Monday, April 15, 2013

Code Monkey Scare You?

I was thinking about perceptions of Computer Science and I remembered a particular event in my junior year. A friend told me he had just heard a great song that reminded him of me, since I was studying Computer Science.

He messaged me a link to "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton.
Thanks? [via JoCopedia]

The melody is great, and the lyrics are compelling—I've listened to it on repeat writing this post. But it's also a handy way to remember almost every stereotype of Computer Science work and workers.

I thanked my friend, but internally I was a touch offended at the connection being drawn between my field and primate-level glorified keyboard smashing. Even more internally though, I worried that maybe the song held some truth about my future if I pursued a job in software engineering. Are all stereotypes based at least a little bit on reality?