5 ms·
I remember reading a post similar to this on here recently... Ah yes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1145648 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1145648 T
by shaddi 17y ago
I remember reading a post similar to this on here recently... Ah yes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1145648 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1145648
There is a woman in my CS department that I met in a Bollywood Cinema class I was taking. She's totally non-geek; I see her in the lobby talking the fairly standard social drama banter of college students, not about this week's ACM programming problem. At first I was kind of dismissive about her, since I didn't feel she was /really/ a CS student (I remember thinking once, "I wonder if she's here to meet a boyfriend"; I'm really ashamed of that thought). Reading Patrick's piece made me reconsider that view. Regardless of what her motivations are for joining the department, I respect the fact that she's here.
It also makes me wonder about our Women in CS initiatives. Here we have a woman who, from all I can tell, does not define her identity primarily in terms of her field of study (which is something I feel like many of us do). She is not a CS woman, but rather a woman that happens to study computer science, kind of like a man who happens to study pharmacy. I'm still developing my thoughts on this, but meeting her and the discussion around this new Barbie have ironically enough really challenged my existing beliefs.
- swolchok 17y agoI wrote this post before reading the parent; I've moved it to be a reply to the parent because it's clearly related. I have some cognitive dissonance on this issue. I'm not sure what to conclude, so I'll just air it. On the one hand, I would love to see people in the field who are both high-performing and high-functioning socially. On the other hand, the degree to which undergraduates (and, by extension, probably front-line programmers in general) "live and breathe CS" seems to be a very good heuristic for their proficiency with the nitty technical details. By "live and breathe" CS, I am not talking about passion for traditionally geeky activities like video games, DND, and so on; I am referring to their penchant for work as entertainment (not that we don't all need a break from time to time). This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time. On the third hand, lots of researchers I've met seem to be better rounded.
- ErrantX 17y ago> and, by extension, probably front-line programmers in general > This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time. The best programmers I know (and I tentatively include myself here; though Im really an engineer) are highly social work hard/play hard type people.
- barrkel 17y agoThat is definitely not my experience.
- roundsquare 17y agoMight this might be a result of the type of people you spend time with? If I think about college, I would also have said that the best programmers I know are the ones who I frequently see out doing other stuff. However, I didn't spend that much time with the more introverted people (not being able to relate to them as well) so its hard to say if they were better or worse.
- ErrantX 17y agoThis is in a work environment too though. I was more interested by the use of "frontline" in the original posting. It's not so much technical merit as your ability to, well, be a programmer (as a career).