Saturday, March 27, 2010

Rockers or Programmers

Recently I thought about this comparison… In the programming world there is this level of people who are a kind of “celebrities” within the developer community - they’re widely known, they have thousands of readers of their blogs, they have thousands of followers on Twitter, they speak on public events in front of thousands of people around the world… All of that just screams for a comparison with the equivalent in the show biz world - rock stars!

So… I’m proud to present the first EVER comparison between rock stars and programming stars! afterwards judge for yourself what you wanna be.

Comparison

Rock Star

Programming Star

Look

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microsofts-early-days

Shown in public on

Concerts, TV, Radio, newspapers, magazines

Conferences, podcasts, programming magazines

Known internationally

Yes

Yes

Chances of being recognized in the grocery store

Almost with complete certainty

Rarely

Charisma

Yes

Yes

Tools

Microphone/Guitar/Drums/other instrument

Microphone + computer + projector

Write

Lyrics

Code

Average annual salary

Millions of dollars

Hundreds of thousands of dollars

# of Twitter followers

Millions

Tens of thousands

# of people attending a single show/talk

Tens of thousands

Thousands

Way to the top

Hard work for years/American Idol

Hard work for years
(Simon Fuller, if you read this, what about a “Programming Idol” show?)

Sex

So much that they’re sorry about that when they grow old.

I don’t know. Unlike rock stars, they don’t share this information.

Drugs

Yes. A lot.

No. Geeks do not do drugs. Most of them at least.

Alcohol

Yes

Drink beer from time to time

Tour the world

A few months a year

A few days/weeks a year

Own

A crib, a private jet, a collection of cool cars

A powerful laptop with SSD and two 24’ screens

Can install Win7

No

Of course, they’ve done that multiple times already

Eat bats during shows/talks

Yes

No

Have tattoos

Yes

Mostly not, it hurts to get them done.

Have two eyes, two ears, one mouth and one nose

Yes

Yes

And the winner is………… I don't know, do you?

Anyway in the end we’re all human and therefore have a chance to become stars.

Go ahead and shine!

by Shay.

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