| Drug dealers | Software developers |
| Refer to their clients as "users". | Refer to their clients as "users". |
| "The first one's free!" | "Download a free trial version..." |
| Have important South-East Asian connections (to help move the stuff). | Have important South-East Asian connections (to help debug the code). |
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Strange jargon: "Stick" "Rock" "Wrap" "E" "Stash" "Drive by" "Hit (LSD)" "Source" "The Pigs" |
Strange jargon: "SCSI" "RTFM" "Packet" "C" "Cache" "CTRL ALT DEL" "Hit (WWW)" "Source-code" "Microsoft" |
| Realize that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market. | Realize that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market. |
| Your clients really like your stuff when it works. When it doesn't work they want to kill you. | Your clients really like your stuff when it works. When itdoesn't work they want to kill you. |
| Job is assisted by the industry producing newer, more potent product. | Job is assisted by the industry producing newer, more potent products. |
| Often seen in the company of pimps, hustlers and lowlifes | Often seen in the company of marketing people, venture capitalists and fund managers. |
| When things go wrong, a "fix" is just a phone call away but may be expensive | When things go wrong, a "fix" is just a phone call away but may be expensive |
| A lot of successful people getting rich in this industry while still teenagers | A lot of successful people getting rich in this industry while still teenagers |
| Their product causes unhealthy addictions. | DOOM. Quake. SimCity. Duke Nukem 3D. 'Nuff said. |
| Do your job well, and you can sleep with sexy movie stars who depend on you. | this is where the similarities end! |