Whenever someone asks me what I do for a living I’m never really sure what to tell them. Saying “I’m a programmer” is a one-way ticket to the Kingdom of Glazed Over Eyes. “Oh,” they reply, as if they are unsure whether to console me for the plight my life has become, or shun me as if “programming” were a contractable disease; but they know for sure to immedately change the topic of conversation because they have no clue what I really do and talking about someone’s boring job ranks somewhere between “root canal” and “public speaking” on their list of Things To Avoid In Life. You can always tell that they have no clue what a programmer does, except that it must take place in a dark cave with a computer screen and require hideously long hours that result in the poor S.O.B. not being able to bathe or see his family for weeks on end. If you press these people I bet they would tell you in the strictest confidence that they think programmers eventually turn into werewolves and live the remainder of their days in the wild chasing down rabbits for food.

The truth is most programmers - at least the ones I’ve known in my lifetime - are very smart and creative people. The smart part almost goes without saying - we’re not serving hamburgers here. No offense to the people in food service (hey, haven’t we all done that at one time in our life?), but when I order “ketchup only” and get back a hamburger with everything but ketchup, I know i’m not working with a potential Mensa candidate. What most programmers deal with on a daily basis is what I liked to call “mental gymnastics.” In my life I’ve never worked in a field that required this much mental heavy lifting day to day. There’s gotta be something upstairs to do this line of work.

But the creative part is probably what would surprise most folks. Despite the steriotypes, programmers and software engineering people are able to make complete use of their right brain. Many of the ones I know are musicians, or artists, or both. We are not simply drones pounding out lines of code.

So it wasn’t surprising to me to see this post from Chris Sells run across my aggregator today. It’s a pointer to a musical parody by Ted and Carl from DotNetRocks, called “Why Did Shipping Vista Turn Out To Be So Hard”. It’s done to the tune of “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard,” by Paul Simon. Click it - it’s a good laugh.