...the problem, as always, is that the words have different connotations depending on the community.
As you probably know, the word "hacker" means "computer criminal" to the majority of the English-speaking world. As a result, calling yourself a "hacker" only works if (a) you only care about your reputation with other hackers, or (b) you are trying to cultivate an ambiguously dangerous persona. It is not a word I would put on my resume if I were applying at SAP, unless I were already well known for being Steve Wozniak.
So you're down to "programmer", "developer", or "coder". My impression is that most people use "developer" as a highfalutin synonym for "programmer"... but in some environments it connotes "a person who spends a lot of time talking about software but never uses the computer except for Outlook, Office, and Twitter". So, if you want to emphasize that you actually spend the majority of your day in emacs, lean towards the other words.
Sometimes "programmer" carries too strong a connotation of "code monkey". I find it best to just avoid places where this is true.
I don't like the word "coder" -- it doesn't offend me, but it's ugly. So I use the other words at random as whimsy strikes me.
i don't think it is off-topic because "coder" is exactly the terminology the author used in the blog. I believe it reflects his general misunderstanding of programmers/developers/hackers
...the problem, as always, is that the words have different connotations depending on the community.
As you probably know, the word "hacker" means "computer criminal" to the majority of the English-speaking world. As a result, calling yourself a "hacker" only works if (a) you only care about your reputation with other hackers, or (b) you are trying to cultivate an ambiguously dangerous persona. It is not a word I would put on my resume if I were applying at SAP, unless I were already well known for being Steve Wozniak.
So you're down to "programmer", "developer", or "coder". My impression is that most people use "developer" as a highfalutin synonym for "programmer"... but in some environments it connotes "a person who spends a lot of time talking about software but never uses the computer except for Outlook, Office, and Twitter". So, if you want to emphasize that you actually spend the majority of your day in emacs, lean towards the other words.
Sometimes "programmer" carries too strong a connotation of "code monkey". I find it best to just avoid places where this is true.
I don't like the word "coder" -- it doesn't offend me, but it's ugly. So I use the other words at random as whimsy strikes me.