This question makes no sense unless it is also asked in conjuction with "what happened to all the male primary school teachers"?
Pedophile mania.
What happened to all the female developers?
251–260 of 291 posts
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
For one, there are observed gender disparities in certain things (you mentioned spacial reasoning) which there is no apparent or plausible political agenda in artificially creating. In fact, the predominant political agenda is largely the idea that there are no differences between men and women. For another, disparities are often observed in infants. What mechanism do you propose communicates subtle social norms to i…
I understand your belief, I just don't share it. But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Without even trying, we already give…
But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons?
Again, I'm not making a contention, just suggesting a possibility.
Furthermore, I admit that some factors are social--for instance, if software development weren't a low-status profession in the US, there would probably be more women developers. I'm just not convinced that it all comes down to social factors.
If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.
It's not a depressing thought unless you have a sociopolitical agenda of having every single profession evenly split between men and women.
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I think paid sabbaticals have positive ROI too. Number crunchers don't think in those terms though.
Good comment. Great point about sabbaticals. It's a pity that when I read your good comments and the one above it, both had been downvoted into the grey. Many newcomers here at HN don't seem to understand that downvoting here is not meant to indicate that one doesn't like an opinion, it's supposed to be for comments that are abusive, obviously trolling, or that contribute nothing. I propose an improvement to the down…
I'm fairly certain new users can't downvote.
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buzz words are a keen sign you are going to be working with a bunch of sales men. The prejudicial reaction to buzz words is one of the things that I've found really weird in the programming fields. Often, a buzz word was a legitimate technical term just a few years, or a couple of decades ago. It's not the word, it's how it's used. Rejecting someone because they use a given buzz word is just prejudice. It just means…
> The prejudicial reaction to buzz words is one of the things that I've found really weird in the programming fields. At one level, like Google aggregating signals, responding to an abundance of buzz words is one of several ways to classify a given posting as promising or not. A few buzz words could be fine, but a company actually saying they "are building every website in AJAX, MVC, REST, and HTML 5" all in the same…
This is wrong.
What you call "Buzzwords" many would call technical jargon.
Jargon is a shorthand way of communicating quickly with others who understand it.
You see "Buzzwords" in are building every website in AJAX, MVC, REST, and HTML 5, where as I think "I wonder if the MVC is a front end Javascript MVC framework operating against the REST backend, or if the model & controller parts are shared by the REST and AJAX front ends, but have different views?"
I know you meant it as an example, but to me it was a perfectly legitimate description of a development stack.
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand your belief, I just don't share it. But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? If so (all pop evolutionary psychology and sociopolitical agendas aside) that's a depressing thought, because that would mean there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Without even trying, we already give…
But coming back to the issue that started this discussion: is it your contention that there are very few female developers because of biological reasons? Again, I'm not making a contention, just suggesting a possibility. Furthermore, I admit that some factors are social--for instance, if software development weren't a low-status profession in the US, there would probably be more women developers. I'm just not convinc…
> It's not a depressing thought unless you have a sociopolitical agenda of having every single profession evenly split between men and women.
I like to think that I don't. I am however uncomfortable with the makeup of this specific field because I believe it is missing out on a huge potential source of creative and intellectual influence. In other sciences, this is not even a problem: there is no shortage of women hacking DNA, for example. So this makes me vaguely optimistic that CS could in theory be enriched by better recruitment.
Decades ago, there were no women surgeons because it was perceived as not being "in their nature". Look at hospital staff today, the situation is changing profoundly. I hope some day we can do the same for software development.
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
hate to do this, but... "this". CS is one of the very few industries i've ever been been around which engages in the "i'm better than you" pissing contest, EVERY SINGLE DAY, and yet asks itself why everyone looks the same. I really do hope that at some point, we lose our sneer and arrogance and stop thinking that we're better than everyone just because we have some kind of exclusive skill that's alien to most.
What are the other few industries which engage in the "i'm better than you" pissing contest, EVERY SINGLE DAY?
Sales
Sports
I'm struggling to think of other things. Maybe a News Anchor and other media jobs?
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#257And she said that one of the things that happens is that women don’t even think they’re qualified for something because it’s advertised in competitive language. The language of competition not only doesn’t appeal to many women, it actually puts them off. This doesn't make sense to me because easily the most competitive path I've ever seen is premed. Almost all of the premeds I know are competing for the best grades,…
This whole endless search for the reason why "women aren't in computing" is just a modern day version of epicycle theory. In ancient times, they couldn't admit that the earth went around the sun, so they came up with the increasingly baroque epicycle theory, where planets were postulated to do loop-de-loops just so that no one would have to concede heliocentrism. Today we face a similar taboo, held for similar quasi-…
Your argument falls apart when you posit "worse at math" as an essentialist trait caused by genetics, without so much as a link to a single study showing this. Saying "Women are just more social on average" does not prove that it is genetic.
You can probably name at least one woman amazing at math, or one woman amazing at programming. The fact that you can name even one counterexample refutes the proposition that all women are predisposed against mathematical thinking genetically.
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Find product companies where top-percentile individual contributors can make a huge difference to the company's bottom line and are renumerated accordingly.
Was hoping for specific examples, but thanks anyway.
You were hoping for a list of companies where psykotic has friends who have shared their confidential salaries with him/her, usually small web businesses with a max of 5 or so programmers, so you can ring up and demand your $200k job?
That's not how the real world works.
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you seen this article? http://geekfeminism.org/2010/08/10/restore-meritocracy-in-cs... One way teachers can even the CS 101 playing field is by doing something totally different than what the kids taught themselves or learned in high school (which is probably object oriented programming, these days).
The tone of that article seems to be "some college students are trying to game our grading system by learning programming in advance. Let's crush them by making them program in an obscure language!" To me that sounds like "some elementary school students are trying to game our grading system by learning reading in advance. Let's crush them by making them read in an obscure language!"
I agree. Very interesting that when you summarized it as "some students are trying to game the system by learning the subject in advance" I thought it was hyperbole. But reading the article, that is actually what they say. "Game the system." Your analogy about reading is perfect. "It is so unfair that Harrison Bergeron came to school knowing how to read!"
Re: What happened to all the female developers?
#260"But that means that I can’t really talk to my friends about the stuff I do for my classes, which is frustrating. Sometimes, there’s a really cool idea presented in class, but it’s only cool if you already know the background information to understand it – to grasp how and why it’s cool. Trying to present enough background to explain why this concept is awesome during the course of a conversation really just doesn’t…
I hear you on this one. I think it's fashionable to not have to know anything. Look at our role models, for example - celebrities. Not so many scientists or mathematicians, mostly glitterati or athletes. It's a bit worrying.