I'm often asked "what is it like to be a programmer". It's a good question! After all, programming, being the glamorous and exciting profession it is generates much curiosity in the less-typing inclined portion of the population. Oh, alright, I got the question once and it was from a six year old, but who's really counting? The question still deserves to be answered and who better than I? A typical (in my limited view of the universe - from my living room couch where I am located presently) programmer. Please keep in mind that my view of the programming universe may not apply to other typical (not me) programmers.

An average day in an average life of an average programmer.

A good start to any programming day is to drink coffee (lots of coffee) and make realistic and plausible goals for the days accomplishments. Say, fixing the few outstanding issues in the current project and feeling good about yourself and your productivity at the end of the day.

Around midday, as you get through your second pot of coffee, answer all your email and deal with the usual morning interruptions of questions, phone calls, general chit-chat it's time to start the initial debugging work on the first (and usually the hardest) of the list of bugs to fix for the day. Ah, productivity! Fuzzy, warm, green feelings.

Lunch time!

As afternoon rolls in, the day usually starts to look much more organized and flows in a pattern. Much like a flowchart. Created by a disorganized manic depressive. Who likes to smoke pot. The pattern is very usual and typical.. start up debugger, get through one statement, get interrupted, answer questions, discover application core dumped while waiting for your input (weblogic likes to make our lives exciting that way), go get coffee while weblogic restarts. Rinse, repeat until around 5pm.

The evening shift.

Watch all your co-workers leave the office as you fumble some data, debug some QA problems and discover it's now dark outside. Turn up your iPod to tune out any possible interruptions, code madly, try not to insert too many offensive comments in between removing the hacks you said would only be there for a couple days (three years ago) and finally watch everything fall into place and code operate properly. Success! Bug fixed! One.

Kick the chair as you leave the office.