>The man I paid was in his forties, and he spoke to me in the most patronizing tone, as if I were some silly little girl who did not have the right to question his work, despite the fact that I was paying for it.

I'm not surprised in the slightest because as a young male this has happened to myself numerous times in the past before I got sick of it and decided to learn programming myself.

Generally programmers who you hire for a one-off programming job and don't really have any connection to will berate you if you call their work sub par.

In a way, I almost agree with their attitude. Because what do you honestly know? If you knew the best way to program what you think you wanted, why didn't you code it yourself?

In hindsight, the things I thought the programs I paid for should or could have done better were actually impossible and I appreciate now the bluntness of the programmers I paid to tell it to me straight.