Most computer programmers aren't really aspies are they?

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I've heard lots of folks, both NTs and aspies alike make the comment that being an aspie makes me "just like everyone else in IT" -- specifically with regard to programmers, but I find this comment frustrating because it's not been my experience. My experience has been that most programmers are still NTs, or at least appear to me to be NTs when I think back about the things that were different about myself. Is it different in Silicon Valley?

I've worked with a few programmers who were, and a few who weren't. One guy I worked with in Maine lived out in the woods, built his own house, did contract work for Los Almos on the side, and was always talking about a mathematical theorem he was working on. He had been driving the same car since 1976. He once even mentioned he felt like a 'culture of one.' And he was definitely the most interesting person there to talk to! Whereas most of the people I've worked with were actually NT's who studied CS in college because they thought they'd make good money at it. In general I find the NT's are usually mediocre programmers at best, no offense, I'm not saying that's universally true, but the NT's wrote a lot more spaghetti code. I've always stuck out like a sore thumb even among other programmers.

Yeah, that's the kind of experience I've had.

In my computer science department I'd be hard pressed to call anyone there an Aspie. They all seem very aware socially... at least about their own nerd subculture they have created. I don't really fit in...

They are still nerds and geeks and stuff... many are very spastic and crazy. Not exactly normal... but nothing that screams AS...

I'm sure those with AS are fairly well represented in the computer science field... but you have to compare how common AS is... to how common it is in Programming. Even if there are double or triple the number of people with AS, it's still going to be a rare thing...

That was also rather what I was thinking... The general consensus is something like 1 in 250 people who have AS right? Or is that all ASDs? So if we're only 0.25% of the general population, the ratio in IT were 10x what it is in the general populace, we'd still only be slightly more than 1 in 5. From my own experience, 1 in 5 seems high. Though 2ukenkerl did comment on my thread about moving to Portland in the general autism discussion forum about there being fewer aspies in IT now because of more people getting into it for the money. Would be nice to be in the "good old days" of IT when having the skills made you indispensable.

I wish I could edit the poll question... really I should have said "how many of the programmers you've met have been aspies". That's really more what I'm interested in -- what people's perceptions are of their coworkers are instead of critical analysis... trying to get kind of a "man on the street" idea of how people feel intuitively about the people they've worked with.

I think there's something to alot what you said. I have lived and worked in a hi tech corridor for over ten years and the boom years of programming, when just carrying a C++ or Win32 book around was enough to give you a lucrative job, drew in a whole bevy of people who wouldn't have been programming otherwise.

I think one way to look for AS is the obsession with certain topics and activities. Since I am more of a research scientist who programs, I'm not sure how the NT,AS breakdown looks in terms of sheer numbers for pure software activities. I do know that low-quality spaghetti code has become more commonplace. I am amazed it is tolerated. The lower quality seems to apply across the board to include hardware.

Overall, I think scientific and hi-tech tools have suffered in quality over the last 8-10 years, and AS types have suffered as well. Emphasis has been placed on expedience: getting the product out the door rather than getting it right. In one of my jobs I was perceived as 'taking too long' in my activities (thus holding things up). But when the product shipped, my analysis code did not not generate a single bug report over 9 months. Others threw things together so it 'sort of worked', congratulated themselves on making deadlines, and caused people to make costly trips halfway around the world to 'fix' the tool. This kind of mindset is becoming more commonplace, sadly. And the irony of the situation is totally lost on the NT management and investor types.

There's a book called the Inmates Are Running the Asylum by a guy named Alan Cooper which talks about how and why the software industry specifically adopted a "space race" mindset, where the attitude is always "the first person to market wins". It also explains in great detail why that mindset is stupid. Some of it has to do with the obvious cost of buggy software you've noted here, although one of the larger issues he mentions is that "first to market" misses the whole point by ignoring the fact that being first won't generate any loyalty amongst your customers. There are numerous examples of this in the real world -- Cooper mentions a few in the book (companies who lost everything to an "upstart" competitor because the competitor's software was more ergonomic).

