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Whenever I see those arguments about unwelcoming culture of programming, I’m thinking back on how I myself got into it. It was mostly a solitary activity with a
by lovecg 2y ago
Whenever I see those arguments about unwelcoming culture of programming, I’m thinking back on how I myself got into it. It was mostly a solitary activity with a lot of reading of manuals and tinkering and whatnot. There was not really a “culture” to not “welcome” me. Is everyone else just way more social about their programming activities? Like you show up to a club and feel shunned?
- MeetingsBrowser 2y agoWhen you were reading, did you come across people on a popular forum like hackernews claiming you were inferior and did not belong?
- lovecg 2y agoThis was mostly pre-internet days. Maybe the internet is just making everything worse.
- LightHugger 2y agoI think we're long past the point where this is a realistic scenario at least in 99% of situations, what does actually still happen though is coming across articles that fearmonger such for profit whether or not it's true. Those articles tell newcomers they are inferior and do not belong while pretending to be on the newcoming reader's side, despite exploiting them.
- MeetingsBrowser 2y agoIt does still happen today. For example, I was describing the comment that started this thread, where someone implied women are inferior programmers.
- zahlman 2y ago>For example, I was describing the comment that started this thread, where someone implied women are inferior programmers. The comment that started this thread did no such thing. In fact, the entire point of that comment was to argue that this is itself an unfair stereotype of the community (i.e. that such a belief is not prevalent). It instead quoted a claim from the article - which indeed implies this in a vague, hand-waving way, by citing another paper. When I look at the abstract for that paper, in turn, I don't actually see the claim asserted; the closest it comes is > Challenges that women face in OSS are mainly social, including lack of peer parity and non-inclusive communication from a toxic culture Also, that paper in turn describes itself as "a survey of the literature". The whole thing comes across to me as an act of citogenesis (https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/).
- MeetingsBrowser 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42002940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42002940 > One follows from the other There are two ways to interpret this. Either women are naturally worse programmers and that leads to less interest, or they are less interested in programming which makes women worse programmers. Unless I am missing another interpretation, both imply women are worse programmers.
- LightHugger 2y agoNot really sure what you think making up such easily disproved lies does for your case here. The only people who will agree with you on this are people who already agree with some kind of intense dogma.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shiroiushi 2y agoFirst, it's well-known that women are generally more social (or at least, better trained for socialization) then men. So yes, they're naturally going to worry more about a welcoming culture. Second, maybe you got into it as a solitary activity as a child (I did too, long ago), but unless you work at a very, very unusual job, it's not at all a solitary activity these days at any normal company.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]