Surely I cannot be the only programmer around who enjoys dressing well and taking a certain amount of pride and interest in my appearance. Hacker news and The Sartorialist are the two first bookmarks on my bookmark bar and I find the both equally inspirational.
I do not enjoy dressing well and I have no intrinsic interest in my appearance. Nevertheless, it is sometimes useful to engage in signalling when dealing with the outside world (e.g., superficial investors, superficial women). For this reason, I have an extrinsic interest in my appearance.
A service I'd pay for: I send you a photo of myself, my measurements and money. You make me look good.
Somewhat, perhaps, more cumbersome, but very workable, is to hire yourself a personal shopper for a day. Those are available at all major cities.
That person will guide you throughout the day while you go out and buy the stuff society at large would like to see you wear. End the day with a visit to a, from them, suggested barber and you're set.
This is probably closer to what I'm looking for, though ideally I'd be able to avoid the actual "going shopping with them" part. However, until my ideal service exists, I'll probably hire a personal shopper if I lack a girlfriend.
Also, there is sometimes a principal-agent problem; many personal shoppers work for the stores, and simply buy for you whatever the store is trying to get rid of.
I'm hoping to say "dear fashionoverflow, please pick my clothes for me, email me when you are done. thx." If you say "dear stackoverflow, please do my homework for me, thx", you'll just be flamed.
Stackoverflow is programmers helping programmers, what I want is fashionistas helping nerds.
I'm not suggesting that you post "pick my clothes for me" on stackoverflow ;) I am suggesting the same type of site where people post a picture and a small description of themselves and people respond with clothing/haircut/other suggestions that people can vote on. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would find that fun to do, not at all like doing somebody's homework.
I took an interest in clothing when I realized clothing is another way to communicate. The programmer who doesn't care about clothing is not far removed from the programmer who doesn't care about small talk or politeness because it "doesn't mean anything".
In particular, one important thing clothing does is guide the eye of the viewer. Why are graphic tees unprofessional? Because they are distracting to the viewer. Why are suits professional? Because the details--lapels, tie, collar, padded shoulders--naturally bring the eye to the wearer's head, making him the center of attention.
Presentation is important, and affects the perceived content of that which is being presented. It puzzles me that many good programmers understand this about everything except clothing. If one were making a web site, the importance of color coordination would be obvious. Why do programmers so often neglect it when dressing one's very person?
You're not the only one. At my last company, a very casual place, we were doing Fancy Fridays and I enjoyed it immensely. In a way, it was just an adult version of playing "dress up" and was done kind of tongue-in-cheek.
The truth is, especially for guys who have a body shape that reflects their sedentary job, nothing makes you look better than a well-fitting suit and a properly knotted tie.
At one previous job of mine, the CEO banned me from wearing a sport coat to the office. He thought it was 'bad for team morale, like I thought I was better than everyone else'. Pffft.
Unless dressing better has no bearing on your level of self-comfort.*
* - I am not one of these people. I work best recently bathed and shaved, in fresh clothes and with a clean workspace. Anything less drives me absolutely bonkers.
Well dressed does not imply Suit & tie (nor does suit and tie necessarily imply well dressed). I like to think of my self as well dressed and only very occasionally wear a tie (mainly funerals, weddings, and events where the dress code requires it). That being said I will on occasion throw on a three piece suit & tie for no good reason just to mix things up a bit :)
>Dressing well, shaving, etc. takes lots and lots of time.
As a male? Not really. If you can put together a small, simple wardrobe of well-fitting clothes that go well with each other, you'll already be ahead of 90% of other guys, with no on-going time costs other than the normal bathing and shaving duties.
Well-fitting is the important part. Most guys don't wear clothes appropriate for their body type, at least here in the states.
Laser removal of beard follicles doesn't seem to work that well. And in my personal experience "no-iron" shirts really don't work that well.
And while the article didn't exactly show the who's who of male models, at least it was remarkably free of the atrocious cheap short-sleeved/khaki cubicle combo.
(If only the Nehru jacket would make its comeback in the western world. I'd finally be able to dress like a Bond villain and get rid of annoying collars in one go.)
Indeed. And the equivalence in the mind of the author of beards and unkempt is a little strange, particularly given that most of the beards pictured are nicely trimmed. The commentary on John McCarthy is just bizarre (okay, yes, he does kinda look like Colonel Sanders, but his hair is just wavy, not "crazy").
The ability to wear a button down shirt (and even a tie occasionally!) without being looked at sideways is one of the few things I miss about my old corporate job.
But you have to maintain it every couple months or it starts to look scruffy. If you're accustomed to a long hair look, you can forget about it for several months at a time.
