Rise of the Brogrammer

The right title should be: The rise of the brogrammer in media.

The thing is there's a huge difference between the perception that people have of a field and what happens in the field. It reminds me of how CSI (the show) shows police work: super high tech. solving of cases. Sorry to break it, it's not the case, it's long interviews with people and little lab work with overused equipment. In the same spirit slowly since the Social Network this notion of "cool programmer" has emerged in the media. The reality is that we're still very far from it, and it's mostly guys sitting in front of desks typing on keyboards (not so sexy, uh ?).

Anyway, this article is ridiculous, but I don't trust CNN anymore to provide accurate news. Let them read tweets live, that's their line of work now.

While this is (from my experience) incredibly inaccurate of the programming community at large. My fear is that it will encourage a perception of people looking for a career to embrace this stereotype. People who read this article may think "This is awesome, I definitely want to do this!" and a new wave of people who think that "brogramming" is the norm will begin to seep into the industry. Maybe the numbers will not be that much and it will allow a more diverse culture.

I always thought the whole brogrammer thing was kind of a nod to everything that the community is not.

It seems akin to the "D&D enthusiasts are devil worshipers." hysteria back in the day. More than a few people when asked what they did when they played by those that had no idea what it was like would say something like "Oh. You know; we don our blackest robes and light candles at midnight etc. etc." Of course, this would get around and then you'd end up with 'that guy' trying to join your gaming group.

No one seriously considers themselves a brogrammer and if they do, they just mark themselves as someone not to be taken seriously...

Oh well, I guess we have to declare the joke over because now there is a weird feedback loop creating a self fulfilling brogrammer subculture.

It's a new twist on a "same ol' story" and thus can generate traffic. That's why it is getting attention.

Ever since people started yapping about this "brogrammer"-crap I've been paying more attention to my fellow programmer's behaviour. Most of them are male, some of them are female, and one of them is a bit of both. One of them is black. One of them is in a wheelchair. And another one is deaf. The one thing they all have in common, is that they're geeks. I haven't noticed any of this alleged sexism, racism or frat boy nonsense.

Sure, some of us like to drink. Some of us even drink what some might consider "a lot", but then we live in a part of the world where beer is a socially accepted lubricant legal for purchase at age 16.

I don't particularly like the tone of the these articles, associating beer consumption with immature fratty/bratty behaviour. Nor do I like it when people interpret the relative scarcity of programming females to sexism. Or -- in my area -- the scarcity of black programmers to racism.

I would really love to see some hard backed evidence/statistics about this, instead of some contextless anecdotal bullshit.

Until someone can prove otherwise, programmers are no more sexist/racist/bratty than anyone else from a similar social/educational background.

To all you bored reporters, you might want to investigate cooks, bakers & chocolatiers next, I hear they're an over-sexed bunch who engage on orgies on a frequent basis.

Sigh.