3 ms·

Adam probably didn't mean to be offensive, but that is perhaps worse. The folk who laughed at the joke weren't meaning to be offensive either, but again, that's

Adam probably didn't mean to be offensive, but that is perhaps worse. The folk who laughed at the joke weren't meaning to be offensive either, but again, that's not a good thing. There are no easy ways to deal with a situation like this - one group will advocate a quiet word with the speaker, and while that educates him, it does little for all the other potential future speakers in the room who learn from that session (or worse, put the joke away for use later on.) A public display of offense makes for an uncomfortable moment, which in turn should lead to at least more awareness that some material is offensive. Incidentally, one measure of how offensive it is, is to replace the group in question with the most "politically incorrect" group you can. So had the phrase been "explain it to a black man" would it be funny? I think perhaps not. As a rule you should never make fun of any group, of which you're not a member, from the podium. Just. Don't. Do. It. Self-deprecating humour is almost never offensive, even to the group you're a part of. Well almost. Clearly we can all imagine some exceptions to that rule too. Yes the computing industry is enormously sexist, and it's behooves both men and women to point out instances of this sexism when they occur. Only by being vigilent can we educate people. Small steps that hopefully will lead to an erradication of this. well done Shifra.

mayanksinghal 15y ago
Though the situation is quite bad in the industry, and female developers might be feeling alienated but in this particular scenario, I feel that the speaker is been bashed out on proportion. The speaker is reported to have publicly apologized at talk and later of twitter. Still continuously and personally blaming/quoting him as done by Shifra and later commentators on the linked thread seems unnecessary. Quotes like "Weasel talk, +Adam Bien." really make the conversation less friendly and less fruitful. Incidentally, one measure of how offensive it is, is to replace the group in question with the most "politically incorrect" group you can. So had the phrase been "explain it to a black man" would it be funny? I think perhaps not. "Explain it to Java Programmers" or "Explain it to your mom/dad" are acceptable and are used quite often. The former is considered a really amusing anecdote and used really frequently at Python Conferences. Now, I was a Java developer sitting in a Python conference who was already familiar and decently comfortable with the fundamentals being presented on stage - the presenter was not a Java developer (so not a self deprecating joke) and still if I stand up and make the person apologize and then repeatedly blame him of languagism (?), it would not be welcomed by both Java or Python developers! [edit: typos]
- aaronblohowiak 15y ago
  An important nuance: you self-select into Java programming, whereas you do not your gender, race or age.
  - mayanksinghal 15y ago
    I am not sure how that changes the context of the joke in question here. The meaning that is being derived from Adam's statement - "Women are not nerdy/techie/geeky enough and this will be hard for them to understand". The same can be done for the Java/Python case as "Java developers are trained like monkeys to work on a largely boring and inherently ugly language and Python will be too hard for them to understand. So if this presentation can explain X to Java developers, you can definitely learn it for you are better then them."
    - mjg59 15y ago
      You can't understand the difference in context between a joke that targets people on the basis of conscious choices they've made and one that targets people on the basis of their biology? /Really/?
- goodside 15y ago
  Both of my parents are IT professionals and former CS professors. If you're substantially older than I am (I'm 24) it's not hard to imagine assuming that everyone's parents are clueless about programming, just for generational reasons, but you're not going to be able to assume that forever.
  - adrianN 15y ago
    It is fairly safe to assume that a random person from the population is clueless about programming, regardless of his age. I think the correlation between your programming abilities and the programming abilities of your parents is low enough to assume them to be clueless.
  - mayanksinghal 15y ago

mayanksinghal 15y ago

Though the situation is quite bad in the industry, and female developers might be feeling alienated but in this particular scenario, I feel that the speaker is been bashed out on proportion. The speaker is reported to have publicly apologized at talk and later of twitter. Still continuously and personally blaming/quoting him as done by Shifra and later commentators on the linked thread seems unnecessary. Quotes like "Weasel talk, +Adam Bien." really make the conversation less friendly and less fruitful. Incidentally, one measure of how offensive it is, is to replace the group in question with the most "politically incorrect" group you can. So had the phrase been "explain it to a black man" would it be funny? I think perhaps not. "Explain it to Java Programmers" or "Explain it to your mom/dad" are acceptable and are used quite often. The former is considered a really amusing anecdote and used really frequently at Python Conferences. Now, I was a Java developer sitting in a Python conference who was already familiar and decently comfortable with the fundamentals being presented on stage - the presenter was not a Java developer (so not a self deprecating joke) and still if I stand up and make the person apologize and then repeatedly blame him of languagism (?), it would not be welcomed by both Java or Python developers! [edit: typos]

aaronblohowiak 15y ago
An important nuance: you self-select into Java programming, whereas you do not your gender, race or age.
- mayanksinghal 15y ago
  I am not sure how that changes the context of the joke in question here. The meaning that is being derived from Adam's statement - "Women are not nerdy/techie/geeky enough and this will be hard for them to understand". The same can be done for the Java/Python case as "Java developers are trained like monkeys to work on a largely boring and inherently ugly language and Python will be too hard for them to understand. So if this presentation can explain X to Java developers, you can definitely learn it for you are better then them."
  - mjg59 15y ago
    You can't understand the difference in context between a joke that targets people on the basis of conscious choices they've made and one that targets people on the basis of their biology? /Really/?
goodside 15y ago
Both of my parents are IT professionals and former CS professors. If you're substantially older than I am (I'm 24) it's not hard to imagine assuming that everyone's parents are clueless about programming, just for generational reasons, but you're not going to be able to assume that forever.
- adrianN 15y ago
  It is fairly safe to assume that a random person from the population is clueless about programming, regardless of his age. I think the correlation between your programming abilities and the programming abilities of your parents is low enough to assume them to be clueless.
- mayanksinghal 15y ago