Discussion Annoying Non-Programmer Experiences?

Kind of a rant but you know what I'm talking about. As soon as you open your mouth about programming ANYTHING at all, suddenly everyone you know starts asking you the same questions...

1.) I have a grandiloquent billion dollar idea I'd like for you to work on but I can't pay you. You have to do it for free.
2.) Can you fix my (random electronic device) for me!?
3.) Can you program my MMORPG for me? I'll pay you $10.
4.) Can you hack someone's facebook for me? I wanna get back at them.
5.) Can you teach me how to hack facebook?

Probably one that tends to be a major gray area for me is, "I wanna learn how to program, where do I start?"
Usually a friend of mine suddenly takes an interest in programming and I give them general advice on what they can do based off what they wish to accomplish. They'll actually try to build a simple program and I gladly help out whenever they get stuck. Then three weeks later they're not coding anymore. :<

When I ask them why they want to learn, 50% of the time they just want to build an app or video game. Totally understandable and I do my best to keep them motivated. But unfortunately none of my friends succeeded. They would lose interest after a few days which makes me sad.

The other 50% of the time they say, "I wanna make a lot of money on the side." If that is their first response, I roll my eyes and cringe because it not only takes a great deal of effort to become proficient... PASSION drives that effort. They can't seem to see anything beyond money and I already know they're going to skim through the first tutorial hoping to become the next Zuckerberg or Bill Gates only to get bored and give up half-way through. I just get SO annoyed when people act like this is just something you can learn in a day with no former schooling and instantly have a $100k/yr salary just like that. And to them I kindly say, "If your first reason to learn programming is to get rich quick, you should study business not computer science."

Anyone have similar experiences?
 

BiTrunade

Member
I program for love, I love creating things, programming new things, if I'm going to make money, great, but if I don't, I'm glad I managed to build something great. I usually try to do my best in my projects, even if they are not professional :)
I already think it's great for me, I'm 18 years old.
I am 19 years, and I also LOVED to create things and solve problems ... it's just devastating when a passion dies (or killed).
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I had a client I made a game for. He makes good money but apparently it wasn't enough to pay me because he wanted to invest on hundreds of collector's action figures, rare video games/consoles, Apple products...

I won't say his name though as I don't want to embarass him behind his back. It was more of a thing where he didn't want to pay me, but he could have quite easily.
 

O.Stogden

Member
Can't say I've ever had this really haha.

Most people I talk to about programming/coding are generally uninterested in it, so I don't really bring it up as something I do anymore.

If someone asks what I've been up to lately and I say "Ah, just been doing some programming for my game", most people I know will just move on from the subject onto something else, a few will ask about the game itself, but I'm fairly certain no-one I know has ever asked about the actual coding/programming side of things.
 

Rob

Member
I haven't had any experiences like that, but I do know that what I think, say, or do won't change somebody else 99% of the time, so I won't be annoyed if they decide to keep going the way they are. People have to be ready to sacrifice the present to gain in the future and even if they are ready for some things, they might not see a value in what learning to code actually is.
I'm sure most of us did NOT expect the amount of work that's involved in every aspect of making an indie game. Even if you do become a proficient coder/artist/sound designer/music maker, AND you finished a game, AND that game is good, you have to get other people to notice, which seems like another skillset entirely.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
My mom keeps asking me ridiculously specific questions about any new electronic devices about 15 minutes after figuring out how to first turn them on, as if me being a programmer means I innately sense every aspect of any devices in close proximity.

Some people really needs a dose of this medicine...
 
Probably one of the worst was this obnoxious guy who apparently went to the same high-school as I did. I think he was a senior when I was a sophomore? I vaguely remembered him but we never talked.

He found me on facebook, added me, and started with the, "Ay wyd girl?" line.
When we started talking, he asked what I do for a living. I told him I'm a programmer. He said, "Damn, all the zeroes and ones huh? I tried that once, couldn't really get into the computer nerd stuff."
I honestly felt insulted and thought, "Excuse me!? You think binary is a programming language!? God, you're insufferable."

Then later he claimed to have hacked into the FBI and he's on terrorist watch. Right off the bat my BS alarm went off. I asked him, "What sort of encryption methods did you use? Did you use VPN, Tor, or proxy chaining?" And he said, "Nah, I didn't need to do any of that. I'm untraceable, baby!" I asked him, "So why are you on terrorist watch?" and he said, "I thought I'd give them a chance."

