Maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that a lot of people here at the RevTK forums are, or want to be, programmers. Maybe not many, but at least the percentage of programmers here seems to me a lot higher than one would expect in other situations. And not only here, Khatz for example is a Software Engineer if I'm not mistaken, and other japanese learners I know of are also programmers (or something that involves programming).

Tell me if you agree, and if you do, why do you think this is?
Thank you.

PS: Here's a little treat I found for you programmers who want to work in Japan. Enjoy.
http://www.squidoo.com/japanese-for-programmers

Nice link!

Yeah, I'm a programmer and we do have more than our fair share here.

I think it's for a few reasons:

1) RevTK is a programmer's answer to learning Kanji. We don't make flash cards, we have the computer make them for us.

2) We have a good community that doesn't belittle people for being smart and having opinions. Nothing makes a smart person leave faster than being told he's stupid.

3) Existing of programmers sharing information and programs attracts other programmers... Or at least gets them to stick around once they arrive.

4) I've yet to find another language community in any language that meets the above. (Though I haven't tried hard.)

I am also a programmer. I took a semester of Japanese in college - about 10 years ago - and it seemed that about half the class was from the computer science department. Just from talking to that small sample of people there were two main reasons:

1. One of the main reasons they got interested in programming was from playing video games (especially games such as final fantasy coming from Japan) and thought that learning Japanese would open doors in that direction.

2. A large number of CS majors also tended to be into anime which lead them to want to learn Japanese.

I'm also a programmer (well I will be, I'm a computer science student).

For me, playing video games as a kid sparked interests in both technology and Japan at the same time.

I'll be doing a job programming this summer, but I'm not actually that good at programming, haha.

I'm a programmer. Games, flash, iphone, anything really

Anyway agree with above - programming = geek = love for anime / video games = japanese connection.

p.s. fakewookie, you still want my Japanese programming book "How programming works"? PM me if you're still interested (otherwise it's going to my local charity shop..!)

Miguelitius Wrote:PS: Here's a little treat I found for you programmers who want to work in Japan. Enjoy.
http://www.squidoo.com/japanese-for-programmers

Thanks for the link - some interesting stuff on there. Although he does hate a bit on RTK.

@wccrawford Exactly!
1) Maybe, although virtual flashcards are becoming very popular these days, especially for japanese, among everybody.
2) Couldn't say it better . It is SO nice to find a community where there aren't any "LOOOOLOLLL look at me! I'm such a troll and I'm so funny! Give me attention!!!" or "I don't care about your opinion because my IQ is over 452 squared and I like to say it on the internet so people can't laugh at my clearly fake statement." kinds of people.
3) Agree.
4) Same here.

@abarone22 That's interesting to know.
1. I too started to get interested in japanese video games which actually led me to realize that all those amazing cartoons I loved were anime, this obviously sparkled my interest in japan a bit more, the bit that was missing for me to become an "otaku".
2. I sure hope to find anime enthusiasts next year in college !

@fakewookie Same for everything you said really.

@dizmox Don't worry, the most I did program was a very simple calculator, and I really mean VERY!

@aphasiac Yeah, agree.

@mlorenz No problem . He can hate whatever he wants as long as he keeps on being useful for us .

I think there's also a more general overlap in mindset between programmers and people self-teaching a language using the internet. To get to this forum in the first place, you'll be fairly internet capable and once here, you'll be encouraged to use a variety of fairly complex programs to facilitate your studying. After a while of using these programs, many people want other features or they think of neat things their computer could do to help them learn. Programming is the natural solution, and when everyone else seems to be having a go, it gives you confidence to try something which might otherwise seem daunting.

Thanks for the link.
Slacking at my programming job now.

@Blahah Yeah I also thought about that, but as you see, many here really have a college course and programming career.

@rrrrrray Glad to help . Make it count! By the way, do you live in Japan?
EDIT: nevermind, I just saw "From: Toronto" next to your name.

I'm a programmer, but I'm starting the 12 steps tomorrow.

@bertoni what do you mean by 12 steps?


