Why aren't there more women in programming? Siren of Shame makes it obvious.
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I do mention this from time to time, but I AM a woman! :laugh: Seriously! So unless I stab myself, I'm quite safe, thank you!
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
Put DOWN those scissors... Stand away from the stapler. I didn't know/had forgotten (how can one tell which?) you didn't have a willy. Still- I doubt some Greenwich Common Women's Rights lefty would check before letting you have it with the closest weapon! (not that there's anything wrong with Greenwich Common Women's Rights lefties)
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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Fact #1: Programming = total control (over an "inanimate" something) [Biological] Fact #2: The male of most species, human included, thrive on total control (over any & everything they can). Some may equate the above as: Biological Total Control = shame anyone else in order to stay in control This, I'm confident, is true in more than just a few instances/environments/persons, but certainly not every such of the same. Many qualify that women are wired, for the most part, to be submissive; this is derived from the 3 top faiths in the world, which hold to this in some capacity/form/measure. How "deep" that measure goes is subjective solely by the person, usually the male, measuring it. In flowing with the "wired" perspective, it is often held, and reasonably at that, that women are also wired for "caring" for others [children, husband, others; animate that they are]. Computers don't need care, don't care to be cared for, and don't have the capacity to even care to be cared for! Why would someone who doesn't a) desire to be controlling over an inanimate; b) would rather be caring for something animate (i.e., a child or their spouse); c) is not wanting to be shamed (and, candidly, is not designed/wired for dealing with such); d) nor care for something that doesn't need caring for in the first place want to be involved with that "something" (inanimate that it is) when they well-know men, who is is designed/wired for dealing with such, seek just the opposite of such? By their (women) very nature, they don't! Thus, they (women), by their very nature, choose what is natural ~ that of caring for others. This is not to say that women can not program, for they do. I've worked with some brilliant programmer gals and guys. While not *the* answer, I present it with exceeding confidence it is a reasonable and valid answer.
Nice job, erasing, in a testosterolalic tsunami of non-sequiturs, and invidious comparisons, using pseudo-factoids, the historical achievements of women in the evolution of "computation," from Ada, Countess Lovelace, through Grace Hopper, and on ... and on. I suspect you have an experience-deficit with mistresses who wear leather, rather than cotton aprons, or you are living in a 1950's American sit-com playing on a black-and-white 9x6 inch screen, the latest PlayBoy editorial by Hugh Hefner within reach. I will offer prayers to the Great Mother on your behalf. She is merciful ! yours, Bill
“Humans are amphibians: half spirit, half animal; as spirits they belong to the eternal world; as animals they inhabit time. While their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imagination are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy is undulation: repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.” C.S. Lewis
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After following the recent link in CP's daily news to the SoS[^] website I couldn't help but think, here is a perfect example of why there aren't more women in programming. I really can't speak for women, because I'm a sexist pig (and let me apologize right now to any pigs that are reading this), but I imagine the large majority of women would be completely repulsed by working in such an environment. Actually, it's hard for me to imagine anyone over the age of 25 not getting sick of it pretty quickly. I think feedback, competition, and fun are all useful tools in increasing productivity and job satisfaction but this application seems to be written with teenage boys as the audience. Everything is a competition and your ego is the stake. The whole thing seems to be geared towards saying I'm smart, I'm better than you, you're a stupid idiot. If you want to stroke your ego in such a way then go get the latest version of Halo or Call of Duty and don't waste your time diluting the experience with the pretense of work. However, if you want to build something great. Something better than what is possible alone, you have to foster collaboration. I think an application like this would actually be detrimental to the long term productivity of any software house in at least two ways besides inhibiting female participation. First, it discourages collaboration because like in a first-person-shooter where my goal is to frag my opponents I succeed when others fail. I didn't scrutinize the application but I didn't see the section where you get hero points for helping someone else. You get your jollies by boosting your own stats and laughing at the ineptness of others. Except in the most dysfunctional and juvenile environments I doubt this would lead to a total breakdown of collaboration but it would act as a gentle headwind that slowly puts your team further and further behind its potential. The second problem is that it will probably lead to the gaming of the gaming system. People might start doing things like making micro commits because that gives them a better score. The impacts would probably be subtle, almost imperceptible at first. But over time the differences would accumulate until you found the entire heart of your code had eroded away. Of course, if you were impatient you could probably
Not doing a statistic here, but here's what I collected. 1. A vast majority of them cannot differentiate left/right. Now go write an if-then-else. 2. They cannot follow a point to the very last detail. Translation: countless re-reverse programming to achieve things never considered. 3. They cannot control complexity (and programming is controlling complexity, no?). At all. Let's make it look good on UI, and we're dealing with SwitchDesktop later. 4. And my personal one: women are masters of raising exceptions (from the blatant interruption on phone, Skype, verbal etc. just in the point when finally you got your stack trace), but they cannot handle them. If a woman is interrupting you, is normal; if you interrupt one, it's hell unleashed. Seriously. Interview one with 5 guys playing Starcraft on background and yelling "send the goddam zealots !! I'm eliminated !!!". This is a part of the test to measure stress resistance (no, I'm not kidding - and I completed the test while laughing how bad they were playing in the same time :D). 5. And finally, my favorite. Lack of resilience. Watch one loading MS PDBs, doing .reload, !analyze -v, !kb etc. until the bug is found. I didn't see a single case as of today (and I got 16 years in the field). I did see, however, deer eyes looking at a OK/Cancel message box (__purecall included) from 4:40 to 18:00. Time to go home. (Next day at 9:40 the crash was still there). Make me a sexist pig or not - there is nothing invented here. Just observations during time.
Nuclear launch detected
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Not doing a statistic here, but here's what I collected. 1. A vast majority of them cannot differentiate left/right. Now go write an if-then-else. 2. They cannot follow a point to the very last detail. Translation: countless re-reverse programming to achieve things never considered. 3. They cannot control complexity (and programming is controlling complexity, no?). At all. Let's make it look good on UI, and we're dealing with SwitchDesktop later. 4. And my personal one: women are masters of raising exceptions (from the blatant interruption on phone, Skype, verbal etc. just in the point when finally you got your stack trace), but they cannot handle them. If a woman is interrupting you, is normal; if you interrupt one, it's hell unleashed. Seriously. Interview one with 5 guys playing Starcraft on background and yelling "send the goddam zealots !! I'm eliminated !!!". This is a part of the test to measure stress resistance (no, I'm not kidding - and I completed the test while laughing how bad they were playing in the same time :D). 5. And finally, my favorite. Lack of resilience. Watch one loading MS PDBs, doing .reload, !analyze -v, !kb etc. until the bug is found. I didn't see a single case as of today (and I got 16 years in the field). I did see, however, deer eyes looking at a OK/Cancel message box (__purecall included) from 4:40 to 18:00. Time to go home. (Next day at 9:40 the crash was still there). Make me a sexist pig or not - there is nothing invented here. Just observations during time.
Nuclear launch detected
Please supply your address so that my black belt wife (who is one of the best coders I know) can come round and smack your sexist hide around.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier -
Without trying to be too serious... (And sorry, this has nothing to do with SoS) There aren't as many women in programming because women empathize. They think being nice to the computer would get things to happen. "Aww, you're not having a good day, are you. Well, why don't you have a nice cuppa and come back and see if you can compile my code for me." They're also not very good at being descriptive and precise. "Go around this loop for a bit till you get bored and see if that works. Stop if the counter is a bit bigger than it is now, but not too big." And of course, women are chatty so once they start writing comments they don't stop till they end up writing a whole Bridget Jones's Diary, or Mary Smith's Cook Book or whatever. ;P ;P ;P
Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike... me...
I hate to have to say this, but there's many a true word spoken in jest.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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After following the recent link in CP's daily news to the SoS[^] website I couldn't help but think, here is a perfect example of why there aren't more women in programming. I really can't speak for women, because I'm a sexist pig (and let me apologize right now to any pigs that are reading this), but I imagine the large majority of women would be completely repulsed by working in such an environment. Actually, it's hard for me to imagine anyone over the age of 25 not getting sick of it pretty quickly. I think feedback, competition, and fun are all useful tools in increasing productivity and job satisfaction but this application seems to be written with teenage boys as the audience. Everything is a competition and your ego is the stake. The whole thing seems to be geared towards saying I'm smart, I'm better than you, you're a stupid idiot. If you want to stroke your ego in such a way then go get the latest version of Halo or Call of Duty and don't waste your time diluting the experience with the pretense of work. However, if you want to build something great. Something better than what is possible alone, you have to foster collaboration. I think an application like this would actually be detrimental to the long term productivity of any software house in at least two ways besides inhibiting female participation. First, it discourages collaboration because like in a first-person-shooter where my goal is to frag my opponents I succeed when others fail. I didn't scrutinize the application but I didn't see the section where you get hero points for helping someone else. You get your jollies by boosting your own stats and laughing at the ineptness of others. Except in the most dysfunctional and juvenile environments I doubt this would lead to a total breakdown of collaboration but it would act as a gentle headwind that slowly puts your team further and further behind its potential. The second problem is that it will probably lead to the gaming of the gaming system. People might start doing things like making micro commits because that gives them a better score. The impacts would probably be subtle, almost imperceptible at first. But over time the differences would accumulate until you found the entire heart of your code had eroded away. Of course, if you were impatient you could probably
Nathan Nowak wrote:
Everything is a competition and your ego is the stake. The whole thing seems to be geared towards saying I'm smart, I'm better than you, you're a stupid idiot.
