Talk:Code monkey

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Must add the jargon file reference Project2501a 17:23, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Isn't the derivation also loosely attached to the infinite monkey theorem? Enough code monkeys producing decent code, etc? --131.111.143.208 10:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

I doubt there's any significant connection. The derivation is from "tape monkey", which was a systems administrator on an old system that used reel-to-reel tapes. The admin's job was primarily to swap tapes out as needed to load the approprite programs and/or data, and the joke was that the job could be performed equally as well by a trained monkey. There is a recent jargon term (a decade old) that does have a close association with the infinite monkey theorem, but the association is parallel, not derivative. In a 1995 Dilbert strip, Dilbert asks Ratbert to do "his little rat dance" on the keyboard to produce bugs for Dilbert to fix (as the PHM had offered a per-bug bounty for fixes). Rather than creating bugs, Ratbert accidentally authors a web browser. See http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/R/rat-dance.html for more. scot 18:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why aren't a more explicit reference to this? I think "code monkey" term needs a proper Wikipedia article Timofonic (talk) 18:37, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

There's a whole bunch of repetitions in the text. User:Dalen_talas 12/05/2006

I've tightened up the text and provided references for as much as I can, so I'm going to yank the cleanup tag based on that work. scot 14:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

The definition given here is only true at the strictest level - the commonly used variation is just a humorous reference. Additionally, there are parts here that are a bit too elitest and could use a bit of cleaning. :) The base definition is pretty well explained though, so good work :). Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 21:00, 22 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Well, being an elitest who accuses anyone not a hard-core toolsmith of being a code monkey, I wouldn't know :) It seems to me that even the VB weenies consider themselves to be "1337 h4x0r d00dz" and would take offense at being called code monkeys, whereas in my view, use of VB automatically makes one a code monkey (as I recall the language has no shift operators--ever tried to write a shift without access to the CPUs shift operator? "Glacial" isn't slow enough to get the point across). It's all relative, which I think is the point the article should make. scot 22:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Maybe so but your personal definition of code monkey is at odds with those mentioned here. The term doesn't usually imply anything about what kind of programming the person does or how close to the metal they get. I still self-deprecatingly call myself a code monkey but professionally I really stopped being one when I moved from a software developer role, to a software architect role (now consultant) although the technologies I've used to do the actual work haven't changed. Code monkey is the term for the grunt programmer who does the bulk of the work, as opposed to the senior developer/architect who, contrary to your definition, does less programming and probably in practise is not as sharp as the code monkey.

As for VB, what do you expect from managed code? It's questionable with today's processing power whether you even need direct CPU access for games anymore, let alone rapid applications development which is where VB/.net fits in nicely. --JamesTheNumberless 11:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

I think self-derogatory use of "code monkey" might be similar: How black/darker/whatever people call themselves "nigga" or "negrata", how nerd and geek became derogatory terms to a proud adjective. it's some kind of satirical and sarcastic usage to generate resilience. Timofonic (talk) 19:13, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Almost word for word the same article. Joncnunn 20:13, 11 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Agreed, if it is established that "web monkey" is a subset of "code monkey"--maybe have a sub-section covering code monkey variants? Since the original was tape monkey, that should probably form the intro, and the article one-banana problem can be merged in as well. scot 20:37, 11 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

What about this? Why this didn't receive enough love? Timofonic (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

The etymology might lie in the UK/Australian term grease monkey.

That term is used in the US as well, and that may be the root of the original "tape monkey" use. That should probably be mentioned there. scot 14:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why not proper mentions about this in the current article? :( Timofonic (talk) 19:17, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

When I clicked on the external link for the code monkey t-shirt, it took me to the google image search. It should either be fixed or removed.

Yep, I found that shirt through a Google image search, and obviously pasted that link in by mistake. It's fixed now. scot 15:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

What happened? Where is it? Timofonic (talk) 19:18, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Looks like this link is down. I'll remove it. Ihatecrayons 05:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why did you do this? There's Wayback Machine for that https://web.archive.org/web/20060111214429/http://www.digitaldroo.com:80/monkeydevelopers.html Timofonic (talk) 19:22, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure about the following:

The term can also apply to amateur computer programmers who stitch together snippets of code found on the internet and in books to make an application, without having an appreciation or understanding what the principles behind the code or the concept of coding are.

That seems to me to be a definition for script kiddie, rather than code monkey --JamesTheNumberless 10:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

To me, it sounds more like code monkey. To me a script kiddie only uses others tools. As far as I know they don't build their own tools from snippets. 216.36.188.184 (talk) 11:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

This usage seems interesting. Why did get removed? Timofonic (talk) 19:23, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

Reference to Visual Basic shows anti-MS bias. WiccaWeb 15:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

No, it shows an anti-BASIC bias; VB just happens to be the dominant form of BASIC, and therefore the one most commonly used by code monkeys. The fact that VB is evil is beside the point (if you don't believe me, try doing bitwise operations in it...) scot 16:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oh, please. The bitwise operators keep getting dragged in. If you need to do a lot of bit twiddling, use your favorite C derivative, that's what it's there for. VB can get along with the occasional multiplication and division by powers of two (which the compiler can optimize into shifts, by the way, if they're constant). If you're at the point where you're optimizing bit shifts, you're surely doing something that the average Visual Basic programmer wouldn't even be considered for, so what the language does is a lot less relevant.

VB (not VB.NET) is bletcherous, but it's not half as evil as people make it out to be. The cargo cult programming culture surrounding it is much worse. That's not necessarily BASIC-specific either; anything simple enough to be (partially) memorized and abused by code monkeys (mostly scripting languages) will suffer that fate. 82.95.254.249 23:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

This is interesting. Some "paranoid" geek communities push certain entrance barriers to try to avoid that. Timofonic (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

I am removing the entire derogatory use section for now since it is practically unsourced, reference 2 is a jargon file link to script kiddie, and ref 3 which seems to be really the reference the entire section seems to be based on references code jockey which is a separate term and even then it is not a great reference for an entire integral paragraph. Cat-five - talk 01:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

It's sad the article got reduced to ashes. Too many excuses to remove, too little efforts to improve them. Timofonic (talk) 19:28, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

The picture seems kinda un-related to the article, it won't exactly add any useful information.Omegakingboo (talk) 03:04, 1 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

In an effort to clear the massive notability backlog, I went out on a limb and turned this page into a disambiguation page. Here is a link to the last article version of the page. If you disagree with this action, please feel free to revert and leave me a note about it. Thanks! --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 20:20, 23 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Disambiguation might become ambiguous too. Some names are a derivation of the "code monkey" jargon term too: Do they deserve separate pages this way or mention it in the "code monkey" article? Timofonic (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply