- Posted by Shay Friedman on March 25, 2010
Recently I thought about this comparison… In the programming world there is this level of people who are a kind of “celebrities” within the developer community - they’re widely known, they have thousands of readers of their blogs, they have thousands of followers on Twitter, they speak on public events in front of thousands of people around the world… All of that just screams for a comparison with the equivalent in the show biz world - rock stars!
So… I’m proud to present the first EVER comparison between rock stars and programming stars! afterwards judge for yourself what you wanna be.
| Comparison | Rock Star | Programming Star |
| Look |  |  |
| Shown in public on | Concerts, TV, Radio, newspapers, magazines | Conferences, podcasts, programming magazines |
| Known internationally | Yes | Yes |
| Chances of being recognized in the grocery store | Almost with complete certainty | Rarely |
| Charisma | Yes | Yes |
| Tools | Microphone/Guitar/Drums/other instrument | Microphone + computer + projector |
| Write | Lyrics | Code |
| Average annual salary | Millions of dollars | Hundreds of thousands of dollars |
| # of Twitter followers | Millions | Tens of thousands |
| # of people attending a single show/talk | Tens of thousands | Thousands |
| Way to the top | Hard work for years/American Idol | Hard work for years
(Simon Fuller, if you read this, what about a “Programming Idol” show?) |
| Sex | So much that they’re sorry about that when they grow old. | I don’t know. Unlike rock stars, they don’t share this information. |
| Drugs | Yes. A lot. | No. Geeks do not do drugs. Most of them at least. |
| Alcohol | Yes | Drink beer from time to time |
| Tour the world | A few months a year | A few days/weeks a year |
| Own | A crib, a private jet, a collection of cool cars | A powerful laptop with SSD and two 24’ screens |
| Can install Win7 | No | Of course, they’ve done that multiple times already |
| Eat bats during shows/talks | Yes | No |
| Have tattoos | Yes | Mostly not, it hurts to get them done. |
| Have two eyes, two ears, one mouth and one nose | Yes | Yes |
And the winner is………… I don't know, do you?
Anyway in the end we’re all human and therefore have a chance to become stars.
Go ahead and shine!
Shay.
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