:confused: I'm confused. Are you talking about managers or programmers? ;P
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Please supply your address so that my black belt wife (who is one of the best coders I know) can come round and smack your sexist hide around.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easierI'm too afraid to do that. Anyways, I'm 1.86, 124 Kg, and I also play Zerg :D. Your wife seems to be an exception to the rule - and you're a happy man :) Seriously, I'm not saying girls can't code. I just said what I saw during many years, nothing more.
Nuclear launch detected
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Nice job, erasing, in a testosterolalic tsunami of non-sequiturs, and invidious comparisons, using pseudo-factoids, the historical achievements of women in the evolution of "computation," from Ada, Countess Lovelace, through Grace Hopper, and on ... and on. I suspect you have an experience-deficit with mistresses who wear leather, rather than cotton aprons, or you are living in a 1950's American sit-com playing on a black-and-white 9x6 inch screen, the latest PlayBoy editorial by Hugh Hefner within reach. I will offer prayers to the Great Mother on your behalf. She is merciful ! yours, Bill
“Humans are amphibians: half spirit, half animal; as spirits they belong to the eternal world; as animals they inhabit time. While their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imagination are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy is undulation: repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.” C.S. Lewis
Bill, I look forward to each and every one of your posts. Thank you for them. One day I'll understand a full post without recourse to Dictionary.com (did you just make up "testosterolalic" ?
BillWoodruff wrote:
the latest PlayBoy editorial by Hugh Hefner
There were editorials !?
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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Nice job, erasing, in a testosterolalic tsunami of non-sequiturs, and invidious comparisons, using pseudo-factoids, the historical achievements of women in the evolution of "computation," from Ada, Countess Lovelace, through Grace Hopper, and on ... and on. I suspect you have an experience-deficit with mistresses who wear leather, rather than cotton aprons, or you are living in a 1950's American sit-com playing on a black-and-white 9x6 inch screen, the latest PlayBoy editorial by Hugh Hefner within reach. I will offer prayers to the Great Mother on your behalf. She is merciful ! yours, Bill
“Humans are amphibians: half spirit, half animal; as spirits they belong to the eternal world; as animals they inhabit time. While their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imagination are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy is undulation: repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.” C.S. Lewis
BillWoodruff wrote:
She is merciful !
Tell that to John Bobbit!
Will Rogers never met me.
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After following the recent link in CP's daily news to the SoS[^] website I couldn't help but think, here is a perfect example of why there aren't more women in programming. I really can't speak for women, because I'm a sexist pig (and let me apologize right now to any pigs that are reading this), but I imagine the large majority of women would be completely repulsed by working in such an environment. Actually, it's hard for me to imagine anyone over the age of 25 not getting sick of it pretty quickly. I think feedback, competition, and fun are all useful tools in increasing productivity and job satisfaction but this application seems to be written with teenage boys as the audience. Everything is a competition and your ego is the stake. The whole thing seems to be geared towards saying I'm smart, I'm better than you, you're a stupid idiot. If you want to stroke your ego in such a way then go get the latest version of Halo or Call of Duty and don't waste your time diluting the experience with the pretense of work. However, if you want to build something great. Something better than what is possible alone, you have to foster collaboration. I think an application like this would actually be detrimental to the long term productivity of any software house in at least two ways besides inhibiting female participation. First, it discourages collaboration because like in a first-person-shooter where my goal is to frag my opponents I succeed when others fail. I didn't scrutinize the application but I didn't see the section where you get hero points for helping someone else. You get your jollies by boosting your own stats and laughing at the ineptness of others. Except in the most dysfunctional and juvenile environments I doubt this would lead to a total breakdown of collaboration but it would act as a gentle headwind that slowly puts your team further and further behind its potential. The second problem is that it will probably lead to the gaming of the gaming system. People might start doing things like making micro commits because that gives them a better score. The impacts would probably be subtle, almost imperceptible at first. But over time the differences would accumulate until you found the entire heart of your code had eroded away. Of course, if you were impatient you could probably
Because men don't cry when their programs fail! ;P
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Bill, I look forward to each and every one of your posts. Thank you for them. One day I'll understand a full post without recourse to Dictionary.com (did you just make up "testosterolalic" ?
