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I'm not saying it's something employers seek out or ever have. I'm more talking about tolerance for it, but I'll defer here since I've been out of the field, like I said.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Some forms are more tolerated than others...someone might wear a Pokemon backpack to work even though they are 40, someone else might declare to all "OMG I'm so eccentric, me!"
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not me, i'm just visibly weird. I dress funny, apparently, and i am quite literally schizo which lends itself to seeming "off" to people. Plus I'm genderweird.
Always have been. It's just who I am.
Real programmers use butterflies
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As someone who grew up when society was still quite straightlaced (1950s), I don't find your description of yourself at all weird. given the conversations and publicity about gender these days I assume that all people under 50 take it in their stride. As to "dressing funny", who has the right to determine how anyone should dress?
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: who has the right to determine how anyone should dress?
Your employer 
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Most software engineers work in small startups, in large corporations, or in academia. As always, eccentricity is tolerated in small companies (especially if one is a founder) or in academia (if one is also brilliant), but is discouraged in large companies. The only difference is the mix - a larger proportion of software engineers work in large companies.
In short, the industry has (partly) grown up. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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in my fractal transformation from psychotherapist/academic to programmer ... beginning about age 42, in 1985 ... from early Berkeley BMUG meetings, to starting my first company, Technical Document Design ... to Cricket Software, to IDD, to Emerald City, to Adobe, to BHP Australia, to WildTangent ...
i have seen every type of person, worked with humble geniuses, and loud divas, and, all i can say is that ... to my old man's one good eye, at present ... they all look like ... people ... in the sense that their essential humanity eclipses the outer styles, and personae.
imho, parenting, schooling, socialization, modulo the flavors/timbre of the times ... attempts to pour our somewhat malleable social self into certain common behavioral/experiential molds, but, then, oh glory !, our intrinsic nature, our visceral primate core, struggle to fit in the mold, or, in the case of people like myself, perhaps like you, to dynamite it, and transit morbio inferiore [1] to another shell !
but, i am not saying that any of this is virtuous 
[1] morbio inferiore an actual valley in Switzerland which, because of the mountains, is always in shadow. in Hermann Hesse's novels, "The Journey to the East," and "The Glass Bead Game," a metaphor for the spiritual darkness that is a part of personal transformation.
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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BillWoodruff wrote: i have seen every type of person, worked with humble geniuses, and loud divas, and, all i can say is that ... to my old man's one good eye, at present ... they all look like ... people ... in the sense that their essential humanity eclipses the outer styles, and personae.
I can't tell if that would preclude or guarantee you a position in HR.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I'm afraid not, because you missed one essential fact about Bill: he can use words of more than two syllables. That automatically makes him ineligible for corporate admin of any kind.
Software Zen: delete this;
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That's fair. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: So for you breadwinners and wageslaves in the field who have been in it for awhile, is this impression anywhere near accurate, or is the industry still a sideshow of geeks and freaks?
Pfft! The geeks and freaks are still out there, and that's where you want to be. At least for me it is.
SJWs and snowflakes need not apply.
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I'm a social justice arsonist. I'm not sure where that leaves me.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: I'm a social justice arsonist. I'm not sure where that leaves me.
it leaves you basking in the warmth of the flames you work so hard to keep feeding flammable material 
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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For the record I think you're one of the eccentric ones as well. Maybe with you it just comes out less in how you present and more in how you communicate and/or think.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: you're one of the eccentric ones as well
Oh you are just now getting that, if you and Bill get together in the same room I want to be a fly on the wall, it should be hilarious.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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i was pretty aware. i think it's why we have the sort of relationship that we do.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: why we have the sort of relationship that we do
I wish I could blush
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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honey the codewitch wrote: and I think it grew up
Up, no. Orthogonal is more apt. More languages, more frameworks, more open source, more management products, more tooling. Basically, the software development field has acquired a PhD - Piled Higher and Deeper. But "up"? Not really.
honey the codewitch wrote: or is the industry still a sideshow of geeks *and* freaks?
Short answer: YES!
Long answer: YES YES YES!!!
Them again, in the new normal of the Covid world, define "normal" vs. "freak". As the Vulcan's say (and apparently Gene Roddenberry disliked): "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination." No labels.
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hah, fair enough.
Real programmers use butterflies
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What an interesting question, and interesting answers as well! I have been in and out and in and half out and back since 1983. Yes, I think there has been a some shift as you describe yes, but I doubt that engineering is the only place on Earth where this has changed since 1980. And methinx, it is partly due to a maturity of the industry...
Oh yes "maturity" what a bleedin' boring word! Yeah it is boring but I do believe that "we" have become more efficient through teamwork and that the value of a team has increased...
...And I do not find the shift lamentable at all. If I would hire I would not mind a some degree of eccentricity, a wide mix of personalities makes life fun! But what is eccentric? Refusing to use source control? Refusing to write comments? Ignoring "silly" questions from less brilliant team members? I dunno. Just one example: Adhering to certain principles, such as meticulously consistent code formatting might seem pointless, even offensive, to some "free spirits". But the code lives many years past "some" leave the ship, and inconsistent formatting and naming, in a large and old codebase does increase the pain even of just reading it, and changing it much more so. I have come to a point where I value such meticulous "boring conformism".
I know this is not exactly what you asked, but you pushed an invisible button of mine, and I did answer on the first line.
☕
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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It's fine, no worries. I'm more thinking about soft skills, and ability to deal with general weirdness. I learned to avoid attempting to act like a normal person for interviews because I found i'd get hired but of course I'd revert to self and then there'd be "soft problems" with my supervisor - "personality stuff" and other intangibles, but if i just put myself forward quirks and all from the time of the interview, I found the right fit. **
But I'm just thinking there's less of those "right fits" out there these days for weirdos like me.  I don't mind from a personal standpoint so much because I'm out and never going back but i wonder about the other lovely weirdos out there.
** So whatever it is those "right fits" seem important. I can "fake normalcy" for some amount of time, but I've found it's not a good idea. I'm just weird. Part of it is that I'm schizo, so get me talking too long on anything and you start to realize that we're not quite dealing in the same reality. =) (not kidding) - and wavelengths generally are just off.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Geeks and freaks all the way, we just learnt to dress incospicuously: when you're at the customer site, everything is going to Hell due to their bad decisions and the customer managers are looking at someone to hang, quarter and crucify... you don't want to stand out.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I learned the opposite, personally. Since I can't blend for any length of time, I learned to just be myself at the interviews in order to make sure I found the right place for me.
As I just wrote to another commenter above (take it as you will)
I learned to avoid attempting to act like a normal person for interviews because I found i'd get hired but of course I'd revert to self and then there'd be "soft problems" with my supervisor - "personality stuff" and other intangibles, but if i just put myself forward quirks and all from the time of the interview, I found the right fit.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Me too, I just stated what I see around me. In facts I do stand out and I had my a** burned more than once for it. I also got a lot of good reputation and an aura of "mad genius" (I take exception at the last one), depending on the customer.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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