Chapter 2
Metaphor

A programmer programs. A designer designs. But what does that really mean? There are no reality television shows or Hollywood films that showcase how we really work. And before you say anything, no, The Social Network doesn’t count as a representative look into our industry. So, when I’m asked what I do, I often resort to analogy. Our industry is chock-full of them. It’s the way we describe our work to everyone else.

A chef doesn’t have to come up with metaphors for cooking; a broth is too salty because you can taste it. A musician doesn’t have to describe songs in some roundabout way; a melody is too cliché because you’ve heard the same rhythm before. People get it. They are self-describing forms of work. Pipe fitters and bricklayers have the job description succinctly written right in their names.

However, programming is different. The average person can’t see what makes code elegant or unorganized. In addition, our industry is very new. While humans have been cooking, making music, and building for thousands of years, archaeologists have yet to discover those cave paintings of Man at His Desk Typing.

So, metaphor has to become our meta-language. Not only is it how we connect the uniqueness of programming to the general public, but it’s often how we make decisions on how we approach our own software problems.