BillWoodruff wrote:
the latest PlayBoy editorial by Hugh Hefner
There were editorials !?
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
_Maxxx_ wrote:
There were editorials !?
They were the reason I subscribed to Playboy.
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After following the recent link in CP's daily news to the SoS[^] website I couldn't help but think, here is a perfect example of why there aren't more women in programming. I really can't speak for women, because I'm a sexist pig (and let me apologize right now to any pigs that are reading this), but I imagine the large majority of women would be completely repulsed by working in such an environment. Actually, it's hard for me to imagine anyone over the age of 25 not getting sick of it pretty quickly. I think feedback, competition, and fun are all useful tools in increasing productivity and job satisfaction but this application seems to be written with teenage boys as the audience. Everything is a competition and your ego is the stake. The whole thing seems to be geared towards saying I'm smart, I'm better than you, you're a stupid idiot. If you want to stroke your ego in such a way then go get the latest version of Halo or Call of Duty and don't waste your time diluting the experience with the pretense of work. However, if you want to build something great. Something better than what is possible alone, you have to foster collaboration. I think an application like this would actually be detrimental to the long term productivity of any software house in at least two ways besides inhibiting female participation. First, it discourages collaboration because like in a first-person-shooter where my goal is to frag my opponents I succeed when others fail. I didn't scrutinize the application but I didn't see the section where you get hero points for helping someone else. You get your jollies by boosting your own stats and laughing at the ineptness of others. Except in the most dysfunctional and juvenile environments I doubt this would lead to a total breakdown of collaboration but it would act as a gentle headwind that slowly puts your team further and further behind its potential. The second problem is that it will probably lead to the gaming of the gaming system. People might start doing things like making micro commits because that gives them a better score. The impacts would probably be subtle, almost imperceptible at first. But over time the differences would accumulate until you found the entire heart of your code had eroded away. Of course, if you were impatient you could probably
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Please supply your address so that my black belt wife (who is one of the best coders I know) can come round and smack your sexist hide around.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier -
And red braces in debugging.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier -
I only scanned through the linked page - but what does it have to do with Women in programming? Agree or disagree with gaining reputation points based on checking in broken code (anything to stop that is a good thing, IMHO) but I don;t see what it has to do with sex?
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
Quote:
What does it have to do with Women in programming?
Possibly everything but with only a superficial glance probably nothing. My initial reaction when seeing this application wasn't that this is some evil tool to subjugate women. I'm also reasonably confident it wasn't the intent of the developers to make an app that repels women. However, by not thoroughly considering the consequences of their choices they may have done just that. When I saw this application I imagined a work place that wholeheartedly embraced its philosophy. Then for whatever reason I started thinking about women. I imagined just about every woman I know and I couldn't think of a single one that would enjoy working in an environment like this. So I invite you to do the same. Imagine a workplace like this and then imagine the women you know working there. How many of the women you imagined have big smiles on their faces because they love their work environment? I believe that if you take a moment to imagine these two things as I did you will largely come to the same conclusions.
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Nathan Nowak wrote:
Why aren't there more women in programming?
Does there need to be more women in programming? I don't grant that a lack of women is the same thing as broken.
MehGerbil wrote:
Does there need to be more women in programming? I don't grant that a lack of women is the same thing as broken.
Well I do. Let me ask you this. Do you think the world would be a better place if Marie Curie had decided to be a wet nurse rather than pursuing physics and chemistry? Or do you think we'd all be better off if Grace Hopper had relegated herself to the typing pool? To play on gender stereotypes for a minute, what if half the best programmers are women and half the best nurses are men? What do we lose as a society by having large groups of people unable to reach their potential? What do those individuals have to suffer by being shepherded into careers for which they have no particular talent or desire? Let me ask you this. Would you consider it a problem if everywhere in my program where I needed to sort something I used a bubble sort instead of a merge sort? Is it a problem to consistently do worse than what we know is the best possible? It seems to me you have two basic choices. You can consider the lack of women in programming a problem or you can try as others have to make the case that women do not have the ability or desire to be programmers and therefore the disparity is just, right, and natural. If you make the case that they don't have the desire you have to show that it is because something inherit in the creative act of programming repulses them and not that they are discouraged by the male-dominated, SoS culture that permeates the industry.