I'd wager that regular maintainence is the mental cost those guys are trying to avoid.
I've never understood that argument. Whatever time you may save on monthly upkeep is lost many times over on daily (or at least, hopefully, weekly) washing and brushing and pony tailing, etc. I rebuzz my head about once every two or three weeks and that is literally it.
Ah, but time spent is not what we are trying to optimize.
Washing and brushing one's hair does add time to daily tasks, but it is not a lot of time. Not compared to general time spent going to the bathroom, showering, eating. That time as a whole could be greatly reduced. By moving and concentrating vigorously, one can get through the shower in 120 seconds, through breakfast in 45. Hang out with ex-military types and you will see this behavior. (You will also see buzz cuts.) This sort of thing is pointedly not what hackers generally do.
We conserve mental effort. Not because we are lazy, but because we have only so much mental effort to use in a day, and we want to use all of it on very specific tasks. Concentration is currency. Remembering things has a cost. Routine, menial tasks are almost free. In fact, like play, they can have a slight negative cost. They allow the mind to wander. For many of us, shower time is often productive time. But even when it's not, we attempt to get through it, not with a minimum expendeture of time, but with a minimum of mental fuss. Not going fast, not going slow. Just getting through it and thinking about other things.
Hence, daily hair maintainence is not really costly. It's a routine. But remembering to schedule a haircut or assessing whether it's time to get out the razor is one more thing to think about. One more thing to remember.
One cannot attack complex problems without proactively and repeatedly clearing the mind of unnecessary details. Abstract and forget. This is a critical skill. Avoiding periodic hair maintenence is an extension of that. Perhaps a silly one, but an extension nonetheless.
For some, maintaining a hairstyle is a specifically chosen hobby, and that's fine. But for everyone else, forgetting about your long hair is a habit borne of simple good intellectual hygeine.
Just to be clear, the styles we're comparing are buzz vs. long (pony-tailable) hair, right? Because the lengths in between are the real attention-sappers -- scheduled retail hair-cuts and at least some sort of daily styling, which requires (sometimes a lot of) attention.
You make good points. And we've successfully moved from the mundane to the philosophical. But as far as maintaining a clear mind, I can weather a head-buzzing every few weeks without suffering any serious thought-train derailment. I even find it rather meditative. There's something purifying and exhilarating about shaving one's head -- it's like throwing away a lot of useless shit you've been accumulating, or putting one's mental baggage astern. My head feels lighter -- and it is!
I'd venture he is talking about a short buzz like a military cut. I generally put the number 2 comb on the clippers and have at it, leaves about 1/4-3/8 inch. In the winter I let it get a little longer, go to a #4.
Well, unless your head isn't shaped that well (or has moles, scar, prison tattooos...). Then shaping it is much more of a bother and you look more like a conehead or Quasimodo than a Buddhist monk. Or even Moby.
But yes, as the other maintenance-free option is more and more turning into a skullet for me, I guess I'll have to go that way, too. There's a shaped Remington Hair clipper (looks like a curved electric comb) that worked well enough last time...
That's what I do, I bought myself a trimmer and give myself a #3 buzz-cut about once a month. I haven't been to a salon in ~4 years now so have more than paid for the trimmers.
I still use shampoo & conditioner though, seems to be better for the scalp but I expect that it's partially down to habit.
It helps that the style suits me otherwise I wouldn't do it.
Optimization. Our peers don't care how we dress. In general, they don't see how we dress. We communicate through code and email.
On the other hand, our peers do care about our writing, so our writing is always stylish. The spectrum among hackers starts at cocktail party and runs through business casual and black tie clear into zoot suit. Not a slobby "i agree" in sight.
I've actually moved to wearing just striaght-up all black all the time. I'm a tall skinny young dude, so skinny jeans + band tshirt is even almost in style!
Half the reason that I've done this is because I can just reach in my drawer and put on anything, and it works. It may not be as optimal, but it's good enough.
My priority is comfort, both physically and socially, that means if I'm somewhere decent, or important it's compfortable to be dressed properly. OTHO I work from home and during the summer time I'll be damned if I'm wearing anything besides shorts and a t-shirt.
In my teens i got influenced by punk, and I've been wearing black t-shirts with jeans with holes in them, had unkempt hair and have been shaving every 2 weeks or so, ever since. Yes, i actually try to look like a homeless person as a fashion statement.
Surely Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson are the winners as the masters of the style. I saw them at a Usenix convention 20 years or so after the picture in the posting. Their beard were much fuller and much grayer, beer bellies of remarkable proportions and wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts.
(Now, was that where I got my Digital Equipment eye-shades with the flashing lights. Think so.)
