If you cannot identify with either of those two sorts of people just skip this post. It will just bore you.
Engineers solve problems, sometimes we solve obscure problems, bad engineers solve the wrong problem, or don’t solve it at all, but the driving focus for an engineer is to solve problems. Thats why I liken support folks to engineers. I’m not talking about helpdesk drones, I’ve been one, and they don’t solve problems, they deal with crisis and report problems. But support people like those I work with find out what the users do or want to do and make it happen, or make it easier.
Programmers are more like philosophers. They are in search of “higher truth”, a unified developement enviroment, a fully interoperable system enviroment and rapid technology enhancement. In lay men’s terms they want everyone to use the same programming tools, have all their toys talk nicely to each other and get lots of new Cool Stuff(TM).
The conflict arises when the engineers have to ask the programmers for something. Can I please use PHP to develop this little application? The answer is no if PHP does not fit into the programmers scheme to achieve their goals of integration and interoperability. (besides PHP is a dirty language, it lets you write bad code, but don’t get me started.) It’s a great goal, it would be the engineer’s utopia.
But it won’t happen. Ever. Economics are against it because you can’t pitch it to a manager. Innovation is against it because it doesn’t allow for diverse ideas. The very idea of having an IT department is against it because IT was created for one thing, to serve the profitable parts of the company. An IT department is successful when it solves the problems the users have.
Thats an observation mingled with a fair scoop or bitterness. I like doing my job. I get a kick out of making something that causes people to go, oooooohh, thats cool! Way better than the old way! It ticks me off when I have to work around someone else’s ideal to get it done. It’s like getting to snorkle in the great barrier reaf, but only if you carry a 100 pounds of shark bait in your pocket.