Shady little advert there, masquerading as news.
So a female programmer walks into a bar…
31–40 of 147 posts
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#32Have you ever noticed that HN posts concerning gender discrimination tend to attract hundreds of comments?
That's not intrinsically bad. What's questionable is the quality of the comments. It seems that almost all the remarks on this page are drawn from opinion or personal anecdotes. Don't get me wrong... personal stories can be interesting and insightful; it's just that, in most discussion threads, HN tends to balance opinion with links to more objective qualitative and quantitative sources. That's what differentiates HN from sites like Facebook and Reddit.
So, there should be a barrier to participating in discussions about gender on HN. If you have personal or professional experience that qualifies you to discuss the topic, please share it. If you took the time to research the issue and present a substantial, new perspective, please share it. But if you want to chime in with a vague, unsubstantiated opinion that dozens of others have already shared, please consider using another forum. That's what makes these discussions less productive.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#33You know that comic, from back in the 90s? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_y... Well, this is another point for the distributed, asynchronous programming championed by http://asyncmanifesto.org/ I would be happy to hire a woman programmer at our company provided she was awesome at the stuff we need -- Javascript, PHP, etc. In fact if someone here is reading this (man or woman) and thinks th…
>In programming, the internet is the great equalizer. Have your work speak for itself, have your reviews speak for themselves, and this may be a faster vector for advancement than at a job. The problem is that it shouldn't require anonymity to get people to simply treat each other like people.
According to google/youtube anonymity positively encourages inhumane treatment? ;)
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#34“you’re a chick, leave this crap to REAL developers”. I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this. Honestly, it annoys me not so much because it's sexist, or misogynistic, or bigoted or whatever, but rather because it's fucking stupid . I've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years, and I've never seen any reason…
> I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this.
It's very simple really. In most parts of the world, female programmers are still a very rare sight. When I was a university instructor, we had approx. 2-3% female CS students attending our lectures and exams. With such gender distributions, the chances are very high that the handful of programming geniuses most people know, are all male. This leads to the widespread wrong conclusions.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#35>Because we have a motto that says “you’re not your code” that all of us stick to and it works in many ways. This struck a chord with me. I work in the healthcare sector, so I deal with what is, for IT, an unusually high proportion of women. I've dealt with bad female developers, but I've also worked with absolutely great ones. Just like I've dealt with incompetent and solid male developers. Maybe it's just my exposu…
The important thing here is that despite the claims of some, there is no evidence that the proportion of good to bad programmers is any different for males vs. females. Same holds true for race, sexual orientation, etc. Anyone claiming otherwise is merely displaying their own biases.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#36I've been a professional programmer since 1997. I've worked for defense contractors, consulting companies and medical software shops. I've NEVER had a problem with my gender in the workplace. I've always been treated the same as the other developers.
Now, I can't be certain that my resume hasn't been skipped in the pile because I'm a woman. But, it's been my experience that developers on a team just want somebody who can do the work and can appreciate the good work that they do.
With so many articles posted about discrimination and sexism, it's refreshing to see others share their experience as being just one of the gang.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#37What a creative job advertisement.
It's always less exciting to hear that there isn't a problem somewhere than that there is, I guess. Sorry you weren't entertained.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#38Shady little advert there, masquerading as news.
Right, my thoughts too.
Still good to have a positive story as well after all those awful stories of lately.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#39“you’re a chick, leave this crap to REAL developers”. I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this. Honestly, it annoys me not so much because it's sexist, or misogynistic, or bigoted or whatever, but rather because it's fucking stupid . I've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years, and I've never seen any reason…
So at what point have you worked with enough women to be allowed to make inferences? At what point do you stop trusting what you've read on the internet and start going by your own experience?
Because thinking back over all the people I've programmed with or inherited a codebase from[1], the average female programmer was significantly worse than the average male programmer (which is not to say that I haven't also worked with some excellent female programmers, because I have). I wish that wasn't true, and I make every effort to treat every new programmer I meet with an open mind. But it is. Maybe it's just statistical bad luck, but it's reached the point where it's very hard to ignore.
[1] And in the case of one inherited codebase with a foreign name I wasn't aware of the gender until long after I'd formed my judgement, so I think I'm being reasonably objective.
Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…
#40[deleted]