According to the jargon file, a program is "a magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages". Ergo, programmers are people who break computers.

The succinctness of the answer to your question can vary as much as you like, because programming is something hard to really nail down. To most quasi-IT-literate people, HTML is something you can 'program' in, but I wouldn't call someone who exclusively wrote HTML a programmer; not even if I were in a pink fit and tripping on LSD. So, it depends on who you ask. TMTOWTDI - there's more than one way to define it :)

If, however, I were to have a stab at defining "the programmer", I would say he or she is someone who "solves problems using algorithms". Sound good?

Just my 2 Australian Pesos.

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Uzg-Microsoft-ishi amal fauthut burguuli.