This post hits close to home, however I cannot help but feel angry at Jeff.

I've been doing software for around 8 years now. I didn't grow up around computers, my family could never afford one growing up so I was never exposed to programming and IT at an early age, the closest I got to having a computer growing up were my NES and Genesis, I got my first computer at 18 right before starting uni, and was exposed to the internet a year later, since we couldn't get internet service in my home. I wrote my first hello world at 21 during university.

After high-school I found myself at a crossroads since I didn't know what I was going to do as a career, I had a passion for video games but knew very little about computers or programming, and every time I looked into it I felt it was way over my head, with no other options as to what career path to take, I settled for technology, partly because my parents pushed me as they also didn't know anything about computers but they realized it was only going to become more important in the future, and partly because I didn't have any other options.

Anyway I finally ended up doing a bachelors in something called "Systems Engineering" which actually involved very little programming and Computer Science. The few courses on programming I had I actually enjoyed and excelled at, they involved very trivial programming in C, but to me getting a "hello world" to work was amazing, for a while I thought I was happy and that I could actually make a living out of this, that I found something I really liked. This didn't last long of course, and once I started applying for jobs I realized I was competing with people who had started programming in their teens, the sort of programming problems and concepts I struggled with these guys breezed trough effortlessly, this was very very very demotivating, I realized that I could never reach their level no matter how hard I tried(I'm not very smart) I was finally able to get a job as a CRUD developer and that's what I've been doing since, my passion for programming was short lived and died a long time ago, right now this is just a job.

I am not a geek, I actually despise the geek culture, I use Windows as my operating system, I don't read comics, I hate start wars (but love sci-fi) and hate configuring servers, I don't program in my free time, I HAVE to use a mouse when programming, I use an IDE and know nothing about vim or emacs, I'm a slow typist and I'm a slow learner, I don't know my programming language of choice inside and out, I only study algorithms when I need to go to an interview, I'm not smart.

However that doesn't mean I suck at my job, that doesn't mean I don't work hard to achieve my goals and finish my tasks on time, that doesn't mean that I can work through a problem that I have no clue how to fix, even if I need a little help form the internet and fix it, on time.

I've accepted the fact that I am and will be just another mediocre CRUD developer, that I will never make millions or be recognized for my amazing contributions to open source. But you know what it's my Job and I work hard at it, I can't switch careers at this point because there's nothing else I know how to do and I have a family to support.

According to Jeff I don't deserve a job because I'm not passionate enough.

You know what Jeff, screw you.