From its beginning, the software industry has idealized the archetype of the Yeoman Coder: a rugged individualist, carving territory out of a new frontier. Let’s trace the lineage of this idea, from the homesteading mythology of the American West, through the Californian Ideology of the 1960s and 70s, and into the modern era. We'll see how the programmer-as-homesteader mythos was built on false premises, and how it has ongoing repercussions for industry culture, the well-being of developers, and the robustness of software systems. Finally, we'll explore an alternative vision of a programmer richly rooted in community.