ID:45627
 
Do you know what I, a programmer, fear? Hardware. And networking. And operating systems. In short, pretty much anything that could brutishly impinge upon the realm of abstract logic.

So, last week, my manager took his first full-week vacation. He's the network administrator and handles all our dealings with phone and Internet providers. Well, guess which week was full of network equipment crashing all over creation? Here's a hint: it was a recent week with a full moon in it. I won't say much about it, except that, if you think computer languages are maddening in their pure literalism and their inability to produce any information beyond what you program into them, just wait until you have to deal with a telecom company.
"I won't say much about it, except that, if you think computer languages are maddening in their pure literalism and their inability to produce any information beyond what you program into them, just wait until you have to deal with a telecom company."

That just made my day.
I, too, fear hardware and networking. Namely that's because I don't know a bloody thing about them, and need to do research on them if (hopefully more of a question of "when", actually) I move onto C++.
"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem." --Matt C. Burch, of EV Nova fame
I've gotten a lot better with the dark side of computing than I used to be, but I still prefer to think of software as this kind of pure, abstract, theoretical realm unhindered by the crude mechanical clumsiness of wires and chips and soldering irons that you accidentally keep picking up by the wrong end. :(
Luckily I grew up with a network admin as a father, while I did software stuff on the side.

Hardware can be ridiculously frustrating though. So true.
I do a Computer Systems Support course at college I'm only 17 just passed my first year. I find it easy in some areas then harder in the other. But that's all part of learning whereas i am no good with programming languanges i am good at the handson with a computer.