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So a female programmer walks into a bar…

netguru.co

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Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#81

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mindcrime wrote: post #19

“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've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years [...]

>It really boggles the imagination... where do these guys come up with this shit? //

Have you ever witnessed this sort of behaviour. Perhaps it's so rare that instead you can level your surprise towards anyone trying to say such misogyny is commonplace.

Would you accept, however, that the very best workers in any particular field are likely to be primarily of one sex or the other?

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#82

Post by steveklabnik »

wambotron wrote: post #66
muglug wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I still don't see downvotes. I don't really post or comment very often, but I've been reading this site almost daily for years. Maybe they could work that in to an algorithm that gives you the downvote option.. My point is that there are many, many people who are just readers (of posts and comments) who don't feel the need to comment on everything but are perfectly capable of helping police the content. Right now, I…

> Maybe they could work that in to an algorithm that gives you the downvote option..

There is, actually. You need 500 karma, and you don't have that yet.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#83

Post by bronson »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #81
mindcrime wrote: post #19

“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've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've worked with oodles of female programmers over the years [...] >It really boggles the imagination... where do these guys come up with this shit? // Have you ever witnessed this sort of behaviour. Perhaps it's so rare that instead you can level your surprise towards anyone trying to say such misogyny is commonplace. Would you accept, however, th…

If yes then you'd better really try to understand this cartoon: http://xkcd.com/1138/

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#84

Post by vectorpush »

lmm wrote: post #72
vectorpush wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because thinking back over all the people I've programmed with or inherited a codebase from So basically, when considering a minuscule, poorly defined and poorly measured data-set, you've decided to draw broad conclusions about half the human population. I'm not sure how great a programmer you are, but I'll tell you right now that your logic skills need some work.

Broad conclusions? No, more like weak inferences. Not everything can be a formally-verified proof; a vital skill in programming (for debugging if nothing else) is the ability to make a best guess based on limited data (and to know how much weight to give such guesses). (If there were reliable science on the subject I would of course prefer to go by that, but that's practically impossible for a question that's so poli…

No, more like weak inferences

Indeed, quite weak; weak to the point of being useless. In ten years of programming, I've only worked with two developers who were comfortable with the use of regular expressions, both were women... what does that tell me about women?

Nothing.

Similarly, whatever experiences you've had with female programmers who are "worse than the average male" programmer is pretty clearly worthless (for the purpose of drawing conclusions about female programmers), especially when one considers that your definition of average is, at best, a nebulous amalgamation of your own subjective impressions.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#85

Post by imgabe »

lmm wrote: post #80
imgabe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a room has 9 people with a net worth of $0 and Bill Gates in it, then in the statistical, average sense the net worth of everyone in the room is $7.6 billion dollars. But the average doesn't really tell you anything about one particular person.

It tells you something . It might still make the room a good place to pitch your savings product for wealthy investors. Of course more detail is better, but you have to work with what you know (and look to learn more when you can).

It tells you something about the group as a whole (not any individual member of the group) IF you are able to gather enough data to have a representative sample of the population. If you were only able to get the net worth of 20% of the people in the above room, the vast majority of the time you'd conclude that the average net worth of the room is $0.

There are some 3.5 billion women on the planet. Do you think you've reviewed the programming work of enough of them to constitute a representative sample?

> You have to work with what you know

Yes, what I'm pointing out is that you don't have enough information to claim to know anything.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#86

Post by rsynnott »

mindcrime wrote: post #19

“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…

> Honestly, it annoys me not so much because it's sexist, or misogynistic, or bigoted or whatever, but rather because it's fucking stupid.

Well, obviously. Sexism is an irrational bigotry; you'd expect them to come across stupid when it comes to this sort of thing.

> I've never seen any reason to believe that female programmers are in any way less competent than their male counterparts.

Ah, but you see, sexists just KNOW. It stands to reason. Anyone saying otherwise is clearly just being POLITICALLY CORRECT. And so forth.

These people don't think women are no good at computers based on evidence, they think it because they hold irrational preconceived ideas about women.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#87

Post by steveklabnik »

tootie wrote: 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…

> I've been in and out of a lot of organizations and never witnessed female colleagues being given a hard time.

Liberally stolen from Anil Dash, consider this sentence and how it compares to yours:

> I'm an iPhone user, and I've been in and out of a lot of organizations where I also work with Android users, and they're always complaining about bugs. I can't ever reproduce their bugs on iOS.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#88

Post by arrrg »

enraged_camel wrote: post #78
arrrg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you know that? That seems like wishful thinking to me.

I think what he is trying to say is that their cruelty manifests as sexism. As in, they perceive the target's sex as the lowest-hanging fruit that they can attack, and they know it is likely to hurt the target, so they go for it. It's like making fun of someone because they are short. That doesn't make someone a "shortist." It just shows that they are cruel human beings. I see sexism as more of a fundamental belief.…

Again, how do you know that? That seems to be wishful thinking. Also, the end result is the same, either way. The intent doesn’t really matter all that much, if only because the mindset of someone going to sexism or racism to be cruel is seriously fucked up.

I’m certainly not racist or sexist when I want to be cruel to other people, even if I’m extremely angry and willing to say a lot to hurt the other person. Going there wouldn’t even cross my mind. (I tend to go for age, I think. That exposes my own ageism, something I still have to deal with. I don’t think that’s ok, either, and I also think being ageist is not ok.)

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#89

Post by potatolicious »

arrrg wrote: post #60
protonfish wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 irrelev…

They're real-life trolls. They may not actually believe the things they say, but they say them because they know it will upset you.

In some ways these people scare me more than actual sexists/racists/whateverists, because they're not ignorant, they just take joy in suffering, and actively manipulate people in such a way that maximizes chaos and pain. That mindset concerns me much more than someone who actually believes women/blacks/minority_group are inferior.

Re: So a female programmer walks into a bar…

#90

Post by cheez »

hawkharris wrote: post #32

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…

Everyone has a gender-related story to tell. I don't know how I'd feel about these women-related posts were I a woman but frankly, there are way too many "men should do X" posts. I got enough shit to do. For what it's worth, I hire and work with women who I find competent and I always keep some in mind for future projects, but if anyone told me I "had" to do so, I'd very impolitely ask them to leave.

However, you cannot qualify anyone for participation in a discussion, nor should you try and move the discussion elsewhere. The fact that this discussion happens on HN is relevant: there is a cross-section of tech people here. The extremists, the moderates, the neutrals. That is what makes this format work.

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