What would you be if you weren't a programmer?

I'm basically a writer at core. Writing stories pays terribly, but writing code pays well. I don't have the brain nor passion to leetcode well, but architecture and clean code are really easy. I throw the language part of my brain at learning code. I can't learn code from docs, but pick it up fast from examples.

Most likely I'd be doing sales though. I discovered I was pretty damn good at sales but the programming jobs never stopped coming in. It was just a matter of taking the job that paid better and requires less commuting.

A third career option would have been cooking. I almost went into this, it seemed pretty easy to make millions of dollars on. I consulted restauranteurs who were making millions of dollars in revenue a year. They basically told me I'm an idiot -- running a business was a prison, like having kids. They'd pick up tech jobs if they could.

A man (or woman, or gender fluid person) is not one-dimensional. His personality, character, has many facets, many sides. At least that's how a man should be given enough chance of growth.

I do many academic-type things. I teach sometimes. So, if I were not in research and engineering at industry, I would be working full time at a university. I would still write code, do math, etc.

If that were not viable (either too high paper bar or very low pay), I would be in public administration or be a police officer. I can naturally lead people from the get-go, and have other people skills, I am a very good stage performer, too. Public speaking never frightened me. I can write. Honesty matters a lot to me: to a level that I am sometimes labeled naive and impractical.

I am sure I would make a very good salesman, too. If there's a third world war, and the tech companies, unis are bust, and money, stocks all go to the dogs, I would become a salesman. It is a doomsday scenario. I have been good at fundraising for charities. I am confident that I can sell if I want to.

I am very attracted and regular consumer and creator of poetry, paintings, recitations, movies. Yet, these don't pay even s**. Would never become this. I would have to take normies' opinion seriously to sell more, scale more. Would be soul-sucking. Won't become a professional artist, ever. When I do art now, I don't give a damn what the normies think. I would like to keep it that way. Forever.

Personally, as someone who prefers not to program as my sole job, it's hard to say since I learned in elementary school and not knowing about computers/programming would have meant I had a VERY different childhood.

As to the other question: In my observation the following areas have some overlap with a programmer's mindset:

- Legal: Particularly things like patent and copyright law.

- Technical writing, fact-checking, and scientific illustration

- Academia or labwork in chemistry or physics

- Chemical or electrical engineering

Artist - painter, landscape architect, stone sculptor, one of these things.

>So basically I am asking, what other occupation would the programmer's mindset and programmer's aptitudes lend themselves effectively to?

Although it's what I'd be if I weren't a programmer, I think artist is actually at odds with the programmer's aptitudes and mindset. In the words of one of the greatest programmers:

"It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless"

- Alan Kay on programming

My brother in law is a professional chef, worked in some of the best restaurants in the country. He's not much for book learning, but I've watched him in restaurant kitchens a couple of times and he's mentally a programmer. He can keep track of the variables and ordering of steps to get multiple courses for multiple tables of 2/4/6 people out to be delivered simultaneously. These aren't grilled cheese sandwiches, some of these dishes are incredibly complex.

So, although we'd have to get used to working on our feet and sweating (aka doing "real work") I suspect many programmers have the mindsets to be professional cooks. They might not have the talent to invent new things as a chef does, but they could certainly become competent line cooks.

Probably a teacher of programming. I love seeing the "aha" moment in people's faces when the finally get something. It's an instant gratification even bigger than when cutting code. I used to work as a teacher in a local college while doing my Masters.

Interesting question, and interesting that so many people are giving variations of writer as the response. (Shades of, "If I weren't doing my job, I'd be doing my hobby"? Though that feels an ungenerous reading.) Me? I'd assume some other technical field. If I hadn't got into computers at a young age I can imagine having got into chemistry, say.

The skills I have are those I've developed _as_ a working programmer, less so those that I brought to the job. So this isn't really answering your question. If I'd never become a software engineer, I'd never have developed a programmer's mindset or attitudes.

Not a programmer now - but rather analyst.

I'd probably be a electrician or electrical engineer. I worked as an (electrician) apprentice for a year, then went to school and got my (electrical) engineering degree.

On one side - if I had continued to work as an EE, I'd probably have a much higher salary right now. But I find analytical work more rewarding, and electrical engineering work can be a bit tedious IMO. I'm lucky with my work right now, as every week tends to be different - I'm not really cut out to become a specialist, where one continues to become more and more specialized in some niche.

A specialist doctor or study some biological system (a particular interest of mine is the immune system and antibiotics).

The human body is the machine we wish we could make, but one we also don’t understand enough to master.

I've pictured myself in a research librarian or archivist role, cataloguing and searching catalogues. When I've done similar work as a volunteer or enthusiast, it's been the closest feeling to getting obsessed over coding. Maybe also when digging through a web of development history to see how a bug happened.

Not sure how closely that's connected to programmer aptitudes, I may be getting away with that despite not being particularly good at it. And I don't actually have any library science background so I may just be imagining my fit for that.

One of the most rewarding things for me in my stints as a engineering manager has been providing a (hopefully) positive influence on my reports lives through listening and empathy and giving advice, then seeing them get through tough times (work related or not) or grow as people. It has helped me grow too.

Based on that, I think being a therapist or psychiatrist might have been a good choice for me.

I dual majored EE and CS and like EE more than programming, so EE seems like a natural fallback, but I was nowhere near as good at electronics compared to software.

When I started college, I majored in Electrical Engineering because I was ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that there wasn't even a modest income that could have been made in the 1980 and beyond as a programmer, the thing I really wanted to be. Reality showed me otherwise. ;-)

I've enjoyed programming, being a system administrator (now called DevOps), and being a machinist (making gears). You're a tool maker and user, as are we all... there are many types of tools to make or use.

