The Life of an African Software Developer
I am always curious to find out the experiences of software developers from other countries. This lies in part, because I employ developers frequently in many different countries. In addition to our development offices in Vancouver Canada, I have worked with developers from the Ukraine and from India.
However, frequently, I do not have very intimate contact with the real developers. Rather, I speak with someone in business development or a project manager. This leaves me curious, what I would see if I could pull back the black curtain, and peer into the real workings of the machine.
In North America, I have already worked in such a wide variety of circumstances. I have seen the insides of luxurious offices crowded to the brim employes of Fortune 500 companies. I have also experienced a dotcom environment, with moldy pizza boxes sitting on tables for weeks at a time.
A recent posting on newsforge tells the tale of one African developer. In many regards, there are similarities.
The article oozes with the youthful ambition and arrogance of a young man. He wants a better life. He loves software, and he has a nimble mind. He proudly recounts how lesser 'code donkies' do the trivial work, while libraries are built for the challenging work.
This could come right out of the office of Goldman Sachs, or some other Wall Street investment banks tech department. Coders naturally rate themselves against their peers. It is an ego driven industry.
Software development is a unique industry. Code can instantly zip around the globe, as part of a data packet. Programs are built from this code incrementally. They are blind to who wrote them. They compile, and run, only when composed in accordance with very strict rules.
In effect, code is able to unite people from many cultures distributed around the world. To build a program, someone must have the discipline to wrap their brain around a very perplexing problem. They must take the problem apart, piece by piece, and the put it together using the rules of code.
It's likely that I would not be surprised if I pulled those black curtains back. In fact, I would probably feel right at home, in India, or the Ukraine, or even someplace in Africa. I would be at home with the code.
