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So You’re a Computer Guy, Huh?
Send this to all your family members who insist you fix their toasters and microwaves
A long-time friend recently introduced me as her “computer guy.” She’s known me for over 20 years, but I’m sure she won’t be able to accurately describe what it is I actually do with computers.
When she first met me, I was crawled under her desk plugging in a cable to make sure her network printer worked. At that time, I was installing custom software at her workplace and connecting the noisy dot-matrix printer.
Since then, I’ve worn many hats in the information technology world, but even my mom who knew I got a Computer Science degree, still describes me as someone who simply works on computers. For a while, my now ex-wife thought I repaired computers and printers all day.
There’s a reason it’s called Information Technology — it’s all about information and data.
Here’s an oversimplification of the various roles that describe the computer guys and gals out there. To have a context that most people might relate to, let’s use Amazon — the website, not the river — as our focal point, and how it relates to data (information).
Programmer
Also known as the coder, the software engineer, or the software developer, this person wrote the code that received your search text and then displayed to you pages and pages of matching items.
The programmer is responsible for making sure that the “Add to Cart” button on the website, correctly places the correct item in your shopping cart.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes the item you want indicates that it’s out of stock in a particular color? Or that a similar item is sold by another seller for a cheaper price?
You guessed it, all of that “intelligence” that the website offers was created by the programmer.
When you click “Checkout” and the site shows you the correct total after figuring out taxes and shipping, that’s the programmer’s handiwork.
The programmer provides the buttons and text boxes that collect your data, and ensures that your order correctly uses your data (address, payment info, etc).
