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So a female programmer walks into a bar…

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Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#51
post #11

Where was the substance to the post? The post she linked to was far more interesting: https://netguru.co/blog/posts/brace-no-more-going-from-java-...

That article raised a frown with me. It presents some Java code, then shows the Ruby version, which ends up being much more concise. But the Java code is needlessly verbose. Here's how i'd arrange it:

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object object) {
        if (!(object instanceof Gallery)) return false;
        Gallery other = (Gallery) object;
        return (this.gid != null || other.gid == null) && (this.gid == null || this.gid.equals(other.gid));
    }
Apart from the cast, which you need because Java has static types and Ruby doesn't, it's the same length. It's basically the same code, token for token.

Actually, the logical structure of the final line is a bit obscure to me; i'd write it:

        return this.gid != null ? this.gid.equals(other.gid) : other.gid == null;
Or, in Java 7 or later:

        return Objects.equals(this.gid, other.gid);

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#52

“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…

In that case, the appropriate conclusion is "there exists programming geniuses that are men", not "women genius programmers do not/can not exist". The conclusion that you are proposing (that people jump to) is basically the black swan problem.

But the topic is not about genius programmers, anyway. It's about competent women programmers. If you have never seen women programmers, or the amount that you have seen is not great enough to draw conclusions from, then it is unfair to jump to the conclusion that they do not or can not exist.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#53
post #49
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wor…

White men can't play basketball. Japanese people are good at math. Black men just aren't as intelligent. What you said is just as stupid, also you just did this: https://xkcd.com/385/

In the statistical, average sense, those things are true, aren't they? So why are they stupid? I mean sure, it would be stupid to ignore someone's actual, demonstrated basketball skill just because they're not black. But it's just as stupid to stick our heads in the sand and pretend these patterns don't exist.

Generalizing from a sample of 1 girl would indeed be stupid. But at some point you have to start making inferences.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you find yourself at a company that sucks, for whatever reason, kick their asses to the curb and find a new one. And don't forget to call them out for it, publicly. I know that's easy to say, and in reality it's going to be hard to deal with the inevitable onslaught of abuse you're going to take for it. But companies have to make an effort to ensure that toxic environments are eliminated.

"And don't forget to call them out for it, publicly." Many homeowner's policies allow you to pay a bit extra to add defense against defamation lawsuits to your liability coverage. You should at least put this in place, unless you have $30,000 - $100,000 in disposable savings to defend against a defamation suit. This is what you need to plan for if you intend to make public statements that damage a business' reputatio…

I don't understand what you just said here. Because homeowner's insurance policies allow riders for defense against defamation lawsuits, you shouldn't talk about your experience at a company? Why?

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#55
post #50

Have 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 balan…

Why the need to explicitly police the discussion? Doesn't HN's system of up-and-down votes already accomplish that?

Downvotes are pointless if peopoe don't agree on what they should be downvoting. For example, contrast r/askscience with r/funny

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#56

Have 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 balan…

Anecdotes are immensely important, you just need to be able to take them for what they are, and understand that you can't invalidate someone's personal experiences by saying that you've never seen anything like that. That's the biggest problem I tend to see with anecdotes.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#57
post #6

What a creative job advertisement.

Honestly I was expecting a little more meat in the article, and it turned out not to be primarily an article. On the other hand, I'd love to work with female programmers more. The one I had the pleasure to work with had good insight, took care of legacy code like only a mother can, and documented every wtf line tenfold. There might be tasks men are genetically more suited to, but women could also bring a lot to the t…

I believe this is what's now called "Peggy Olsoning."

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#58
post #43

It's kinda sad that she has to call out Netguru as someplace safe for women. Honestly, I think it's just a bit of moral panic brought on by a few high profile stories. I've been in and out of a lot of organizations and never witnessed female colleagues being given a hard time. A few instances of creepy guy behavior, but I've also seen guys get bothered by creepy gay guy behavior. That's not unique to the programmer w…

But how many female programmers did you witness, compared to how many male programmers? Even if you worked in anomalously female-heavy places, I can almost guarantee you the ratio is anomalously low on a global and historical scale.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#59
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an easy way, especially if you don't have any arguments, to diminish other people. Doesn't matter the gender. If one was a guy, the other one would say "you're a PHP developer, leave this crap to REAL developers". This is not sexist, it's just plain stupid, as you said.

I had ColdFusion developers make fun of me for using PHP a few years back. ColdFusion. Yep.

Ha, and you just made fun of ColdFusion developers in just the same fashion!

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#60

“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 think you are being distracted by the content of the comment. This kind of nonsense has nothing to do with sexism. (Or if it were racist it has nothing to do with racism, or any other types of 'isms.) Some people are simply cruel, angry, sadistic bullies and the internet gives them the anonymity to get away with it. The reason for the comment was only to hurt.

That doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why do you believe that someone who says something sexist (or racist) is not actually sexist (or racist)? I see no reason at all for this assumption. It seems non-sensical to me.

Those people want to be cruel, sure, but they are also sexist (or racist).

Also, being sexist (or racist) is as much defined by actions and words as it is by intent. Actually, intent is pretty irrelevant (at least for the victim). What matters there are the actual actions and words.

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