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Something that frustrates me about the field of computer science is that there are a lot of jerks who think that just because they've "mastered" some programmin

Something that frustrates me about the field of computer science is that there are a lot of jerks who think that just because they've "mastered" some programming language or know some obscure unix commands, they are gods and you are nothing. I don't think this is at all unique to CS, or even to technical fields: it's the Dunning-Kruger Effect all over again. Regarding women in CS, it would go a long way in helping to simply treat them as people. As an IRC op, I find it sickening how often, particularly in online programming communities, people hear the word "female" and start acting like utter idiots. This results in both unwanted negative and positive attention: but furthermore, continually reinforces the idea that a female is some sort of odd, unusual creature deserving of special study. This doesn't merely bother the victims -- it also helps convince them that they're the odd one out, and that they don't belong. This doesn't have to be blatant sexism -- it can simply be comments like "oh, you're a girl?!" when someone uses a female pronoun. I've seen this happen dozens times in a single channel in response to a single person over the course of a few months. Some of you may be thinking that this is just a problem for 4chan and Reddit. But the interesting thing that I've noticed is that the incidence of this problem doesn't seem to be reduced much with more professional communities, or in more mature environments. Rather, the only statistic that seems to be consistently correlated with these kinds of problems is the perceived male/female ratio in a community. The instance the perception gets created that "this community is almost entirely male", problems begin to occur. This seems to be a constant everywhere from programming communities to writing communities to roleplaying communities to fandoms. If you're male, you've probably been responsible for some of this at some point. Maybe it was just one comment. I mean, what harm could one comment do, right? But a hundred people making "just one comment" stops being a joke quickly -- and instead makes half of the smart aspiring programmers out there feel unwelcome. This is of course self-reinforcing: by making women feel unwelcome, the "almost entirely male" perception is perpetuated. (An interesting question might be why the reverse problem rarely exists in communities perceived to be almost entirely female.)

