I am not a programmer.

Spend a few minutes in a place where software users interact with software developers – support forums, dev trackers, face-to-face team meetings – and you’re bound to hear this phrase used (or one of its relatives: I am not [a geek|a developer|a coder|tech-savvy], etc). It’s a statement of fact, and a useful statement at that, since the kind of help offered to a “programmer” is obviously quite different from what’s offered to someone who’s not.

But The Phrase is so much more than that. It’s a strategic move in a social game. Its uses fall into roughly two categories: a cry for empathy, and a deflection of responsibility.

A cry for empathy

I am not a programmer often means Go easy on me. Ask yourself: Why would someone go out of their way to ask for empathy in this way?

Sometimes it’s a way for a n00b to test the waters. Newcomers to a software community don’t always know the community conventions for asking for help. Labeling oneself as “not a programmer” is a gentle way of gauging how others react to new folks.

More frequently, in my experience, I am not a programmer is used by people who have been burned in the past. Maybe the user once asked a question and got an answer that was over her head. Maybe the discussion turned sour when the developers looked down their noses at someone who couldn’t understand a few lines of code. When this happens, I am not a programmer is a shield, a preemptive attempt to guard against the abuse that the asker rightly or wrongly expects to receive.

I wrote a post a while back on how this looks from the developer’s point of view. The gist, so far as this use of The Phrase is concerned, is that developers should be as empathetic as possible in these situations. For one thing, treating people with kindness is just the right thing to do. Beyond that, it’s important to the future of the community to extend a hand to potential contributors.

A deflection of responsibility

The other common use of I am not a programmer is something like: I’m not technical, so don’t even try to get me to crack the hood, which often amounts to I refuse to make an honest attempt. Do it for me.

This phenomenon is, in part, a side effect of the fact that I work with WordPress. WP is unusual among free software projects in that “ease of use” has always been central to its development strategy. The Dashboard, the inline updater, the plugin installer, the five-minute install – all are the result of a conscious effort by WP devs to make the barrier for entry as low as possible. And it’s worked. Without touching so much as a semi-colon of code, you can set up a beautiful and powerful website using WP and the some of the thousands of readily available plugins and themes.

On balance, this is a Very Good Thing. But it also sets up, in the mind of the average user, a certain (incorrect) understanding and set of (unreasonable) expectations about how free software works. In the world of commercial software, the development process is deliberately shrouded from end users. Apple (to take an example) has support forums. But the solutions offered here are always “click here” and “type this”, never “change this code” or “hack this” – if for no other reason than that the software is designed to be un-hack-friendly. In the case of open source software, the source code is available. Thus there is no enforced distinction between those who write the code and those who use it. For users of free software who are accustomed to the proprietary model, it’s hard to get your head around the idea that you can – and should! – be hacking it as part of the troubleshooting process.

Moreover, people who are accustomed to paying for software are used to getting a minimal level of functionality and support in exchange for their license fees. Free software has no license fees. But there persists a sense, in the minds of some users, of “How could you release something that is not 100% working?”. They approach support as a consumer transaction; the idea that troubleshooting could be a collaborative endeavor between users and devs, and that this troubleshooting is part of a larger arc of software development, is totally foreign to them. This seems especially true in the case of WordPress, which is so easy to use that it sets user expectations very high.

It’s perfectly understandable that the move from proprietary to free software would be jarring for users. But it’s not OK for these users to attempt to force their commercial expectations on a non-commercial community. The blurring of the line between user and developer, where users occasionally take a deep breath and crack open the hood, is a crucial part of the way free software is developed. It’s how bugs get fixed, and it’s how new devs emerge from the larger community. I am not a programmer, when it means I refuse to step outside my comfort zone, does active harm to the software project. It’s not that everyone has to become a “programmer” – it’s perfectly fine if you have no desire to get technical. But to deflect the issue altogether – especially with incredulity or anger, as if it’s totally unbelievable that you may be asked to do something technical – is a violation of the free software ethos.

So, next time you see a support request prefaced with “I am not a programmer…”, show a little empathy – but not too much 🙂