Then there's GMail. According to marketing experts, Google did everything wrong when they created GMail. They entered a saturated market, provided tools that already existed and created a strong disincentive for people to use it by being very honest about the fact that they were only creating it to better profile people for advertising. Yet in spite of the fact that Google did everything wrong according to accepted marketing wisdom, GMail thrives. Why? Because they didn't have a space-race mindset and they created a tool that people enjoy using. Their enjoyment of it is actually the one critical factor in that particular product. Most email clients are unergonomic and frustrating (like most software), hence if you create something that's not (or at least less so) people will use it.

I don't use GMail myself, although I can see what happened. Most people today seem to misunderstand the success of Google - they think that the company's wealth is built on a foundation of technical prowess. It's not. It's built on a foundation of ergonomic and enjoyable interfaces with some technical prowess as more of an afterthought. I've spent a lot of time personally thinking about what ergonomics means with regard to software and working toward developing my own software that actually is ergonomic and have been fairly successful I think at the development process. My big roadblock is that I've yet to be able to find anyone (preferably NT) who can handle the sales, marketing and business aspects of my software and who can also see the advantage of ergonomics as a statement-of-benefit (as described in 101 Secrets From the Lost Art of Common Sense Marketing - if anyone else here's read it).

I took only one programming class(C) in college. I have no idea who was aspie or not. But I have vivid memories of one guy that had the most extreme gaze avoidance I have ever saw in a
human. Taking a wild guess I would assume about 10% of programmers are aspies.

Most managers and interviewers in the IT industry in the UK have never even heard of AS. Do a search of articles in IT trade journals and the number of articles which mention AS are so few you can count them on your fingers. I think there is a serious lack of awareness of AS in the IT industry, and this is something that Asperger Technical is trying to rectify.

http://www.aspergertechnical.org.uk

How many programmers are aspies?

From my experience, all of the good ones.

Something that interests me is which industries have high and low proportions of programmers with AS. Is the explanation mainly down to programmers with AS preferring to work in one industry over another, or is it the result of managers and interviewers from some industries either prefer or dislike programmers with AS?

It's probably that the work is more suited for them. I imagine that people with AS are more likely to gravitate to jobs with less interaction, and more "hairy" problems involving nitty-gritty details.

Most of the best ones I've known had AS traits. The NT ones, for the most part, don't give the attention to detail the work really needs. I also saw a lot of "close enough for the deadline" code go out the door, only to have it come back and bite us.

As for management, remember they're only trained to reach a consensus, not a conclusion.

Depending on the companies you have worked for, projects may be monitored through the use of 'Gantt charts'. Basically these are fancy schedules formatted to show, in linear fashion, all the steps involved getting through a manufacturing project (software release, hardware, whatever). Managers eat these for lunch because: 1) they don't need to understand or sweat any of the details 2) They can present them up the management chain - they look good, and reassure those who have an even lesser understanding 3) It's easy to point fingers at individuals who are creating a bottleneck and slowing things down, or perceived to be.

How do we know the product is ready to ship? In the eyes of NT corporate kiss-ass types (including managers and worker bees), "it has to be ready because we stepped through the Gantt chart". This reminds me of the old joke, "there has to be money in my account, I still have checks".

This has all sorts of dire repercussions for AS workers. We know that there are problems that haven't been sufficiently resolved. The product will ship and result in months of dealing with bugs that crawl out of the woodwork, resulting in all sorts of unexpected interruptions and crises which are aggravating. Finally, throughout the development process, we are expected to put our nose to the grindstone and "just complete" the steps. As many of you know, this process is not inherently linear. You come up against issues which can't be resolved according to a calendar because they are either too involved, or require the type of thinking where you drop the issue for a week or two, and return to it afresh later, often with a more mature perspective.

It's my theory that hi-tech work life has been increasingly infected by the Gantt chart rot. It used to be that AS types could find refuge in R&D, off the beaten manufacturing track. With increasing emphasis on specific profit margins, this is becoming increasingly difficult because we all have to demonstrate value to a specific product, at a specific time, which is expected to generate a certain rate of return, during a certain quarter of the business cycle. Yuck.

Some of the worst ones to (Me).