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MehGerbil wrote:
Does there need to be more women in programming? I don't grant that a lack of women is the same thing as broken.
Well I do. Let me ask you this. Do you think the world would be a better place if Marie Curie had decided to be a wet nurse rather than pursuing physics and chemistry? Or do you think we'd all be better off if Grace Hopper had relegated herself to the typing pool? To play on gender stereotypes for a minute, what if half the best programmers are women and half the best nurses are men? What do we lose as a society by having large groups of people unable to reach their potential? What do those individuals have to suffer by being shepherded into careers for which they have no particular talent or desire? Let me ask you this. Would you consider it a problem if everywhere in my program where I needed to sort something I used a bubble sort instead of a merge sort? Is it a problem to consistently do worse than what we know is the best possible? It seems to me you have two basic choices. You can consider the lack of women in programming a problem or you can try as others have to make the case that women do not have the ability or desire to be programmers and therefore the disparity is just, right, and natural. If you make the case that they don't have the desire you have to show that it is because something inherit in the creative act of programming repulses them and not that they are discouraged by the male-dominated, SoS culture that permeates the industry.
Nathan Nowak wrote:
Well I do. Let me ask you this. Do you think the world would be a better place if Marie Curie had decided to be a wet nurse rather than pursuing physics and chemistry?
I don't think un-answerable hypothetical questions about the past are helpful. The fact is, nobody knows what the impact would have been had Marie Curie been a wet nurse. Your rhetorical question implies you know the answer. You do not.
Nathan Nowak wrote:
It seems to me you have two basic choices. You can consider the lack of women in programming a problem or you can try as others have to make the case that women do not have the ability or desire to be programmers and therefore the disparity is just, right, and natural.
I don't make the assumption that a disparity in the distribution of the sexes among different jobs proves that something is broken. I'm just one of many who tire of every difference being a pants-wetting, hair-igniting, tear-invoking crisis. As for the disparity being 'just, right, and natural', that is a load of horse-poopie. Who makes that determination and what exactly is their criteria?
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Fact #1: Programming = total control (over an "inanimate" something) [Biological] Fact #2: The male of most species, human included, thrive on total control (over any & everything they can). Some may equate the above as: Biological Total Control = shame anyone else in order to stay in control This, I'm confident, is true in more than just a few instances/environments/persons, but certainly not every such of the same. Many qualify that women are wired, for the most part, to be submissive; this is derived from the 3 top faiths in the world, which hold to this in some capacity/form/measure. How "deep" that measure goes is subjective solely by the person, usually the male, measuring it. In flowing with the "wired" perspective, it is often held, and reasonably at that, that women are also wired for "caring" for others [children, husband, others; animate that they are]. Computers don't need care, don't care to be cared for, and don't have the capacity to even care to be cared for! Why would someone who doesn't a) desire to be controlling over an inanimate; b) would rather be caring for something animate (i.e., a child or their spouse); c) is not wanting to be shamed (and, candidly, is not designed/wired for dealing with such); d) nor care for something that doesn't need caring for in the first place want to be involved with that "something" (inanimate that it is) when they well-know men, who is is designed/wired for dealing with such, seek just the opposite of such? By their (women) very nature, they don't! Thus, they (women), by their very nature, choose what is natural ~ that of caring for others. This is not to say that women can not program, for they do. I've worked with some brilliant programmer gals and guys. While not *the* answer, I present it with exceeding confidence it is a reasonable and valid answer.