BTW: I just watched 秒速5センチメートル (5 Centimeters Per Second) and the main protagonist is also a programmer. Oh... and it sucked so much for me I don't even want to talk about it... I freaking hated it with all the power I have at my disposal... *sniff* T_T! Bad movie... Bad!!! *sniff* You make daddy sad! T_T
Good movie, though the end wa...
(Yup, more or so like this, if you watched it you'll understand what I mean.)
I'm going to bed now, cya all.

Quote:@bertoni what do you mean by 12 steps?

Pretty sure he was making a joke how this is starting to feel like an AA meeting.

Hi, my name is Eadwyn, and I too am a programmer.

aphasiac Wrote:Anyway agree with above - programming = geek = love for anime / video games = japanese connection.

I'll soon be a Junior in my Software Engineering degree, and this is so true. I've found so many anime/manga/video game fans here I'm constantly blown away. In high school it was almost impossible to find people with similar interests and now I can't get away from them! lol.

I know at least 10 people here who are learning Japanese, a couple who have lived in Japan, and one who is actually Japanese. A group of 15 or so of us went to try and get a Japanese class available at the school so we could get our humanities credits out of the way in a more interesting fashion. And it looks like we may actually get a Japanese class started, however it won't be till my Senior year, and I'm already pretty much beyond the entire first year of Japanese classes, but easy humanities credits I suppose.

I just thought it was kind of funny though, 15 people in the software engineering department just kind of marched up to the registrar to advocate for a Japanese class. I don't think I could have picked a more fitting major. =)

Japanese appeals to nerds, technical people, and grognards. It's not surprising that lots of technical people would be into Japanese. I will tell you that I am a programmer, and I have lots of facility with Japanese. I'm not sure these are explicitly connected, but for sure they are connected on a very basic level.

It's one of life's great mysteries. I'm sure William Gibson is responsible, somehow.

I do programming too ^_^

Chalk me up as another.

arch9443 Wrote:

aphasiac Wrote:Anyway agree with above - programming = geek = love for anime / video games = japanese connection.

I'll soon be a Junior in my Software Engineering degree, and this is so true. I've found so many anime/manga/video game fans here I'm constantly blown away. In high school it was almost impossible to find people with similar interests and now I can't get away from them! lol.

Even though I don't want to change my current course of study, this makes me wish I was in the CS department sometimes. Mathematics students don't seem to be into that sort of stuff, at least none that I've met...

I started making games in QBasic when I was around 16 years old. 10 years later I have experience in Java, C++, VB/QB, JavaScript, PHP and currently playing around with Haskell.

It's mostly been just for fun, as a hobby, and I mostly code in C++ on my free time. In my professional work I use PL/SQL alot, but then that's a special purpose language.

I studied mathematics in college, and my only formal education in programming is from a one semester course in Java. :\

Wow this is even more real than I thought, I'm impressed!

twinzen Wrote:...and currently playing around with Haskell.

Ooo, another Haskell user.

Ooh, I'm a programmer too!

I do video games, working on Guild Wars 2 presently, so mostly C++ at work. At home I like to stick to python and only do C++ for fun adventures with template metaprogramming

[ファブリス]

OP Wrote:Tell me if you agree, and if you do, why do you think this is?

Better not get into stereotypes so to see the upside of things let's just say programmers enjoy challenges and are not afraid of learning. Maybe that attracts us to kanji?

I'm programming the Reviewing the Kanji website, but also started out as a game programmer in the 90's on Amiga, and then PC. I worked two years in a game studio in UK. From ~2001 I quit game programming, to experiment with digital painting and such. Then I worked in a web company in Belgium for 3.5 years, which is the longest I've stayed anywhere. I guess I really enjoyed it because of the mix of programming skills and Photoshop time. After two years of "slicing" and learning CSS tricks I started doing more heavy Javascript again, getting closer to my developer roots.

Lately after playing with the iPad2 I'm getting excited again and started reading the iOS developer documentation. I don't know where this is going but I could see myself going back to game programming on iOS.

Objective-C is interesting, it's like a mix of C and Javascript (eg. dynamic binding). Plus you can have Web Views with CSS 3 and HTML 5 features, which communicate with the Objective-C code. Looks like my web developer years could pay off on iOS too