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Coder Subculture: An Exploration
Globally, it’s estimated there are about 28.7 million software developers pounding away on keyboards. Maybe a few more. Or less. That’s quite a small amount of humans compared to the several billion of us puttering about this planet. Especially given the impact they have on our species.
Coders are a subculture unto their own. Often depicted as nerds in movies and shows. Awkward, shy, aloof and perhaps disconnected in some ways. It’s a broad brush and not entirely accurate. Nor entirely wrong.
In this article I’ll take a high-level look at the subculture of coders, why it’s helpful to understand it and why it’s so fascinating and important to our world.
I’ve worked with hundreds of coders for well over 25 years. Some brilliant with no PhDs and others with PhDs that are quite clever too. While I’m not a coder myself, my work as a digital anthropologist means I have to understand the coder subculture to help in creating human-centric technologies and exploring the intersection between humanity, culture and technology.
I’ve often said that the culture is in the code and the code is in the culture. This is exemplified when it comes to coders. This is because they’re own cultural influences become embedded in the code, the solutions they are seeking and the biases of their lives. Just as writers and authors are…
