'Women write more expressive, sensitive code' • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Women write more expressive, sensitive code'

#31

Post by timr » Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 7:52 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #30

timr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I absolutely loathe the kind of coding standards she is trying to enforce. It sounds like micromanagement bullshit, forcing developers to do stuff they resent." Unless you work for her, or know her personally, you have no idea what kind of coding standards she's trying to enforce. You've referenced her management and called it bullshit, because you've assumed that she's doing absurd things that you've experienced on…

Quote from the WSJ article (italics by me): "In an effort to make Ingres’s computer code more user-friendly and gender-neutral, McGrattan helped institute new coding standards at the company. They require programmers to include a detailed set of comments before each block of code explaining what the piece of code does and why; developers also must supply a detailed history of any changes they have made to the code" T…

No, you're jumping to conclusions.

Requiring a "detailed set of comments before each block of code" doesn't imply that the comments have to be there if they're inane.

Re: 'Women write more expressive, sensitive code'

#32

Post by Tichy » Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 8:06 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #31

Tichy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from the WSJ article (italics by me): "In an effort to make Ingres’s computer code more user-friendly and gender-neutral, McGrattan helped institute new coding standards at the company. They require programmers to include a detailed set of comments before each block of code explaining what the piece of code does and why; developers also must supply a detailed history of any changes they have made to the code" T…

No, you're jumping to conclusions. Requiring a "detailed set of comments before each block of code" doesn't imply that the comments have to be there if they're inane.

I have stated my personal preferences. It is fine if you disagree (I honestly don't care), but it is not OK to call me sexist for it.

Re: 'Women write more expressive, sensitive code'

#33

Post by timr » Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 8:57 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #32

timr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're jumping to conclusions. Requiring a "detailed set of comments before each block of code" doesn't imply that the comments have to be there if they're inane.

I have stated my personal preferences. It is fine if you disagree (I honestly don't care), but it is not OK to call me sexist for it.

Who called you sexist? I haven't even used the word in this thread.

I've said that you're jumping to conclusions, and implied that your reaction to this one woman is hostile, but I've never accused you of being sexist. Perhaps you need to take a step back and re-read what I've written.

Re: 'Women write more expressive, sensitive code'

#34

Post by Tichy » Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 9:19 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #33

Tichy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have stated my personal preferences. It is fine if you disagree (I honestly don't care), but it is not OK to call me sexist for it.

Who called you sexist? I haven't even used the word in this thread. I've said that you're jumping to conclusions, and implied that your reaction to this one woman is hostile, but I've never accused you of being sexist. Perhaps you need to take a step back and re-read what I've written.

You have written

"I think the comments here do a better job of reflecting the problems women are up against as coders [...] if they weren't so sad, the anguished geek cries of "sexism" in this thread would be hilarious. It's hard to be oppressed by discrimination when you're in the clear and obvious majority."

If I somehow misinterpreted that, my apologies - english is just my second language.

Re: 'Women write more expressive, sensitive code'

#35

Post by timr » Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 9:47 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #34

timr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who called you sexist? I haven't even used the word in this thread. I've said that you're jumping to conclusions, and implied that your reaction to this one woman is hostile, but I've never accused you of being sexist. Perhaps you need to take a step back and re-read what I've written.

You have written "I think the comments here do a better job of reflecting the problems women are up against as coders [...] if they weren't so sad, the anguished geek cries of "sexism" in this thread would be hilarious. It's hard to be oppressed by discrimination when you're in the clear and obvious majority." If I somehow misinterpreted that, my apologies - english is just my second language.

Ah...I see. I wasn't talking about you (or calling anyone sexist), but the wording was kind of subtle. I was referring to the many other comments that were/are complaining about the "sexism" of the story.

Re: 'Women write more expressive, sensitive code'

#36

Post by olavk » Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 10:16 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #17

olavk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a parody. If you follow the link to the original article, you can see that she is just claiming that women are better at documenting code, which is a reasonable hypothesis. The Inquirer on their own account added the slant about womens code being more "sensitive" and so on, probably to make here look like an idiot. (Also fun to see how "user-friendly and gender-neutral" coding standards in WSJ becomes "woma…

In any case, I absolutely loathe the kind of coding standards she is trying to enforce. It sounds like micromanagement bullshit, forcing developers to do stuff they resent. The extreme endresult are those comments on getters and setters in Java: / * gets the variable */ int getVariable() {...} I could scream and climb up walls when I see that or worse, have to write that. If you don't write the comment, though, some…

It really depends on what kind of code you are writing. If you are writing a component or framework with a public API to be consumed by others, it is very important to document methods throughly. I agree that the code itself should be as clear and understandable as possible, and a superfluous comment is worse than no comment - DRY.

However the more complex and clever the code get, the more you need comments. Note that Knuth, one of the smartest and manliest programmers, invented literate programming.

We have no idea whether the woman in question demand stupid superfluous rote comments, or rather want well-documented API's or literate code ala Knuth.

BTW. I think the Inquirers slant on the article is clearly sexist, but also that she brought it upon herself by framing the issue in terms of men vs woman.