Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 1001 posts

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#441

Post by logicchains »

buro9 wrote: post #433
logicchains wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

I once quit a senior dev role as the tech architect at the company had veto power on all code and blocked my work because I'd spelled the word dialog the US way, rather than the UK way (dialogue). This was not in a public interface, this was in variable names. Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program. We were deadlocked for weeks, with him refusing to ship working code that fulfi…

What did senior management think of this? I can't imagine them taking kindly to the architect delaying shipping for weeks over such a trivial thing.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#442

Post by Pacabel »

buro9 wrote: post #433
logicchains wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

I once quit a senior dev role as the tech architect at the company had veto power on all code and blocked my work because I'd spelled the word dialog the US way, rather than the UK way (dialogue). This was not in a public interface, this was in variable names. Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program. We were deadlocked for weeks, with him refusing to ship working code that fulfi…

Why was it so critical to spell it "dialog", rather than "dialogue", as the higher-ups in the project apparently preferred?

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#443

Post by buro9 »

Pacabel wrote: post #442
buro9 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once quit a senior dev role as the tech architect at the company had veto power on all code and blocked my work because I'd spelled the word dialog the US way, rather than the UK way (dialogue). This was not in a public interface, this was in variable names. Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program. We were deadlocked for weeks, with him refusing to ship working code that fulfi…

Why was it so critical to spell it "dialog", rather than "dialogue", as the higher-ups in the project apparently preferred?

It wasn't, there was no business justification for it at all. He just invented a rule "all names and variables must be in UK English".

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#444

Post by buro9 »

logicchains wrote: post #441
buro9 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once quit a senior dev role as the tech architect at the company had veto power on all code and blocked my work because I'd spelled the word dialog the US way, rather than the UK way (dialogue). This was not in a public interface, this was in variable names. Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program. We were deadlocked for weeks, with him refusing to ship working code that fulfi…

What did senior management think of this? I can't imagine them taking kindly to the architect delaying shipping for weeks over such a trivial thing.

At the time he was viewed as critical to the project. They indulged him. A very steady stream of very good devs leaving the company occurred because of such invented rules and irrational behaviour. He was a truly great dev, but a fairly insane architect and gatekeeper.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#445

Post by logicchains »

jessaustin wrote: post #440
logicchains wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

If Evil Coder sends an email to Noble Coder describing the vendetta-motivated reversions, then sure, something might happen. When would it ever be so obvious, however? If this is done quietly, and Noble happens to work in different parts of the codebase every cycle, she might not even realize the reversions have occurred for a few cycles. Even then, many people would assume there was some fair-minded rationale the fi…

Hmm. I suppose that's a disadvantage of having a less formal code-review process, compared to one in which the reverter would have to specify a reason for each reversion, making it easier to detect spurious reversions.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#447

Post by mynameisasdf »

I can't believe that no one has spotted that she is exactly the same annoying feminist that forced the company to get rid of a rug because it used the term "meritocracy". http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm... Tbfh, she sounds like Adria Richards v2.0

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#448

Post by gphilip »

buro9 wrote: post #443
Pacabel wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was it so critical to spell it "dialog", rather than "dialogue", as the higher-ups in the project apparently preferred?

It wasn't, there was no business justification for it at all. He just invented a rule "all names and variables must be in UK English".

GP asked the converse.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#449

Post by awinder »

theorique wrote: post #98

The bad actor in this version of the story seems to be the founder's wife. And the founder certainly dropped the ball by not keeping his wife in line. For whatever reason, the wife acted crazy, intimidating, and creepy toward Horvath. Why? Who knows? Maybe because of jealousy or concern that her husband was interested in this (admittedly reasonably attractive) female employee? The founder needed to do the professiona…

From the account, he wasn't just not "taking charge in both his workplace and his home", but he was conspiring with his wife to actually undertake these actions, at least at the beginning. It doesn't even need to have these undertones of "the man needed to keep his woman in line". Github is a business, the office is a place of work. If you're not an employee, or a prospective employee, you don't belong past the lobby.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#450

Post by bluedino »

buro9 wrote: post #443
Pacabel wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was it so critical to spell it "dialog", rather than "dialogue", as the higher-ups in the project apparently preferred?

It wasn't, there was no business justification for it at all. He just invented a rule "all names and variables must be in UK English".

Was it that way before you worked on the code? If so" that's perfectly reasonable.
Post reply on HN