The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):

Real Programmer
 n.

    [indirectly, from the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche] A particular
    sub-variety of hacker: one possessed of a flippant attitude toward
    complexity that is arrogant even when justified by experience. The
    archetypal Real Programmer likes to program on the bare metal and is very
    good at same, remembers the binary opcodes for every machine he has ever
    programmed, thinks that HLLs are sissy, and uses a debugger to edit his
    code because full-screen editors are for wimps. Real Programmers aren't
    satisfied with code that hasn't been tuned into a state of tenseness just
    short of rupture. Real Programmers never use comments or write
    documentation: ?If it was hard to write?, says the Real Programmer, ?it
    should be hard to understand.? Real Programmers can make machines do things
    that were never in their spec sheets; in fact, they are seldom really happy
    unless doing so. A Real Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish
    brilliance, even as its crockishness appalls. Real Programmers live on junk
    food and coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap
    out of other programmers ? because someday, somebody else might have to try
    to understand their code in order to change it. Their successors generally
    consider it a Good Thing that there aren't many Real Programmers around
    any more. For a famous (and somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real
    Programmer, see The Story of Mel' in Appendix A. The term itself was
    popularized by a letter to the editor in the July 1983 Datamation titled
    Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal by Ed Post, still circulating on Usenet
    and Internet in on-line form.

    Typing Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal into a web search engine should
    turn up a copy.


The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

Real Programmer

    (From the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche") A
   variety of hacker possessed of a flippant attitude toward
   complexity that is arrogant even when justified by experience.
   The archetypal "Real Programmer" likes to program on the bare
   metal and is very good at it, remembers the binary op codes
   for every machine he has ever programmed, thinks that
   high-level languages are sissy, and uses a debugger to
   edit his code because full-screen editors are for wimps.  Real
   Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been
   bummed into a state of tenseness just short of rupture.

   Real Programmers never use comments or write
   documentation: "If it was hard to write", says the Real
   Programmer, "it should be hard to understand."  Real
   Programmers can make machines do things that were never in
   their spec sheets; in fact, they are seldom really happy
   unless doing so.  A Real Programmer's code can awe with its
   fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appals.

   Real Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang
   line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap out of
   other programmers - because someday, somebody else might have
   to try to understand their code in order to change it.  Their
   successors generally consider it a Good Thing that there
   aren't many Real Programmers around any more.

   For a famous (and somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real
   Programmer, see "The Story of Mel".  The term itself was
   popularised by a 1983 Datamation article "Real Programmers
   Don't Use Pascal" by Ed Post, still circulating on Usenet
   and Internet in on-line form.

   [Jargon File]

   (1997-08-29)