“Herding cats” is often used to describe leading a group of software developers; it is an expression that refers to attempting to control those that are uncontrollable. In fact, there was even a book published in 2002 called “Herding Cats: A Primer for Programmers Who Lead Programmers.” Why are software developers sometimes depicted as cats? Well, my guess is that cats are aloof, solitary animals and easily distracted—words frequently used to describe developers. So, if programmers and developers are similar to cats, what would they be like if they actually were cats?
The All Night Coding Session programmer: This programmer is ready for an all-night build session.
“computer scientist cat” by Khaled Abdelmoumen
The Up All Night Programming programmer: This programmer was so tired from coding all night he didn’t even bother leaving his desk.
“Cat Calendar” by Erica Zabowski
The Mentor and Mentored programmers: When beginning programming, it’s a good idea to find a mentor, someone who can answer your questions and look over your project.
“Attention” by Максим Михайлов
The Is It Lunch Yet programmer: This programmer has been eating lunch at his desk too often!
“Fat Cat Picture – Moe” by Dan Perry
The Grumpy programmer: This programmer just spent his entire day working on source code only to get a compilation error at quitting time.
“Grumpy Cat” by Scott Beale
The Mobile programmer: Obviously he isn’t a smartphone programmer…
“Bluebell on the Phone” by Josh Semans
The Don’t Ask Me to Work on Saturday programmer: No explanation needed.
“Demonic cat” by Phil
The Hardware programmer: To fix the machine, you have to become one with the machine.
“Computer kitten” by Tim “Avatar” Bartel
The Drone programmer: He’s as scary as he looks.
“Orvillecopter: part cat, part machine” by Dennis van Zuijlekom
The I Can’t Figure out These Strings programmer: It’s going to take all day for him to resolve this.
“Enthusiastic ribbon pouncing” by Byron Chin
The Focused developer: Look at that death stare… This programmer isn’t letting any bad code get past him!
The Frustrated programmer: This programmer is about to throw his computer across the room because he can’t debug a performance bottleneck.
The DevOps programmers: How cute! The development team and the operations team are working together.
“Cat Pile” by Elizabeth
The Agile programmer: He’s only dangerous in short bursts, though.
The iOS programmer: Many times more judgmental than the average cat.
“Updating Facebook” by Angelo DeSantis
