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This really is the most balanced take on this I've seen yet on HN. Thanks. A lot of times stories like this are received derisively, and it's like some sort of

This really is the most balanced take on this I've seen yet on HN. Thanks. A lot of times stories like this are received derisively, and it's like some sort of mark of eternal shame to admit that, yes, the gender balance and social scene in my field is important to me. Sometimes I feel like hackers (and traditional engineers like EE and MEs) aspire to some kind of neo-valhalla. Instead of eternal fighting and mead-drinking it's coding and soda-drinking. This leads to a field that's incredibly flat and simplistic - aka boring.

pnathan 15y ago
Thank you for your compliment. I have coded since my early teens, so a lot of the code-adoration has faded through the simple wear of time. And, like people seem to as they look towards the end of their twenties, I've made a few mistakes and had a few growing up experiences and those have really broadened my mind about career and goals. The cyber-valhalla is fun and after a while - for most - the fun palls and you stumble out of the soda hall one day and realize that there's a whole world with unexpected complexity and richness that you've neglected in your pursuit of the code. There's a whole book - Microserfs - about that experience. It's worth reading.