damn four-year-old taking a picture, importing it, and emailing it on a windows box? Some freaking adults who use computers and understand them need a manual to do that.

[CmpXchg]

For everyone out there who wants a good relationship with a girlfriend AND does our weird progging stuff, IMHO David DeAngelo materials ROCK....

http://www.doubleyourdating.com

When I finally got a girlfrined, we joked the h*ll out of my programming hobby in the beginning of our relationship, and that only seemed to increase the attraction

Btw she is quite good at Pascal herself, learned it at school I helped her with her Computer Science homework, but we just happened to finish school few weeks ago!

[gravaera]

Hmm... I can understand you . But probly most people will ask "what is use of creating an os ?" Most people have told me to focus my engery on something new and innovative than reinventing the wheel . But I may come up wit a better wheel or find a flaw in the existing wheel .

Regards
Thomas Mathew

OMG EFFIGN GOD I feel you to the effing core. I don't know how many times my sister will be like:

"OS Development? Look: you cant make money off an OS, boy. Why don;t you do something more useful that will make you money when you grow up?"

I've only ever told about two people other than my sister that I'm building an OS, and they were like: "Wow. You really have plenty time to waste, dread. Why don't you just use Windows?"

ARG...you just want to slap them and say:

"I don't effing care about effing Window$, or Mac, or Linux! I just want to build an effing OS, just because I FREAKIN can!!!!!! I don't have to have a EFFING REASON!! Do knitters have reasons to sit down for hours and knit? NO. Do hobbyist fishers have a reason to fish? NOPE. Do I have to have a FREAKING REASON to build me a FRICKIN-G-DAMNED-OS???!!! EFFING NO!!!"

ZOMG...it drives you freaking crazy. And you have to just calmly be like, "Yeah, well, I just like the idea of intricate coding and seeing my code come to life. It's a sort of...spiritual feeling to an extent."

And they're like: "...Oh."

[xDDunce]

I got a good one...

if anyone ever asks you what you're doing, just reply with a simple; "I'm quantumizing the facilitational functionality of the requisitional stages of operation, to harness the full capacity of the Xth core to which i have no idea exists."

I get all my friends with that and they just trail off and go back to what they were doing. no other questions asked. I even got the librarian in my college to shut up! (It's a hard task, all she ever does is moan and shout about the noise... oh the irony!)

anyway, Happy programming
Cheers,
James.

[xvedejas]

I used to do conlanging (creation of human languages, see Esperanto), which is also extremely complex just like osdeving. Both computer languages and natural languages are very complex and have an element of both creativity and science to them. Many people would not understand either at all. I honestly don't know which concept is more perplexing to the lay person...

[jal]

I used to do conlanging

Heh, I'm still doing it. Any reason why you stopped? Visited the ZBB/CBB forums?

I honestly don't know which concept is more perplexing to the lay person...

Indeed.


JAL

[xvedejas]

Hey, I thought I recognized you from somewhere... Yeah, my screenname was "Zoris" over on the ZBB, I've posted twice in the past year

I haven't exactly "stopped", it's just been put on hold for tons of other random projects that are currently interesting me

[jal]

Yeah, my screenname was "Zoris" over on the ZBB, I've posted twice in the past year

Still, I vaguely recall that name. Combining OSdeving and conlanging is quite a daunting task, especially if, like me, there's about 0 free time :(.


JAL

[AndrewAPrice]

OMG EFFIGN GOD I feel you to the effing core. I don't know how many times my sister will be like:

"OS Development? Look: you cant make money off an OS, boy. Why don;t you do something more useful that will make you money when you grow up?"

Tell them it's a hobby. Much like how you might have a hobby playing a sport, collecting something, who knows, with no intention of making money off it.