I Am the Perfect Programmer

I am the perfect programmer. I don't remember a time when I didn't want to be a programmer. Problems with two-star difficulty, computer science classes, olympiads, a home PC earlier than everyone else — everything led to my profession. I was firmly convinced of the necessity of a foundational mathematics education and I got one. For me, programming is not a craft but an art multiplied by mathematics. Every morning I read Habr and programming language specifications. While brushing my teeth, I scroll through professional Telegram channels.

I am the perfect programmer. I always accurately estimate the time needed to complete a task and strictly meet every deadline. I have no concept of force majeure — nothing ever happens to me, I never get stuck for hours on a single function. I believe that meeting deadlines is more important for programmers than response time is for an ambulance. After all, if I delay and do something later, all processes will shift.

I am the perfect programmer. I understand the essence of the business better than the CEO — because without knowing every bolt, development is impossible. I don't need to gather requirements from colleagues or argue about duplicate requests — I'm ready to replace anyone and know exactly what everyone needs at their workstation. My vision of the business is holistic; I know precisely what the company needs, what its goals are, and what its strategy is. And I get very angry if someone doesn't fit into this vision.

I am the perfect programmer. All my code is covered by tests, and I not only solve problems but anticipate and prevent them. I don't need testers because I debug and analyze bugs and incorrect application behavior myself. I don't need DevOps because I master all software deployment technologies myself. I don't need a manager — I use the company's products myself and know exactly what users need.

I am the perfect programmer. I started coding in Assembly, I know COBOL, Lisp, Erlang — why even list them all? Well, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Go, Python — that's the basics. Of course I'm full-stack, and also a bit of a designer. In principle, I can work entirely alone, deal with legacy code, and fix old code fragments that are older than I am.

I am the perfect programmer. Every year I spend three months' salary on education and complete all the courses my company offers to employees. I'm always on the cutting edge of technology and management, I speak brilliant English, and I've earned every certificate confirming my knowledge and skills in every domain.

I am the perfect programmer. I have many hobbies: my own Arduino robot project, mobile game development, and solving LeetCode problems. I continuously invent something new and implement it. Hobby projects give me inspiration for work tasks.

I am the perfect programmer. Of course I go on vacation, but I choose city breaks in world capitals. First, it develops my erudition and forms an understanding of cross-cultural interaction, and second, there's always internet there. If needed, I don't mind working on vacation and generally love being available 24/7 — after all, it's not just what the company needs but also gives me a chance to prove myself as a professional.

I am the perfect programmer. If my manager or team lead yells at me, I just keep working — they're simply stressed and passionate about the cause. Why am I not a team lead? Because I live for code and don't want to manage a team. It's just that nobody on the team is perfect enough for us to work well together. But code can be perfect, because it depends only on me.

I am the perfect programmer. I love refactoring. Every line of code, every function, every call must be perfect. I can spend an enormous amount of time on refactoring (without compromising deadlines, of course) and will rewrite colleagues' code just to merge the most optimized version possible.

I am the perfect programmer. It was I who developed the company's code style, and I constantly remind colleagues to follow it. And yes, I do care where the semicolon goes and how the braces are formatted. I don't believe in lots of comments in code — code should be understandable and readable without them. Self-documenting code is beautiful.

I am the perfect programmer. I could work remotely, but I prefer the office so nothing distracts me from focused work on code. I'm terribly annoyed by members of our distributed team, because I feel that on a call without a camera, they divide their engagement between the meeting and sandwiches. Remote work is associated in my mind with procrastination and wasting time on household chores. And yes, the commute to the office isn't a problem — you can do self-education from the screen of any gadget. For me, it's a tablet — on which I test my new time management app.

I am the perfect programmer. I prefer to work with clients myself and conduct user surveys. Marketers can't hear between the lines and grasp the true problems of customers. I generally believe that every marketer should complete some serious software development course to understand what we're talking about. It's impossible to communicate with them when they don't understand what an exception and a mutex are!

I am the perfect programmer. I hate vibe coding and don't want AI to interfere with the project. It seems to me like a manifestation of laziness and negligence. And besides — so the AI wrote you some code snippets, but who's going to refactor, maintain, and polish it release after release? I always worry that colleagues will try to push what they've vibe-coded.

I am the perfect programmer. Of course, they offered me a mentoring role for juniors. It's hard. It seems like I'm explaining simple things, but the newcomers keep making endless mistakes. You can master the programming principles that I value in two weeks and live up to them. They'll never become perfect programmers!

I am the perfect programmer. I'm often invited as a speaker at conferences. I prepare perfect presentations and work with the program committee until they themselves refuse to do another run-through. But for some reason, people clap very weakly for me and almost never ask questions, while some strange freaks who sharded a huge database practically on their knees get questions. And applause. But at least I solve all the puzzles and quests at the sponsor booths and take home piles of swag.

I am the perfect programmer. I work not for the salary but for the idea. Of course, money is great, but it's important to track whether what you do corresponds to what you earn. It's frustrating, though, that we're often unfairly evaluated and people don't realize that only a perfect programmer can create perfect software. It's a shame that users are never perfect.

I am the perfect programmer. The only problem is that I don't exist.

And so we congratulate the imperfect but professional developers — the ones who argue, who care deeply about the product, who can spend three days carefully crafting a small piece of code, who miss deadlines but are ready to deploy hotfixes at three in the morning. So different, so amazing and interesting — those whose experiments and imperfections drive all development forward and allow us to see something beyond the blinkered image of perfect software.

Happy Programmer's Day, friends! You are real and absolutely awesome!