Artist, as others have said... there's really no limit.

I wish I was a programmer. lol!

I don't get how your brains work.

Finding problems to solve programmatically just escapes me when I can just be in the loop and do it myself.

I'd waste so much time if I approached every problem that way... But then that's just for me personally. professionally I'd go to you guys to make my life smoother at work, if I worked.

Although I'm starting to get PowerShell and Python and Power Automate Desktop for automating things I'd usually do myself, manually, over and over.

A starving artist. That’s what I was before I was a programmer.

Gardener. Or bread backer. ( I'm French, it's definitively a 'real' job there, but also it's too much work for too little pay )

A (small) part of why I entered programming was disenfranchisement, my family was poor and technology provided an out. An out that didn't require me to get massively in debt with student loans.

These days I'm less of an angry teenager and my family is no longer in poverty. If I was looking for an alternative I might go the commercial pilot route. I should be able to do that without going into significant debt.

What I would have liked to be: a poet, a novelist, a translator.

I've been writing poems and short stories through high school.

What I would possibly ended up being: unemployed.

I'd probably be a graphic designer or an illustrator. There was a point in high school where I was as good in graphic art as in programming. Then, I went to study electronic engineering.

I understand everything visually. Thinking about code is basically me visualizing and exploring some kind of abstract structure representing the architecture of my program.

A 50 year old barista struggling to be a writer.

I wanted to make robots when I was a kid, and I have an enduring interest in electrical engineering. I probably would’ve gone into that. I don’t know that I would’ve done well in the coursework in school, but as a hobby I absolutely love it.

The appeal of programming for me is that I'm creating something. So, if I couldn't be a programmer, I'd do something else that involves creating: artist, writer, music composer, architect, civil engineer, carpenter, etc...

Probably an electrical engineer.

Probably some kind of criminal.

A mechanical engineer or mechanic. I like to build machines, software or otherwise

Photographer, Designer, VFX something along those lines I think.

I probably would have been a chef, because I am good at cooking and don't really enjoy pursuing "real" careers like doctors or real estate agents.

me personally? a linguist, probably. I love languages and have a knack for them. interestingly, I always got perfect scores on verbal aptitude tests but did significantly worse on math.

I've also discovered my passion for math, finally, even though I'm not supposed to be good at it. graph theory, topology, abstract algebra etc. but I'm not sure I would have gotten there since I believed I was bad at it growing up.

Doing research in a field that interests me. Hell, I'm still young, we'll see what the next several years bring.

I could be nerd sniped into just about any field with mind ticking problems that require creative problem solving.

I like to work on cars, I think the debugging is pretty close. But it isn’t a great job, it wears people out.

Sysadmin but even that could require you to use the terminal which is close to programming but not quite

if money wasn't a major issue i'd have spent my entire life in theoretical physics, getting paid to argue physics all day THAT's the life

A pilot. I'm on my way

“If I had only known, I would have become a locksmith.”

- Einstein

No physical work, that's for sure.

I enjoy cooking, maybe a cook. But I also hate how much time it consumes of the day, the whole shopping and cooking ritual every day.

Idk if I'd enjoy it doing professionally. In school I picked the cooking and uh.. housecare, like knitting and all that? class instead of the technics class, because I didn't like doing physical work. Nice side effect, all the girls were there too and I got to cook and bake delicious stuff instead of boring holes into wood or sawing or all the boring uninteresting stuff I never cared about.

All the boys were interested in cars, I didn't care about them. Care were just tools in my book. I guess I'm a feminine man, altough I certainly look like a bear. Or maybe I just pick the way of least resistance or shall I say with most benefits.

In retrospect all the friends and contacts said "you're doing it right".

I just had to think about it today, I had a friend how did everything "the way it should be done"TM. Finished base school, was a trainee, got a proper job, invested in house savings, went to church, etc.

I was the complete opposite. Rebel. Went to 5 schools, got kicked out of training, never got a drivers license, did drugs and tried the life of the party and entertainment. I was a looser, still am kind of, if you go by his criteria. Then I landed a programming job in 2001 and earned 150% of what this former friend was earning lmao. He hated me foe that I believe. He was so jealous.

Well my records got stolen and I never continued my DJing and music career. So I had to go with the other thing I knew, computing. I was cracking games at the age of 12 and wrote and linked cracktros in asm on the c64 at the age of 13. That became less relevant in my mid teens where I just loved scratching, rap music, classical music, any kind of music. I started composing on the Amiga with Fasttracker. But well since this path ended later... I was one of the first people to write cheats for the 1st MMORPG Meridian 59 and learn about all the principles, networking, objects, inhertiances and whatnot.

When no one wanted to employ me I became self-employed, learned PHP MySQL HTML CSS Linux. Created websites with adsense on them, had a shared hosting company.

Nowadays I'm almost back to square one, only with the knowledge to create in the "virtual world". And I ask myself what else would I do? I don't know. It's the question I've been asking myself. If I had a driver's license, I'd drive stuff or people from A to B. But that would get boring eventually, because I sometimes really love to create and build, only not physically.

What instead? I have a talent for languages. Maybe gardening? But that's physical work. I'm good at delegating. You do this, you do that, Yes boss. But I hate leading. Idk, I really don't know. Maybe I should produce music again.

I development I'm motivated by the new problem that needs to be solved. I'm not interested solving the same problem again and again. I don't enjoy only frontend or only backend. It needs to be both. I love seeing things grow, but not too slowly. Ideally I would not work and live off investment returns, but I don't have that kind of money.

Oooh I remembered I really loved book-keeping activa saldi I enjoyed that very much.

some form of engineering... maybe electrical