Over the years, I've time and time again referred to myself as a non-programmer. For me, it means that I've always rather spent my time on something else than writing code. And there's a lot to do in software projects, other than writing code.
This post is inspired by a comment I saw today "I found Ruby easy to learn, I'm not a programmer". It reminded me that there's a whole tribe of people who identify as programming non-programmers. Some of us like code and coding a lot. But there's something other than programming that defines our identity.
Many of my tribe are testers. And amongst these testers, there's many who are more technical than others give them credit for, identifying as non-programmers.
I've spent over a year trying to learn to say that I'm a tester and a programmer. It's still hard. It's hard even if over the years starting from university studies I've written code in 13 languages - not counting HTML/CSS.
Why would anyone who can program identify as non-programmer?
People have wondered. I've wondered. I don't know the reasons of all others. For some, it might be a way of saying that I'm not writing production code. Or that I write code using stack overflow (don't we all...). Or that I'm not as fluent as I imagine others to be.
For me being a non-programmer is about safety.
I'll share a few memories.
Back to School
In university on one of the programming courses, I was working like crazy to get the stuff done on the deadlines. Learning all that was needed to complete assignments, not having a demo programming background from age of 12 meant a lot of catching up. The school never really taught anything. They passed you a challenge and either you got it done, or did some more research to learn enough to get it done. We did not have much of stack overflow back then.
There was no pair programming. It was very much solo work. And the environment emphasized the solo work reminding me regularly that one of my male classmates must have done my assignments. That girls get coding assignments done by smiling. I don't think I really cared, but looking back, it was enough to not ask for help. I can do things myself. An attitude I struggle to let go of decades later.
Coming to Testing
I soon learned software development had things other than programming. And awareness of programming would not hurt anyway. I fell in love with testing and the super-power of empirical evidence.
There was a point in time when everyone hated testers - or so it felt. Not respected, cornered into stupid work of running manual test cases, reporting issues of no relevance in the end of the waterfall where nothing could be done based on the provided feedback. A lot of attitudes. Attitudes the testers' community still reports, even if my day-to-day has been lucky to be free of those for quite some time.
My gender was never an issue as a tester. My role was an issue that overshadowed everything else.
Programming tasks
When I was a non-programmer, it wasn't really about me when I got to hear that a friend has never seen a woman who is any good as a programmer. I cared about being good at what I do, but as a non-programmer, that wasn't about me. I got to hear that two colleagues talked about women never writing anything but comments in code. Well, I didn't write even the comments in any code they had seen, again not about me. And if there was code I for any reason wrote, the help in reviewing and extensive feedback to help me learn was overwhelming. It felt like everyone volunteered to help me out to a point of making me escape.
Every time I write code, I can't forget that I'm a woman. Every time I go to coding events, I can't forget that I'm a woman. Even when people are nice and say nothing about it.
As a tester, I'm just me. And you know, no one is *just* anything. If I was a programmer, I would have left this industry a long time ago. Saying I am a programmer makes me still uneasy - after 13 languages. I get most of the good stuff (geeky discussions) but much less of the bad when I'm a tester - tester extraordinaire!
Being a programming non-programmer is safe. Being a non-programmer is safe.
This post is inspired by a comment I saw today "I found Ruby easy to learn, I'm not a programmer". It reminded me that there's a whole tribe of people who identify as programming non-programmers. Some of us like code and coding a lot. But there's something other than programming that defines our identity.
Many of my tribe are testers. And amongst these testers, there's many who are more technical than others give them credit for, identifying as non-programmers.
I've spent over a year trying to learn to say that I'm a tester and a programmer. It's still hard. It's hard even if over the years starting from university studies I've written code in 13 languages - not counting HTML/CSS.
Why would anyone who can program identify as non-programmer?
People have wondered. I've wondered. I don't know the reasons of all others. For some, it might be a way of saying that I'm not writing production code. Or that I write code using stack overflow (don't we all...). Or that I'm not as fluent as I imagine others to be.
For me being a non-programmer is about safety.
I'll share a few memories.
Back to School
In university on one of the programming courses, I was working like crazy to get the stuff done on the deadlines. Learning all that was needed to complete assignments, not having a demo programming background from age of 12 meant a lot of catching up. The school never really taught anything. They passed you a challenge and either you got it done, or did some more research to learn enough to get it done. We did not have much of stack overflow back then.
There was no pair programming. It was very much solo work. And the environment emphasized the solo work reminding me regularly that one of my male classmates must have done my assignments. That girls get coding assignments done by smiling. I don't think I really cared, but looking back, it was enough to not ask for help. I can do things myself. An attitude I struggle to let go of decades later.
Coming to Testing
I soon learned software development had things other than programming. And awareness of programming would not hurt anyway. I fell in love with testing and the super-power of empirical evidence.
There was a point in time when everyone hated testers - or so it felt. Not respected, cornered into stupid work of running manual test cases, reporting issues of no relevance in the end of the waterfall where nothing could be done based on the provided feedback. A lot of attitudes. Attitudes the testers' community still reports, even if my day-to-day has been lucky to be free of those for quite some time.
My gender was never an issue as a tester. My role was an issue that overshadowed everything else.
Programming tasks
When I was a non-programmer, it wasn't really about me when I got to hear that a friend has never seen a woman who is any good as a programmer. I cared about being good at what I do, but as a non-programmer, that wasn't about me. I got to hear that two colleagues talked about women never writing anything but comments in code. Well, I didn't write even the comments in any code they had seen, again not about me. And if there was code I for any reason wrote, the help in reviewing and extensive feedback to help me learn was overwhelming. It felt like everyone volunteered to help me out to a point of making me escape.
Every time I write code, I can't forget that I'm a woman. Every time I go to coding events, I can't forget that I'm a woman. Even when people are nice and say nothing about it.
As a tester, I'm just me. And you know, no one is *just* anything. If I was a programmer, I would have left this industry a long time ago. Saying I am a programmer makes me still uneasy - after 13 languages. I get most of the good stuff (geeky discussions) but much less of the bad when I'm a tester - tester extraordinaire!
Being a programming non-programmer is safe. Being a non-programmer is safe.