BCantor wrote:
Why would someone who doesn't a) desire to be controlling over an inanimate; b) would rather be caring for something animate (i.e., a child or their spouse); c) is not wanting to be shamed (and, candidly, is not designed/wired for dealing with such); d) nor care for something that doesn't need caring for in the first place
Let me start with C. Are you really suggesting that men like to be shamed and that men are better at handling shame than women? I don't believe it, but the majority opinion seems to be that men are incompetent at handling emotions and women are masters. If men thrive on total control and dominance, as you suggest, then shaming would be a crippling blow to their egos. Your other three points all seem to revolve around the idea that women just want to be caregivers and nothing else. However, in the early days when options for women in the workplace were extremely limited one thing that was open to them was typing. They flocked to the profession in droves because they were hungry for any opportunity they could get. Can you make the case that the mechanical act of typing is somehow synonymous with care giving? By your standards, how is typing any less of a domination of an inanimate object than programming? What kind of woman would even consider such a thing when the position of full time home maker was available? Now fast forward several years to the dawn of the computer age. At this time programming was entering code onto punch cards. Since that was basically just glorified typing much of it was performed by women. So how do you explain large numbers of women working in the profession during this period? Can you make the case that operating a punch card machine is like taking care of a baby? Time marches on and punch cards get replaced with terminals and keyboards. The act of designing a program and coding merge. Now we see an approximately equal proportion of men and women in the field of computer programming. I'd have to do some research but it appears things stayed this way until the early 80's. I don't see how programming in the 70's and 80's is anymore care-givery than programming today. If anything I would say computers today are much more like animate objects than they were back then. So what happened to all the women programmers? Well, if I were to enter into wild speculation, my hypothesis would be that sometime in the 80's computers became pervasive enough that society deemed it necessary to come u
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JimmyRopes wrote:
She could put me on her sholdres and do deep knee bends.
Could, or did? ;)
MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
_Maxxx_ wrote:
She could put me on her sholdres and do deep knee bends.
Could, or did?
That was more my fantisy. :-O
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Not doing a statistic here, but here's what I collected. 1. A vast majority of them cannot differentiate left/right. Now go write an if-then-else. 2. They cannot follow a point to the very last detail. Translation: countless re-reverse programming to achieve things never considered. 3. They cannot control complexity (and programming is controlling complexity, no?). At all. Let's make it look good on UI, and we're dealing with SwitchDesktop later. 4. And my personal one: women are masters of raising exceptions (from the blatant interruption on phone, Skype, verbal etc. just in the point when finally you got your stack trace), but they cannot handle them. If a woman is interrupting you, is normal; if you interrupt one, it's hell unleashed. Seriously. Interview one with 5 guys playing Starcraft on background and yelling "send the goddam zealots !! I'm eliminated !!!". This is a part of the test to measure stress resistance (no, I'm not kidding - and I completed the test while laughing how bad they were playing in the same time :D). 5. And finally, my favorite. Lack of resilience. Watch one loading MS PDBs, doing .reload, !analyze -v, !kb etc. until the bug is found. I didn't see a single case as of today (and I got 16 years in the field). I did see, however, deer eyes looking at a OK/Cancel message box (__purecall included) from 4:40 to 18:00. Time to go home. (Next day at 9:40 the crash was still there). Make me a sexist pig or not - there is nothing invented here. Just observations during time.
Nuclear launch detected
For those that would like to make the case that having few women programmers is to be expected the argument boils down to two points. The women don't want to be programmers or they are unable to. You seem to largely be making the case that women are incapable of being programmers. I would first like to suggest that programming does not take any special amount of skill. The notion that it does probably comes from men wanting to feed their egos. The skills necessary to be a programmer probably boil down to about a 5th grade level of reading comprehension and a 9th grade level of math comprehension. Even children with less education than this often write their own programs. This is not to say that all of programming is so easy a child could do it. Some aspects of programming appear to be genuinely difficult. However, being hard and requiring special skill is not the same thing. Completing a marathon is hard but it does not take any particular innate skill. The large majority of people in the world could complete one if they wanted to. It only takes the will and commitment to several months of training in order to acquire the necessary conditioning to complete the race. Anyway, I consider computing to be the new literacy. I find the idea of women not being able to or wanting to program as absurd as saying women don't want to or are incapable of reading and writing. With your first sentence:
Christian Amarie wrote:
Not doing a statistic here, but here's what I collected.
you make it clear that you are aware that anecdotal evidence is not a sound basis for making a conclusion and yet you pass judgement anyway. Had you the ability to follow a point to the very last detail I think you would have found the following problems with your evidence beyond the usual pitfalls of small sample data. First, given your large bias against women it is very likely that the only women who would choose to work with you are those so lacking in skill they couldn't find a job anywhere else, doing anything else. Your female coworkers would only be those that came to your office as employment of the last resort. Attracting only the worst prospects is just one way in which a sexist environment directly and negatively impacts men. Even if the women candidates did not detect your hostility until after they were hired it is very likely that a selection bias still exists. People like to be right and it would not be surprising to find a person subconsciously selecting a