Well I wanted to be a friend. They were cool to me, I was cool to them. It was all in good jest, with a bit of truth. ;-)

I guess but the phrasing that he used was unbelievably condescending and you just accepted it.

It's a hard thing to describe, but among people doing that kind of job, an insult like that can be a signal that you're "on the inside" of the group. It's pretty contextual and you have to listen to their tone of voice.

If you've seen Good Will Hunting, imagine Affleck and Damon's characters meeting again years down the road. Affleck might call Damon a "computer pussy" but both of them know Affleck is proud of Damon and would trade places with him if he had the skills.

Not to say "computer pussy" isn't potentially extremely condescending; just that such usage of profanity among laborers is often colloquially used to express sincere kinship and camaraderie.

Exactly - and I think it's the same among programmers, and more generally in male friend groups. It's a translation btw, but I think it's a fitting one.