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How to teach your girlfriend programming

blog.jakubarnold.cz

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Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#31

Post by novalis »

jacalata wrote: post #29
novalis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a throw away account ? But anyways, because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft.

On twitter, he says that he thinks gender neutral language is boring. You seem to have the same opinion. I'm sorry that including me as part of a potential audience is boring to you, and yes I find that sexist.

I didn't agree with anything anyone said on Twitter. Sorry, but you are mistaken on that opinion you believe I share. Don't know why you would go about imagining that I am aligned in any way to anything that I did not read. Also, there is nothing wrong with gender neutral language, it just doesn't apply to something that is told in the first person. If you find that to be not inclusive enough for you ande a standard to judge what you read, that is your own inner workings. It will just make you loose out on a lot of great books. Either way, others don't have to externalize the same things or put up with your labeling, that would be very odd.

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#32

Post by jacalata »

novalis wrote: post #31
jacalata wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On twitter, he says that he thinks gender neutral language is boring. You seem to have the same opinion. I'm sorry that including me as part of a potential audience is boring to you, and yes I find that sexist.

I didn't agree with anything anyone said on Twitter. Sorry, but you are mistaken on that opinion you believe I share. Don't know why you would go about imagining that I am aligned in any way to anything that I did not read. Also, there is nothing wrong with gender neutral language, it just doesn't apply to something that is told in the first person. If you find that to be not inclusive enough for you ande a standard…

I didn't say you specifically agreed with what he said on Twitter. I categorised your suggestion that using gender neutral language would be 'daft' together with his idea that it would be 'boring'. If you want to, go ahead and explain why these are such different ideas that I should not have done so.

The article wasn't written in the first person, it was written as instructional and in the second person (I vs you). Writing in the second person is generally an attempt to connect with an audience. Language choices such as using gender neutral pronouns and references can be made to connect more or less with different audiences, and this author rejected them because it wasn't worth it to him. I do not like his decision not to bother including me as his targeted audience. If you don't like that I don't like that, well that is your own inner workings, why does it bother you so much when I want to be included?

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#34

Post by reginaldjcooper »

jacalata wrote: post #29
novalis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a throw away account ? But anyways, because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft.

On twitter, he says that he thinks gender neutral language is boring. You seem to have the same opinion. I'm sorry that including me as part of a potential audience is boring to you, and yes I find that sexist.

You are purposely finding sexism in that. When people on HN use female pronouns as gender-neutral "... CEO ... she ..." I don't immediately assume only women are capable of that position. And when they write "he" I don't assume that women are incapable.

You are part of the potential audience, the girlfriend in the article is meant to represent every non-programmer (male and female) and he is meant to represent every programmer (male and female), and you full well know that. You are being ridiculous by asserting that everyone who doesn't write in the style you prefer is sexist.

I think it was a stupid article, but the only part remotely close to sexism was where he only described male programmer friends.

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#35

Post by reginaldjcooper »

chlostick wrote: post #26
reginaldjcooper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly is that idea expressed? EDIT: Fine, if you read into the preface where he talks about his programmer friends I guess they are all male. That's hardly hopelessly mired, it's more like an unfortunate choice of description. I bet the author would assume women programmers feel the exact same way about their partners as well.

It's heavily implied in the language of the article. Chances are you're right, and if we asked the author of the article, he might say that: yeah, it works both ways, and this is just his experience. The problem is that this is an instructional article, and his language excludes the idea of female programmers completely. It doesn't mean he's a horrible person because of it. It's just that this kind of language is sti…

Outside of that paragraph there is basically no insinuation that women cannot program. The line about rubber-ducking problems with your partner? Not gender-specific unless you've already decided he's sexist.

It's about a specific woman who happens to be a political science student and learns quite a bit about programming in six months. I don't see how that implies women are incapable of it, on the contrary it claims the woman in question was quite capable even though she was not in the field. He explicitly mentions that she's a political science student; that's the only reason he had for thinking she'd be unable to do it.

"Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program" where he uses himself and his girlfriend as the "everyprogrammer" and every(wo)man. If you are going to decide he is sexist and then interpret his use of himself as the programmer to implicitly or explicitly mean only men know how to program, well, that seems to unfairly make assumptions about the intent of the author.

God forbid we claim a political science student might not be able to learn programming if she happens to be a woman.

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#36

Post by reginaldjcooper »

johnplaxton wrote: post #24
novalis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft. I don't see anywhere in there, where it is stated that a girlfriend…

It wouldn't be sexist if he wrote "how I taught my girlfriend to program". Imagine if it said "how to teach your black friend to program". Why only black friends? Why only girlfriends?

There's a difference between girlfriends and black friends. (Hint: are you having a close, sexual relationship with all your black friends?) Therefore it's appropriate to distinguish between your girlfriend versus regular friends. It is not appropriate to distinguish between black friends and your regular friends. If he had written about teaching your female friends to program I would see that as full-on sexist. As it stands you are seeking to be offended and you found something offensive which is unsurprising.

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#37

Post by NovemberWest »

johnplaxton wrote: post #19
novalis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read the article, I think it would be good for you to quote something out of it that is blatantly sexist. So that your comment doesn't equal a mixed insult to the writer based on a general feeling you had at times.

Why is it "teach your girlfriend"? Why does he presume that his audience has a girlfriend who needs to be taught, rather than a boyfriend? You can't say "well he has a girlfriend so he wrote it like that" because he's not talking about him in the title, he's talking about you - he's presuming you have a girlfriend who needs to be taught, and that's sexist. I don't think it's the crime of the century, but I do think l…

Oh, gee, it could also be considered heteronormative. Go ahead and have a cow about that too.

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#38

Post by xerophtye »

NonEUCitizen wrote: post #22
xerophtye wrote: post #3

Hahahah! You're one lucky guy! I have always known teaching someone programming is pretty simple (I managed to teach simple C++ to my 9-yr-old sister and also to my 74-yr-old Granny). But it was easier to teach them because my sister was too young to have the "I'll never understand that" barrier and my granny just loved the attention i was giving her so she put all her effort into learning what i was teaching her. So…

Why not discuss medical stuff with your girlfriend? If you don't know enough about medicine to hold a discussion with her, you can ask her to teach you.

Oh we do have medical discussions =) i find it very fascinating. In fact whenever she is studying for some big test, i usually help her with that by listening to her explaining everything to me.

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#39

Post by xerophtye »

jtheory wrote: post #15
Wintamute wrote: post #12

To those saying this post is partly sexist, I think it says more about the prism through which you choose to view the world than anything about the author. This is just a guy and girl that have found themselves in a relationship where one is interested to learn the skills of the other. He's happy and excited to teach her, which is totally understandable. I see no evidence to suggest he feels like he's paternalistical…

It does say something that he doesn't realize his ideas could also apply to relationships where the tech/non-tech roles are reversed; the possibility just didn't occur to him. Imagine an article about teaching other people how to, I don't know, paint with watercolors, and the author kept assuming his audience was women, teaching their hopefully attractive, fit boyfriends how to do it, even though it might seem like a…

Hey I am a programmer and dating a med student. And the information flow is usually from her to me. I am intensely inept at Medical Science and so I am always eager to learn from from her. I find it fascinating :) and your case with your bf is pretty cool! (And I am sorry but i AM a programmer with a cute technologically-impaired girlfriend :P cant help it)

Re: How to teach your girlfriend programming

#40

Post by xerophtye »

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #35
chlostick wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's heavily implied in the language of the article. Chances are you're right, and if we asked the author of the article, he might say that: yeah, it works both ways, and this is just his experience. The problem is that this is an instructional article, and his language excludes the idea of female programmers completely. It doesn't mean he's a horrible person because of it. It's just that this kind of language is sti…

Outside of that paragraph there is basically no insinuation that women cannot program. The line about rubber-ducking problems with your partner? Not gender-specific unless you've already decided he's sexist. It's about a specific woman who happens to be a political science student and learns quite a bit about programming in six months . I don't see how that implies women are incapable of it, on the contrary it claims…

Exactly! She seems to know stuff I haven't even dabbled in yet!
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