drivebyacct2 15y ago
I'm not sure you understand what Dunning-Kruger is. Or I certainly don't see why that quote is an example of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
- DarkShikari 15y ago
  People who know a little bit ("mastered a language, or know some unix commands") are more likely to be confident in their abilities (and accordingly, arrogant about them) than someone who knows a great deal. That's the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
  - btn 15y ago
    and accordingly, arrogant about them The Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't necessarily imply a narcissistic personality (or any other personality traits); overconfidence in ability is something we are all vulnerable to.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    """The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.""" I think if you "master a language", you don't get lumped in with those who know "a little bit". I think you're just talking about arrogant people in general who think that because they know X, they can berate those who don't know X.
    - cherring 15y ago
      The fact that "mastered" was in quotes leads me to believe the author may have been implying that they had not really mastered that much at all, but had an inflated opinion of their own ability, which is surely what people citing Dunning-Kruger are assuming as well.
  - jessedhillon 15y ago
    Dunning-Kruger doesn't imply arrogance, just a mistaken level of confidence in one's own abilities, based on a failure to appreciate the magnitude of one's incompetence. Consider a person who plays, for example, a multiplayer game against the same three real life friends on a LAN, and concludes from his performance -- domination of his friends -- that he is an astounding player. Given his knowledge about the game and the skill of other players, it makes sense for him to make this conclusion. However, were he to play online, he would realize that his skills are paltry compared to the those of the best online gamers. Here, Dunning-Kruger is manifested in this gamer's overconfidence based on lack of knowledge, and lack of meta-knowledge (he doesn't know the importance of what he doesn't know). It's based on a genuine mistake in his assessment of his skills, not necessarily arrogance.
gedaxiang 15y ago
Actually, I've noticed that there's a lot of arrogant assholes in the collegiate Computer Science atmosphere, maybe more so than in other fields. But it has nothing to do with the gender issue. These "jerks" will be jerks to anyone who isn't at their level, male or female - I even caught myself sounding a little condescending today during a group study session.
- zheng 15y ago
  This is just another anecdotal datapoint, but I've found substantially less arrogance in my CS program than in some of the other bigger majors here (IR, Govt, Econ). I think it helps that some of the best and brightest students spend a vast majority of their time answering questions, debugging code, and filling in others with that obscure unix knowledge. Nevertheless, we have very very few female majors.
  - nickbarnwell 15y ago
    Out of curiosity, what CS program is that? From the major majors you listed, it sounds as thought it might be where I'm headed next year, and I'd love to hear what a current student thinks of it.
    - zheng 15y ago
      It's a well-known mid-atlantic school in the US. If that still fits the profile, feel free to email me(see my profile) and I'd be happy to discuss things more with you.
- sethg 15y ago
  I think men who are non-jerks are still socialized in how to interact with jerks. We understand that a certain number of guys are jerks and we have to deal with them anyway, so we learn how to shrug off the behavior or respond in kind, and we have to learn how to tell when someone crosses the line from macho bluster to being actually dangerous. Women, I think (someone tell me if I’m full of it here) are brought up differently—they are trained to see guys who act this way as threats, and to avoid them, or at least keep their guard up around them. (There are obviously women who act rudely to other women, but it tends to be a different kind of rudeness.)
Androsynth 15y ago
Its not the Dunning-Kruger effect, I would call it the osx effect (or alternatively the nosql or ruby effect). It goes something like this: if you can do something in an esoteric way that gets your more respect (both real and imagined) from people in your community, you will do it and lord it over others who do not have this particular knowledge or skill. The respect you get tends to be inversely proportional to the actual value being provided. (ie osx barely gets you any respect nowadays becuase it provides true value for programmers, using nosql at your startup gives you lots of respect even though a sql/mc combo would probably take much less time and effort to actual get running and fine-tuned). This effect generally appears in the following form: i use osx so therefore I am better than Windows users. I know sed so I am better than cli noobs. The opposite of this is the windows effect (aka the php effect), where you get disrepected for using a particular technology regardless of how talented or productive you actually are with it.
- paganel 15y ago
  > The opposite of this is the windows effect (aka the php effect), where you get disrepected for using a particular technology regardless of how talented or productive you actually are with it. Just wanted to add my related $0.02 rant: Everybody bashes PHP for its associative arrays, but when Python finally implemented the same data-structure (ordered dicts I think they are called) a long, long time after PHP first got them, then everybody started congratulated themselves and saying "what a nice idea the Python guys implemented!".
  - maak 15y ago
    I agree with all of these points, and I completely agree that it's not unique to the software industry. Much to our surprise, we're human after all.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    Sorry to go down that road, but the reason people rag on PHP's associative arrays, is that its the only array that PHP has. A hashmap with mixed keys is hardly the most practical choice for an all purpose primitive data structure. Python already has proper arrays where you might have some chance of fast sequential access. The ordered dict or whatever is just another tool in the box. Basically, PHP makes you do shit like this: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-array.php#102652 http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-array.php#102652

drivebyacct2 15y ago

I'm not sure you understand what Dunning-Kruger is. Or I certainly don't see why that quote is an example of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

DarkShikari 15y ago
People who know a little bit ("mastered a language, or know some unix commands") are more likely to be confident in their abilities (and accordingly, arrogant about them) than someone who knows a great deal. That's the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
- btn 15y ago
  and accordingly, arrogant about them The Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't necessarily imply a narcissistic personality (or any other personality traits); overconfidence in ability is something we are all vulnerable to.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  """The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.""" I think if you "master a language", you don't get lumped in with those who know "a little bit". I think you're just talking about arrogant people in general who think that because they know X, they can berate those who don't know X.
  - cherring 15y ago
    The fact that "mastered" was in quotes leads me to believe the author may have been implying that they had not really mastered that much at all, but had an inflated opinion of their own ability, which is surely what people citing Dunning-Kruger are assuming as well.
- jessedhillon 15y ago
  Dunning-Kruger doesn't imply arrogance, just a mistaken level of confidence in one's own abilities, based on a failure to appreciate the magnitude of one's incompetence. Consider a person who plays, for example, a multiplayer game against the same three real life friends on a LAN, and concludes from his performance -- domination of his friends -- that he is an astounding player. Given his knowledge about the game and the skill of other players, it makes sense for him to make this conclusion. However, were he to play online, he would realize that his skills are paltry compared to the those of the best online gamers. Here, Dunning-Kruger is manifested in this gamer's overconfidence based on lack of knowledge, and lack of meta-knowledge (he doesn't know the importance of what he doesn't know). It's based on a genuine mistake in his assessment of his skills, not necessarily arrogance.

