I avoided socializing with the vast majority of my CS peers in college because I didn't enjoy their "culture" very much. Maybe its too stereotypical, but for the most part the people were self-centered in a strange way, lacked a lot of social tact, and had too much bad taste in a lot of things - movies, music, clothes, women, etc. much for my liking. I can't recall having that many interesting conversations with classmates. Even when we were discussing technology, there was too much ignorant bravado and not enough quality debate.
When I started my career, I was placed with other younger programmers and we generally worked well together, exploring solutions, researching technologies, etc. That was my favorite time in the field. We were all unpretentious and actually spent time learning things and discussing them in a rational manner.
It was pretty much a complete 180 from my experience with programmers in college.
I have a few too many scattered hobbies and pursuits to want to spend large chunks of my personal time on the computer programming but I don't fault those who do, especially the ones working on projects that inspire others. I also don't fault the person who wrote the article. I think he's stuck with bad peers and hasn't yet found a team that works well for him yet.
Just so I'm clear on your comment regarding your CS peers; you came into contact with people who were socially underdeveloped due to lack of social experiences, and as a result you chose to deny them social experiences.
Yeah, it was totally their fault. What a bunch of assholes.
I wasn't describing loners or anything like that. They had plenty of social experience. It was just a different culture and the culture wasn't particularly attractive to "outsiders".
As for "denying" them anything, I'm not sure what.
The main point I was trying to get across was that there are all sorts of people in the field. Not everyone is the same, even if your experiences lead you to believe otherwise.
People don't generally "grant" or "deny" social experiences to others. That's not how that works.
Being social means being interested in others with different backgrounds from your own, and meeting them halfway. People who work in very technical field are notorious for neglecting to do this, and as a consequence they aren't particularly interesting to people outside those fields.
So yes, this is pretty much their fault, but it's not a death sentence, and it doesn't make them assholes. It just means they need to broaden their horizons a bit to make themselves more accessible and interesting to others.
I think you're putting too much emphasis on social experience (whatever that means). I think that what they read is a far more influential factor in making (at least some) of them decent (or not) toward one another. I was quite the hell-raiser in my youth, and I would have remained so into my twenties had I not found reasons to do otherwise. These reasons could not have come from my peers, because even if they knew them (which was not the case), they were not developed well enough to articulate them.
I avoided socializing with the vast majority of my CS peers in college because I didn't enjoy their "culture" very much. Maybe its too stereotypical, but for the most part the people were self-centered in a strange way, lacked a lot of social tact, and had too much bad taste in a lot of things - movies, music, clothes, women, etc. much for my liking. I can't recall having that many interesting conversations with classmates. Even when we were discussing technology, there was too much ignorant bravado and not enough quality debate.
When I started my career, I was placed with other younger programmers and we generally worked well together, exploring solutions, researching technologies, etc. That was my favorite time in the field. We were all unpretentious and actually spent time learning things and discussing them in a rational manner.
It was pretty much a complete 180 from my experience with programmers in college.
I have a few too many scattered hobbies and pursuits to want to spend large chunks of my personal time on the computer programming but I don't fault those who do, especially the ones working on projects that inspire others. I also don't fault the person who wrote the article. I think he's stuck with bad peers and hasn't yet found a team that works well for him yet.