Expectation and reality: What a programmer really does (without myths)

Purpose: Remove the pink glasses and show the real work of the engineer. Hollywood movies have created a stable image of a programmer: a man in a hood sits in a dark room, furiously taps the keyboard, green characters run on the screen, and five minutes later the phrase “I hacked the Pentagon” sounds. Because of this, many freshmen experience culture shock when faced with the real IT industry. Let’s discuss the main myths about the work of a software engineer. Myth 1: A programmer writes code all day. Reality: Writing a new code takes 20-30% of the time. The remaining 70% goes to: Reading someone else's code. To add a new button, you need to understand how thousands of lines written by a colleague a year ago work. Designing. Before you write a line of code, you need to plan the architecture so that the system does not collapse under load. Debugging (finding errors). You’ll spend hours trying to figure out why everything works on a local server and produces a 500 error. Myth 2: It's a profession for single introverts. Reality: IT is a team sport. A quality product cannot be created in a vacuum. You will have to communicate: with analysts, testers, project managers and designers. Software Skills is sometimes more important than knowledge of a rare design pattern. At PAS, we prepare students for this reality. Laboratory work, project protection and code review sessions teach not only to put brackets correctly, but also to read documentation, understand business requirements and work in a team. A real programmer is a problem solver, and code is just one of his tools.