Geeks? Sure. Nerds? Maybe. Just don't call them 'techies' if you have an ounce of compassion in your soul

Coders, developers, programmers, app designers, geeks: Whatever you call them, it's clear they're building the future before our very eyes -- as they would be the first to tell you. So please get out of their way, because you're holding up the line at the $6-a-cup café. And be very careful what you call them -- you don't want to upset them and throw off their production schedule.

As the San Francisco Chronicle's Nellie Bowles reports, the word "techie" has become an insult, comparable to being called a yuppie in the late 1980s, only with less developed personal grooming habits.

The reporter recently visited several hipster hangouts in San Francisco, approaching people who were drinking triple mocha soy lattes with their heads down at their laptops debugging their PHP scripts and asking if they minded being called "techies." It turns out they do. Why? I'll let Bowles take it from here:

Dan Gailey, a 30-year-old tech entrepreneur who was recently working at Four Barrel [a cafe], said he didn't identify as a "techie" -- and thinks it's actually a pretty rude term.

"If you use the word 'techie,' we know you're not in tech," said the Mission District resident. "A lot of negative terms like that -- yuppie, hipster - are outsider terms. We don't call each other techies -- at all, ever."

The preferred terms, he said, are "hackers," "makers," or "coders."