"Drug Dealer Or Software Programmer?"
A Career Comparison

Drug Dealers                      Software Developers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Refer to their clients            Refer to their clients
as "users."                           as "users."

"The first one's free!"           "Download a free trial version..."

Have important South-East        Have important South-East
Asian connections.                     Asian connections.
(to help move the stuff).             (to help debug the code).

Strange jargon:                   Strange jargon:
"Stick"                                 "SCSI"

"Rock"                                 "RTFM"

"Wrap"                                "Packet"

"E"                                      "C"

"Stash"                               "Cache"

"Drive by"                           "CTRL ALT DEL"

"Hit (LSD)"                          "Hit (WWW)"

"Source"                             "Source-code"

"The Pigs"                          "Microsoft"

Realize that there's            Realize that there's
tons of cash in the              tons of cash in the
14 to 25-year-old                14 - to 25-year-old
market.                               market.

Your clients really like your        Your clients really like your
stuff when it works. When it      stuff when it works. When it
doesn't work they want to kill     doesn't work they want to kill
you.                                             you.

Job is assisted by the                Job is assisted by the
industry producing                      industry producing
newer, more potent product.      newer, more potent products.

When things go wrong, a           When things go wrong, a
"fix" is just a phone call              "fix" is just a phone call
away but may be expensive       away but may be expensive.

A lot of successful people          A lot of successful people
getting rich in this industry         getting rich in this industry
while still teenagers                    while still teenagers

Their product causes                DOOM. Quake. SimCity.
unhealthy addictions.                 Duke Nukem 3D.  'Nuff said.