A few things that I have been reading lately (Beowulf’s blog, Never Wrestle With a Pig and MJD’s Conference Presentation Judo) have made me think about just how critical programmers can be. I’m considering submitting a proposal for a talk at one of the Perl conferences which sounds like a good idea but means having to talk to a room full of programmers. Programmers – the type of people who go to see a great presentation and it’s spoilt by one or two typos on a slide, the type of people who are willing to discard everything you’ve said because they don’t like the way you indented your code, the type of people who allow the smallest of trivial details to distract them and are first to point out why something isn’t exactly correct. How can I be sure of this? Because I’m a programmer.