3 ms·

Is gender and ethnic background of developers relevant?

by ihsw2 10y ago

tclancy 10y ago
Of course it is. Homogeneity is dangerous for an ecosystem and even if it weren't, not all apps, websites, products of code are consumed by straight white guys living on the US coasts. A mix of perspectives is a healthy thing.
- justaman 10y ago
  I like to think that since white guys are generally the most universally hated group by other race\gender combo's, white guys just dont really care who you are as long as you get the job done. Thats why they have the lowest interest in diversity.
  - ihsw2 10y ago
    That's blatantly racist.
    - justaman 10y ago
      Its really not. Care to explain why?
  - strictnein 10y ago
    I think it's probably something else: To us white guys, diversity means us someone like us not getting a job, or possibly us not getting the job. All the other groups rated it much higher because it means someone in their group getting the job, including possibly themselves. It's an inherently selfish question, even thought it's not presented as such.
thehardsphere 10y ago
Some people consider it to be. It's something people are at least curious about. There is a claim that "not enough X" go into software, where X is women or minorities or both, for various hypothesized reasons that seem very difficult to test for. One that's particularly interesting to me and at least has some semi-plausible story is that the way personal computers were marketed in the US ended up influencing the perception of the computer as something male, even though prior to 1980 women made up a larger share of working programmers than they do today. What I would find interesting from this survey is whether the gender breakdown between specializations changes when nationality is an additional factor. Because in my own limited experience, there are plenty of women who are competent developers, but I've only known one born in the US (n=8, but I work at a small company and this is is at least a double-digit percentage of the engineering staff)

Is gender and ethnic background of developers relevant?

by ihsw2 10y ago

Is gender and ethnic background of developers relevant?

Of course it is. Homogeneity is dangerous for an ecosystem and even if it weren't, not all apps, websites, products of code are consumed by straight white guys living on the US coasts. A mix of perspectives is a healthy thing.

justaman 10y ago
I like to think that since white guys are generally the most universally hated group by other race\gender combo's, white guys just dont really care who you are as long as you get the job done. Thats why they have the lowest interest in diversity.
- ihsw2 10y ago
  That's blatantly racist.
  - justaman 10y ago
    Its really not. Care to explain why?
- strictnein 10y ago
  I think it's probably something else: To us white guys, diversity means us someone like us not getting a job, or possibly us not getting the job. All the other groups rated it much higher because it means someone in their group getting the job, including possibly themselves. It's an inherently selfish question, even thought it's not presented as such.

thehardsphere 10y ago

Some people consider it to be. It's something people are at least curious about. There is a claim that "not enough X" go into software, where X is women or minorities or both, for various hypothesized reasons that seem very difficult to test for. One that's particularly interesting to me and at least has some semi-plausible story is that the way personal computers were marketed in the US ended up influencing the perception of the computer as something male, even though prior to 1980 women made up a larger share of working programmers than they do today. What I would find interesting from this survey is whether the gender breakdown between specializations changes when nationality is an additional factor. Because in my own limited experience, there are plenty of women who are competent developers, but I've only known one born in the US (n=8, but I work at a small company and this is is at least a double-digit percentage of the engineering staff)