gedaxiang 15y ago

Actually, I've noticed that there's a lot of arrogant assholes in the collegiate Computer Science atmosphere, maybe more so than in other fields. But it has nothing to do with the gender issue. These "jerks" will be jerks to anyone who isn't at their level, male or female - I even caught myself sounding a little condescending today during a group study session.

zheng 15y ago
This is just another anecdotal datapoint, but I've found substantially less arrogance in my CS program than in some of the other bigger majors here (IR, Govt, Econ). I think it helps that some of the best and brightest students spend a vast majority of their time answering questions, debugging code, and filling in others with that obscure unix knowledge. Nevertheless, we have very very few female majors.
- nickbarnwell 15y ago
  Out of curiosity, what CS program is that? From the major majors you listed, it sounds as thought it might be where I'm headed next year, and I'd love to hear what a current student thinks of it.
  - zheng 15y ago
    It's a well-known mid-atlantic school in the US. If that still fits the profile, feel free to email me(see my profile) and I'd be happy to discuss things more with you.
sethg 15y ago
I think men who are non-jerks are still socialized in how to interact with jerks. We understand that a certain number of guys are jerks and we have to deal with them anyway, so we learn how to shrug off the behavior or respond in kind, and we have to learn how to tell when someone crosses the line from macho bluster to being actually dangerous. Women, I think (someone tell me if I’m full of it here) are brought up differently—they are trained to see guys who act this way as threats, and to avoid them, or at least keep their guard up around them. (There are obviously women who act rudely to other women, but it tends to be a different kind of rudeness.)

Androsynth 15y ago

Its not the Dunning-Kruger effect, I would call it the osx effect (or alternatively the nosql or ruby effect). It goes something like this: if you can do something in an esoteric way that gets your more respect (both real and imagined) from people in your community, you will do it and lord it over others who do not have this particular knowledge or skill. The respect you get tends to be inversely proportional to the actual value being provided. (ie osx barely gets you any respect nowadays becuase it provides true value for programmers, using nosql at your startup gives you lots of respect even though a sql/mc combo would probably take much less time and effort to actual get running and fine-tuned). This effect generally appears in the following form: i use osx so therefore I am better than Windows users. I know sed so I am better than cli noobs. The opposite of this is the windows effect (aka the php effect), where you get disrepected for using a particular technology regardless of how talented or productive you actually are with it.

paganel 15y ago
> The opposite of this is the windows effect (aka the php effect), where you get disrepected for using a particular technology regardless of how talented or productive you actually are with it. Just wanted to add my related $0.02 rant: Everybody bashes PHP for its associative arrays, but when Python finally implemented the same data-structure (ordered dicts I think they are called) a long, long time after PHP first got them, then everybody started congratulated themselves and saying "what a nice idea the Python guys implemented!".
- maak 15y ago
  I agree with all of these points, and I completely agree that it's not unique to the software industry. Much to our surprise, we're human after all.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  Sorry to go down that road, but the reason people rag on PHP's associative arrays, is that its the only array that PHP has. A hashmap with mixed keys is hardly the most practical choice for an all purpose primitive data structure. Python already has proper arrays where you might have some chance of fast sequential access. The ordered dict or whatever is just another tool in the box. Basically, PHP makes you do shit like this: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-array.php#102652 http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.is-array.php#102652