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In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

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Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#21
Apart from the gender, plagiaristic issue, I think Jef Atwood really needs to learn about analogies. He was trying to conflate Autism with Sexism in his post.(And did you know that autism skews heavily towards males at a 4:1 ratio?)

In the post about Aaron Swartz, he compared that to rage-quitting, even though he stated that he "understands depression is a serious disease".

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#22
post #18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rude, off-putting and counterproductive to a discussion on any topic. Manners were an invention of the aristocracy. my opinion is that Jeff was replying to Shanley with what he considered to be a better approach to the topic. Except that Jeff can't even bring himself to acknowledge Shanley in his post while stealing her title and structure after making an ass out of himself on Twitter such that he deleted the (MLK-sp…

Manners are a solution to the problem "Disagreements escalate out of control and only come to harmful resolutions." There were expectations of civility long before there was a concept of an aristocracy.

No, it's the reinforcement of social order that predates manners.

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#23
It seems obvious to me that there are good reasons we should want more women in tech. I just don't think we should expect things to be so different once that is the case, we'll still have (most of) the same shitty problems. It's a worthy goal, because we should have all kinds of people in our field, and they should not feel excluded or unwelcome. But I doubt things will be any better, we will continue to have the same sorts of recurrent problems… just with more women.

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#24
How about just "because disregarding/discouraging half of our potential talent means half the geniuses, half the coding buddies and work friends, half the workhorses and half the inspirations. It is a virtual certainty that in those millions of missing engineers is a software revolution we never rode. We are all missing shoulders to stand on, and see less far as a result.".

Even if you disregard the engineering shortage, doubling the pool and taking the to half dramatically shifts the curve of ability and passion of our workmates. We're all missing out.

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#25
post #6

For what it's worth, my opinion is that Jeff was replying to Shanley with what he considered to be a better approach to the topic. I think the lack of attribution was an oversight, and I don't think anything in Jeff's post "plagiarizes" or comes close to it. I also find Shanley's demeanor extremely rude, off-putting and counterproductive to a discussion on any topic.

> I also find Shanley's demeanor extremely rude, off-putting and counterproductive to a discussion on any topic.

Linus Torvalds is even worse according to your definition of bad demeanor. Would you say that this helps or hurts his advocacy?

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#26
post #21

Apart from the gender, plagiaristic issue, I think Jef Atwood really needs to learn about analogies. He was trying to conflate Autism with Sexism in his post.(And did you know that autism skews heavily towards males at a 4:1 ratio?) In the post about Aaron Swartz, he compared that to rage-quitting, even though he stated that he "understands depression is a serious disease".

He wasn't doing that at all. His point was that autism skews male and then suggests that the traits of Aspergers make good programmers. It was a comment on why there are more men than women in tech fields. Relevant excerpt below:

"In an earlier post I noted that many software developers I've known have traits of Aspergers. Aspergers is a spectrum disorder; the more severe the symptoms, the closer it is to autism. And did you know that autism skews heavily towards males at a 4:1 ratio?

Interesting. I might even go so far as to say some of those traits are what makes one good at programming."

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#27
post #6

For what it's worth, my opinion is that Jeff was replying to Shanley with what he considered to be a better approach to the topic. I think the lack of attribution was an oversight, and I don't think anything in Jeff's post "plagiarizes" or comes close to it. I also find Shanley's demeanor extremely rude, off-putting and counterproductive to a discussion on any topic.

I'm not sure Jeff's lack of attribution was an oversight since there's a pattern of behavior there. His earliest blogging didn't even have formatting differences between his comment and "quoted" parts, making it seem all his own. Some people stand on the shoulders of giants, but I often wonder if Jeff kicks giants in the shins and then stands on their backs. However, this isn't much (if any) of plagiarism of Shanley - other than the title.

In any case, while I also have a hard time with Shanley's demeanor, I do try to separate the emotion and personal manner from the good points. It can be hard sometimes, that's for sure

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#28
There are plenty of people who don't want women in tech, but no blog post will be able to change all of them. They have traditional values and that is their right.

Thankfully, their time is passing. All we can do now is get more young women into technology out of high-school/college.

I'd love to see someone, anyone's thoughts on encouraging young women to become interested. I think it's possible, but I think programming needs a makeover of culture before that happens.

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The agenda is to make the tech community a more hospitable place for women who WANT to be in tech. It's not an agenda to force women into the industry just for the sake of numbers.

Depends on who you ask. Some people are advocating just that. https://medium.com/tech-culture-briefs/a1e93d985af0 >Get women hired. Make your workplace give a fuck about hiring diverse teams. You are in a wonderful position to advocate and agitate for more diversity in your workplace. Draw attention to your company’s demographics internally, bring in speakers on building team diversity, start a committee dedicated to…

No one is saying hire a woman who is less qualified just for the sake of diversity. In that comment, Shanley is asking you to CARE about diversity and look at your hiring processes and company culture to see if what you're doing can be improved. Maybe your company is all white males because you're recruiting at events where only white males go? Maybe you can host a Women Who Code event or go to women's conferences and attract top talent there.

Re: In which I answer all of the questions (2012)

#30

How about just "because disregarding/discouraging half of our potential talent means half the geniuses, half the coding buddies and work friends, half the workhorses and half the inspirations. It is a virtual certainty that in those millions of missing engineers is a software revolution we never rode. We are all missing shoulders to stand on, and see less far as a result.". Even if you disregard the engineering short…

It's way more than 50%, though. What about the whole culture surrounding things like programming? Is it your average Joe (man) that is a programmer? No, it seems to be predominantly nerds. So what about people who, due to circumstances and upbringing, were never introduced to programming? Maybe they would have liked it better, or found it more approachable, if they didn't have to be and act like nerds to fit in? Maybe they had other hobbies that the typical nerd who might be a programmer doesn't, so these two people never really get to meet and have a oh, I might be interested in that applied logic thing moment.

This goes of course for any profession that has a specific culture attached to it.

Is the industry missing out on 50% of the talent pool? In this day and age, where basically everyone has the opportunity to at least try something like programming, but wherein it is incredibly easy to isolate yourself from lots of types of people and viewpoints and live in your own bubble, and based on how free we really are as individuals, even though we legally have most freedoms... that figure could be anywhere from 30% to 95%, depending on your viewpoint.

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