Hard-wired for the Worst Case!

There is a general opinion that developers are pessimists. I would say its a fact rather than a opinion. Look around you and you will know. People refer to us lovingly as geeks or nerds. We rarely have a social life, and if we do have one, its mostly with specimens of the same species. There are exceptions, of course. But the exceptions are so few and far apart that Darwinism naturally eliminates them.

Developers are taught to be on the defensive right from school. "Even if the program doesnt work, make sure not to harm the existing system" is the first lesson we learn. Even if it does work by some miracle, we spend uneasy nights hoping to hear a beep on the production pager. Working for years on unstable systems, doesnt let us believe in our creations. I havent met a single developer, who has inherited a code-base and was confident that it will work. Such lack of belief, in others and ourselves, has made us dark, and socially isolated.

I have seen quite a few young men and women wilt away their life in front of computers. The addiction at times have been severe. The lure of a silent dark room with your machine and coffee is legendary.Few have the power to resist the lure. So what if the society calls us geeks? If the society judges us, shame on them. We can, if we need to, stoop to their level, call them shallow, hypocratic, extroverted "animals". But, as a breed, we dont believe in calling others names, for we dont believe in anything, not even ourselves.