Here's my definition of the the "white collar vs. blue collar" distinction, which is more or less consistent with original notions about shirt color that presumably gave rise to these terms:
- A blue collar worker has to get cleaned up after finishing work.
- A white collar worker has to get cleaned up before starting work.
Obviously, that puts people like doctors, nurses, dentists (and perhaps lawyers ;) in a class by themselves, since they need to clean up before
and after (and often in the middle of) their work day. (And then there are the "housekeepers" and dishwashers, whose job is nothing more than a constant cleaning up.)
In those terms, there may be some programmers who would fall into the "blue collar" group... (I've seen a few posts here at the Monastery where monks have admitted needing to wash their hands after working on a some horribly gruesome piece of code.)
(Update: I apologize in advance if this reply spawns a discussion of personal hygiene among programmers -- no doubt there a many who never get cleaned up, before or after work. Let's not talk about that, please.)