By then I unfriended and blocked him. Not just because of that but he was a major pervert too. Tried out the dating app and sure enough he was on there and hit "Like" on my profile. Creepy, sleazy, and dumb as a rock.

If it's one thing I disdain more than people with annoying questions about computer science are people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about but pretend they do.
 

Melons

Member
Not entirely related, but I do find it frustrating that (mostly elderly) inexperienced people have a fear of destroying a computer simply by clicking the wrong button or pressing the wrong key. There's no self destruct button on a computer. Usually...? If you do something wrong at worst you'll delete some data, which is easily recovered unless you know how to actually delete something, which is hard to do by mistake. Computers generally won't let you destroy them unless you know what you're doing, or you like browsing really dodgy sites on outdated operating systems.

Oh, and programming is not hacking. Learning to program will not cause the FBI to come arrest me mom... Also won't get in trouble for modding Minecraft...
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
Computers generally won't let you destroy them unless you know what you're doing
... or absolutely don't know what you're doing.


Not quite programming related, but IT related, so I hope it's suitable for this topic.


I once had someone ask me for help because he couldn't unlock his phone anymore.

At first, the only thing he told me was that he can't unlock his phone with his password anymore. So I figured, okay, probably he forgot his password or something, nothing unusual. It took a bit of back and forth and multiple prompts to let me know what happens when he enters his password until he divulged that he can't even enter anything because the phone keyboard isn't showing up.

Weird, I thought... maybe he had his phone running for a long time, it somehow got messed up and doesn't register that it's supposed to show the keyboard? So I guided him through the steps to manually reboot his phone, and he did. Still no keyboard showing up.

Dumbfounded, I asked him what he was doing before this happened. I got the usual "I did nothing out of the ordinary" you'll likely get from anyone who considers tech support to be this magic fairy that will definitely fix your problem for you if you can just convince them that it isn't you who caused it, and thinks that these questions have the singular purpose to pinpoint the blame on you and refuse service unless you pay them a repair fee.

At this point, he became enraged and threw a fit, as he usually does when there's a technical problem and I don't fix it within a minute of him reporting it. Getting further information out of him was impossible. He basically left me to my own devices (as well as his 💀🥁) and told me to figure it out, with a couple slurred remarks alluding to how useless I and every other "software fuzzy" are and how it's all trash anyway... eh.

The ruckus drew in his partner's attention, so I talked the issue over with her as well, hoping for potential clues. She mentioned something about trying to help him just a while ago. He had issues with downloading something on his phone, so he handed it to her to fix it for him (to give her credit, she is somewhat more experienced with technology than he is, but that's about it). Miraculously, she managed to figure out that the issue was that he had ran out of storage space, so she decided to delete some stuff off his phone to free up space.

Uh oh.

I asked her specifically what she had deleted. She claims she just deleted a couple of apps he wasn't using, going through them all together with him, asking him if he's still using them, then deleted them when he said no.

I asked her whether she deleted the default keyboard app.

She went silent.



The worst part? She's my mom. 😐

I've had to endure the "Can this PC Windows?" antics of these two for the majority of my life, so that story is merely the tip of the iceberg. Let me know if I should post another, I have dozens of these. :p
 
I can't really think of any negative experiences about people finding out I'm a programmer. Then again, I don't really advertise it that much.

I can think of plenty of annoying programmer experiences, however. Of all the people I know, across many different industries, I think it's only been programmers who self-describe themselves as "experts" within first 5 minutes of you meeting them.
 

AnotherHero

Member
One time I was looking for short term contract work to make some extra cash, and I had one person approach me asking me to make an app that managed DnD characters so his specifications. Sure, I said, he had a very detailed plan and was willing to meet my asking price.

He needed it done and launched on the app store by his DnD session that Thursday.

It was monday.
 

otterZ

Member
Most projects I like working on involve the player moving around and becoming more active in an increasingly inactive society, which is why I love Beat Saber, FITXR and really liked the Kinect era etc.

However, there is a general prejudice against gamers I have come up against, with some people, not everyone, who are cocksure that "Gamers just want to play games and don't want to exercise or do anything outside of sitting down and gaming."

If that is the case, would all gym-goers not be into gaming?

Here's a wild thought . . . perhaps some people enjoy being active and also like playing games lol.
 
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