The Best Pets for Developers

According to the ASPCA there’s close to 150,000,000 cats and dogs in the USA. Add that to all the other kinds of feathered and furry friends and the number might be closer to a petabyte (it doesn’t bite!). If you think about it too hard, it’s a little odd that we invite members of other species to live in our homes and lick our faces. Nonetheless, weighing up the cost-benefit analysis, people seem to think cleaning up after them is worth the love, companionship and perks that pets offer.

Whatever the reason you’ve decided to share your personal space with some kind of 4,6 or (dare we say it) 8 legged animals, it’s important to consider how it will fit around your lifestyle. Some creatures will fit more naturally around some people's timetables and living conditions than others; it’s hardly fair to keep a Great Dane in a tiny downtown apartment, especially if you live alone and are never in.

Some people might argue developers are a species of their own, but they need animal companionship too. There are plenty of different types of developers, and certain pets will integrate with their timetables better than others. Today we’ll be helping you decide which vertebrates you should domesticate.

1. The Ancient Sage

We all know at least one ancient sage. He’s has been tinkering with PCs since 1979 and has seen it all come and go. Your sage is methodical, dependable and you can always turn to him when things seem to be going down the pan - “I saw something just like this in 1995…”. He might not be the most driven or sparky member of the team but you know he’ll always be there.

Who are we kidding? The ancient sage already has his ideal pet: George, the elderly labrador that witnessed the birth of his first child, was there through thick and thin and is miraculously still alive even though all the kids have moved out.

2. The Ninja

The ninja is one of the most enigmatic breeds of developer. She seems to have an all seeing eye, discovers bugs others never noticed and solves issues which would have taken you weeks to resolve. The ninja is humble, quiet, works well in teams and alone, yet despite coding hard seems to maintain a full yet mysterious life outside the office.

Padding by unnoticed, independent yet supportive when needed, the ninja’s natural companion is a cat. Preferably jet black (no bad luck please), alluring and sleek. Naturally, she only feeds her cat the most expensive pet food.

3. The Code-aholic

Code-aholics are a sub-brand of workaholics characterized by their unique diet of pizza and black coffee. And they code, obviously. You’ll find them hacking away late at the office, black rings around their eyes. Yet despite all their frantic hard work and energy, it’s never quite clear what they’ve actually been doing all that time. They’ll let you know they’ve been busy though.

Code-aholics need a pet they can basically neglect for long periods of time as they stay late at the office before collapsing in bed at 4AM on Saturday morning. The simple choice? A python. Not only is it named after one of his favorite programming languages, a python can go weeks without being fed, forming a perfectly symbiotic relationship with the lifestyle of the code-aholic.

4. The Interfacer

The interfacer is in theory just a project manager. She’s got a basic understanding of program languages, but her real strength is in communicating ideas, building a vision and getting everyone onboard to build a kick-ass app. If you’ve ever worked with a bad project manager you’ll know how painful this can be, but a great Interfacer can turn an average idea and a ramshackle group of developers and business people into the greatest. team. ever.

The problem with any interfacer is that their control, organizational skills and desire to turn a plan into action equals slightly crazy animal issues. Our interfacer spends her weekends at the stables repetitively teaching her poor equestrian pet to do slightly mad things like this.

5. The DIY-er

Once upon the time, the DIY-er’s ability to hack a program together from forums, stolen examples and the odd shortcut here and there was amazing. The growth of the Internet has exposed DIY-ers as the charlatans and cowboys the really are. Frustratingly for all the do-gooders, rule followers and theoreticians, DIY-er’s get away with it - building functional software (even if it is impossible to understand).

When it comes to animals, the DIY-er will go for something simple, something easy, something he doesn’t have to stress about too much. No surprise then that he’s got a lone goldfish circling ‘round and ‘round a bowl. Of course, his fishy friend won’t receive much maintenance or care and it’s underwater home probably resembles more of a swamp thanks to the filter that broke 3 weeks ago. Of course, he won’t go about fixing it - he’ll just stick in a new one he found elsewhere.

What Pet Suits You?

Let us know below if we’ve forgotten any other developer types - and the pets which would suit them best. There are a lot of weird and wonderful pets out there, what suits you?