About a month ago I wrote on Twitter: "Does your IT company provide drugs, alcohol, and groupies? How about katanas? No? Then you aren't hiring rockstars or ninjas."
As you can see I'm the first one to be oppose to meaningless names. However the point of the article was not about labeling ourselves as super heroes. It was about inspiring new comers to take the plunge because programming, in this information age, allows you to do incredible things as if you had a super power.
This is akin to a doctor blogging about how you can be a hero and save lives if you go into the medical field. It's supposed to inspire new people, not putting ourselves on a pedestal and literally say "I'm a super hero because of my profession".
Katana were too long for a ninja - they'd more likely use a Ninjato which was shorter... [Puts geek credentials away and gets back to the point]
Yes programming is great and useful but I think super power is overstating it and is just meaningless, sightly immature hyperbole.
If people want programming to be attractive and interesting to more people then they should possibly think about not using super hero, fantasy and sci-fi metaphors as they only serve to re-enforce the view that most non-programmers have rather than do anything to dispel it.
This isn't really having a go at you, more the a culture that exists within certain sections of the programming community. Don't get me wrong, I still play D&D and video games, and I still read comics (though in trade hardback these days). There's nothing wrong with these things but they're not things which most people are interested in and are therefore not a great way of making programming seem cool or interesting beyond a very very small group, most of which are already working in it.
I think the point is that the super hero meme is specifically targeting the group of people who are already aligned with much of your stereotypical "geek" culture. The difference is that nowadays there are so many avenues to take following this path that won't necessarily end up at programming. I think the point that cicero made here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2350004 is crucial.
There was a time where being "into" computers meant you inevitably became exposed to programming concepts and eventually dabbled in a bit of it. That's no longer the case. It's helpful to reach out to this group of potentials and show them how awesome it can be to bend the computer to your will. It's just a matter of speaking the language of the group you're trying to reach. I think the superhero metaphor is a good one.
But that's my point - if you're going to reach out to a group of people who are currently outside the norm for computing, you might want to use metaphors and ideas that will resonate with them, not the idea of superheroes which is frankly one which resonates with pretty much the same people who are already attracted to the industry.
We absolutely should be selling the industry and the career - the best teams I've worked in have always been diverse (in pretty much every respect) but you're not going to do that with this sort of pitch.
As you can see I'm the first one to be oppose to meaningless names. However the point of the article was not about labeling ourselves as super heroes. It was about inspiring new comers to take the plunge because programming, in this information age, allows you to do incredible things as if you had a super power.
This is akin to a doctor blogging about how you can be a hero and save lives if you go into the medical field. It's supposed to inspire new people, not putting ourselves on a pedestal and literally say "I'm a super hero because of my profession".