New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene • Hacker News Board

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#11

Post by samirahmed » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Why?

Good software involves good design (both for UX / code), good design requires empathy, and without women in the industry you are loosing out on the diversity, design and empathy that women can bring to the table.

That is "why" I think there should be more women in the industry.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#12

Post by jeremyt » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

jacobian wrote: post #10

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Well, I could talk about social justice and basic fairness, but the tone of your question implies that you don't see it that way. So instead, let's look at the question from a coldly calculating point of view. Let's say I have a open source project, and it's got 100 contributors (or community members, users, whatever -- the it's all the same). If my project follows today's averages, that group will be on the order of…

Kudos to you for the honest attempt to reframe, but I think you're just using circular logic.

In effect, you're saying "If we could get twice as many people, then we would have twice as many people".

In reality, there is some reason why women don't want to be programmers. Therefore, it follows that per capita, it's going to be harder to bring women into the fold.

To use your example, if you really wanted to increase your contributors to your open source project, you would be much better served to use your limited capital to attract men who are already predisposed to your project but unaware of it rather than women who are both unaware of it and predisposed against it.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#13

Post by typicalrunt » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:15 PM UTC

jacobian wrote: post #10

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Well, I could talk about social justice and basic fairness, but the tone of your question implies that you don't see it that way. So instead, let's look at the question from a coldly calculating point of view. Let's say I have a open source project, and it's got 100 contributors (or community members, users, whatever -- the it's all the same). If my project follows today's averages, that group will be on the order of…

Now, in practice, I work on diversity because I care about basic fairness.

Get down from the ivory tower please. Where do you get off saying that he doesn't believe in fairness? In fact, the original commenter could be seen as being more fair by simply stating that gender shouldn't matter.

At the same time, you're looking at one statistic. The race or religion of project contributors could be looked at, but they aren't because IT IS NOT IMPORTANT. Just to counter any downvotes, when I say it isn't important, I mean the gender debate, not women in general. For some reason, this topic has been rehashed so many times on HN and each time someone tries to look at the argument from a gender-less perspective, people like you -- jacobian -- jump out from the bushes to make statements, charging dissenters with misogyny.

Projects can maintain fairness without specifically targeting a demographic, they need only be open to everyone and never turn someone down simply because of an attribute they cannot change [gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, height, etc].

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#14

Post by typicalrunt » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:21 PM UTC

samirahmed wrote: post #11

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Why? Good software involves good design (both for UX / code), good design requires empathy, and without women in the industry you are loosing out on the diversity, design and empathy that women can bring to the table. That is "why" I think there should be more women in the industry.

Careful, that's incredibly sexist.

Good design requires good design skills. 'nuff said. One could say that good design requires eyesight, but even blind people have been shown to be exceptionally bright at making beautiful things. Why is this? Because it is about passion and effort to build those skills, not because one happens to lack a Y chromosome.

Men are able to show empathy as well. There are a great number of chefs, layout artists, fashion designers, and hairstylists who have a knack for design and would disagree with you.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#15

Post by juridatenshi » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:22 PM UTC

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Diversity is generally good for the industry. There have been many studies showing that diversity improves teams on a variety of different dimensions. Increasing interest from underrepresented groups can help increase the number of available programmers (there's only so many white men in the world with the skills and interests necessary to be a programmer). Diversity also makes a lot of sense for meeting the needs of the consumer population, which is incredibly diverse.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#16

Post by unobliged » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:32 PM UTC

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Diversity does have concrete benefits that stem from a solid theoretical underpinning (comparative advantage). If everyone in programming has the same utility curve, then certain tasks or areas will always be "expensive". By introducing more diversity (gender being a large source of this), the production possibilities curve expands since more trade can occur and thus enable more specialization. Usability and design are areas where gender diversity could play a big role; there is no doubt in my mind that men and women perceive things differently when it comes to interaction logic and visuals.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#17

Post by bct » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:37 PM UTC

jeremyt wrote: post #12

jacobian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I could talk about social justice and basic fairness, but the tone of your question implies that you don't see it that way. So instead, let's look at the question from a coldly calculating point of view. Let's say I have a open source project, and it's got 100 contributors (or community members, users, whatever -- the it's all the same). If my project follows today's averages, that group will be on the order of…

Kudos to you for the honest attempt to reframe, but I think you're just using circular logic. In effect, you're saying "If we could get twice as many people, then we would have twice as many people". In reality, there is some reason why women don't want to be programmers. Therefore, it follows that per capita, it's going to be harder to bring women into the fold. To use your example, if you really wanted to increase…

> Therefore, it follows that per capita, it's going to be harder to bring women into the fold.

That doesn't follow at all. It could be that the industry has some kind of blind spot that could be easily addressed by e.g. encouraging and welcoming people who are interested but generally left out.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#18

Post by zampano » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:51 PM UTC

I've heard murmurs of a RailsGirls workshop here in Austin and I know a few of my female friends were very interested in attending when I talked to them about it. I think it's great to try to get more women involved in the industry, and while Rails is complicated enough that you can nearly guarantee most people won't walk away with any true understanding of programming, I think workshops like this can help undo some of the negative misconceptions/stereotypes that surround the programming community. Just like the misconception that "math is hard and/or useless" is under assault, I hope the idea that programming is only done by "geniuses" or "ultra-nerds" can be broken and the barriers for entry and for learning are broken down for the benefit of us all.

I am also a little reminded of my first forays into learning Rails with no prior programming experience. I think one of the biggest turning points for me was when I realized the concepts for massive services like twitter were not only understood by crazy math ph.d geniuses untouchable by the common man. It is really empowering to realize you can create real software that can actually do things people need without decades of experience under your belt. I think workshops like this and RailsGirls which have you create an actual (albeit simple) application are great for just that reason.

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#19

Post by bct » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

typicalrunt wrote: post #13

jacobian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I could talk about social justice and basic fairness, but the tone of your question implies that you don't see it that way. So instead, let's look at the question from a coldly calculating point of view. Let's say I have a open source project, and it's got 100 contributors (or community members, users, whatever -- the it's all the same). If my project follows today's averages, that group will be on the order of…

Now, in practice, I work on diversity because I care about basic fairness. Get down from the ivory tower please. Where do you get off saying that he doesn't believe in fairness? In fact, the original commenter could be seen as being more fair by simply stating that gender shouldn't matter. At the same time, you're looking at one statistic. The race or religion of project contributors could be looked at, but they aren…

> they need only be open to everyone

The word "only" makes this sentence completely wrong.

In startup terms it's like saying that to make a successful product you need only make something useful and put up a web page offering it for sale. It would be great if it was that simple!

Re: New Rails workshops to bring more women into the Boston software scene

#20

Post by tomwalker » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

jacobian wrote: post #10

johnleppings wrote: post #7

I don't understand why the gender of a programmer is relevant to anything. You are concerned that there are no enough women. Why? Why do you want more women? Why is the particular sexual organs that someone has of interest to you?

Well, I could talk about social justice and basic fairness, but the tone of your question implies that you don't see it that way. So instead, let's look at the question from a coldly calculating point of view. Let's say I have a open source project, and it's got 100 contributors (or community members, users, whatever -- the it's all the same). If my project follows today's averages, that group will be on the order of…

Should we allow male only events?