101–110 of 120 posts
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Sorry, but I can't help but remember encountering people who made comments much like yours, only to find on closer examination that they were incredibly, deeply in the wrong. Since you don't go into any actual details about the basis of your comment, it makes it really hard for me to take your remembrances too seriously.
What a boring, round about way to say something.
After a blow-up in my town a few months ago, I tried to encourage a few notable female tech proponents that negativity was not the way to win the fight. I was publicly lambasted, called denigrating names, had false information spread as far as cities 3000 miles away, and even had a meme made about me (containing incorrect info, imagine that). Negativity breeds nothing but negativity. I often fall into the trap myself…
Sadly, appeals to reason are not usually well received by an angry mob. Every time this subject comes up I remind myself of pg's "What You Can't Say" essay and then I keep my mouth shut. http://paulgraham.com/say.html
A little off-topic...but I was just reading "Coders at Work" and of the 15 coders interviewed, only one was female (Fran Allen): http://www.codersatwork.com/fran-allen.html Despite this, the author (Peter Seibel) begins his introduction by mentioning Ada Lovelace in the very first sentence. In the next sentence, he talks about the six women - Kay Antonelli, Jean Bartik, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Meltzer, Frances Spence…
To my understanding, women's involvement in early computers was largely as operators and for data entry. In other words, menial labor. It would be easy to retrospectively recolor this reality, if one wanted, as our understanding of what it means to "program" a computer has changed. Today a programmer writes code, back then a programmer manually entered code written by someone else. Recall the term, "PROM programmer"…
There are only two ways the percentage of women in tech can get higher: 1) more women could enter tech. Safe for getting a sex change, men can't do much about that. 2) less men could enter tech, men already in tech could leave tech.
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To my understanding, women's involvement in early computers was largely as operators and for data entry. In other words, menial labor. It would be easy to retrospectively recolor this reality, if one wanted, as our understanding of what it means to "program" a computer has changed. Today a programmer writes code, back then a programmer manually entered code written by someone else. Recall the term, "PROM programmer"…
The idea that coding algorithms into something executable is "menial" labor is pretty insulting to all of us currently coders, but even given that women invented multiplication routines, using human-readable commands and the IDE. That originally all of what we now consider "programming" was assumed to be menial labor is beside the point; they were doing what we're now paid good money for.
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> I thought being qualified was rather obvious ... People can only reply to what you say, not what you might have meant or believed to be self-evident. Here's what you said: "The goal of getting women into tech should be to equalize the gender ratio of the people who actually are in tech to that of the people who want to be in tech." Seems pretty clear to me. The above would require a law, a compelling factor. Attitu…
> People can only reply to what you say, not what you might have meant or believed to be self-evident. Well, it seems like at least some people understood what I meant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5599351 So maybe you just took it too literally at face value? I wasn't writing a computer program, I was writing English, so let's try to understand what I was saying instead of attempting to interpret it like a c…
That's called being respectful of the views of others, and not presuming to interpret their words in any way one chooses.
> I wasn't writing a computer program, I was writing English, so let's try to understand what I was saying instead of attempting to interpret it like a computer.
I have a better idea -- say exactly what you mean. Don't assume other people will understand things you don't bother to say.
The problem with leaving interpretation of your words to others, is they will interpret your words in ways you didn't intend.
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> People can only reply to what you say, not what you might have meant or believed to be self-evident. Well, it seems like at least some people understood what I meant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5599351 So maybe you just took it too literally at face value? I wasn't writing a computer program, I was writing English, so let's try to understand what I was saying instead of attempting to interpret it like a c…
> So maybe you just took it too literally at face value? That's called being respectful of the views of others, and not presuming to interpret their words in any way one chooses. > I wasn't writing a computer program, I was writing English, so let's try to understand what I was saying instead of attempting to interpret it like a computer. I have a better idea -- say exactly what you mean. Don't assume other people wi…
I never assumed; I simply hoped it would be the case. Feel free to believe whatever you think I really meant, I already made my point so if you end up missing it that's perfectly fine with me.
A little off-topic...but I was just reading "Coders at Work" and of the 15 coders interviewed, only one was female (Fran Allen): http://www.codersatwork.com/fran-allen.html Despite this, the author (Peter Seibel) begins his introduction by mentioning Ada Lovelace in the very first sentence. In the next sentence, he talks about the six women - Kay Antonelli, Jean Bartik, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Meltzer, Frances Spence…
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> How would that be achieved without a law? By changing people's attitudes. > The goal is really to remove obstacles that unfairly exclude some people from the field. I don't think that will happen all by itself. If if could, it would. While legally provable gender discrimination is an issue, I think the bigger issue is changing people's attitudes. I agree that can't happen all by itself, but I do think it can happen…
>> How would that be achieved without a law? > By changing people's attitudes. Here's the reason a law would be required to get every woman into tech who wants to be in tech. There will always be people -- men and women -- who want to be in tech, but who won't get into tech simply because they're unqualified to be there. Therefore, for any particular exclusion, someone would have to decide whether the exclusion arose…
Also, you say:
> The goal is really to remove obstacles that unfairly exclude some people from the field.
Which, to me, implies that you were also assuming qualified people only, since excluding people who aren't qualified is perfectly fair.
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> So maybe you just took it too literally at face value? That's called being respectful of the views of others, and not presuming to interpret their words in any way one chooses. > I wasn't writing a computer program, I was writing English, so let's try to understand what I was saying instead of attempting to interpret it like a computer. I have a better idea -- say exactly what you mean. Don't assume other people wi…
> Don't assume other people will understand things you don't bother to say. I never assumed; I simply hoped it would be the case. Feel free to believe whatever you think I really meant, I already made my point so if you end up missing it that's perfectly fine with me.
Want to communicate? Communicate. Use words that have universally accepted meanings. Stop assuming that others will or must fill in your blanks for you.
So far, you've tried and failed to argue that incoherence is a virtue and your communications breakdowns are the fault of others. Sorry -- no sale.
> I already made my point ...
The only point you've made is that you haven't made your point -- instead, you assign to others the responsibility for decoding the things you didn't say.