5 ms·

GitHub Graciously Helps Female Programmers Cower In Fear

21 points by glazemaster 13y ago

msy 13y ago
Github is providing a space where women can store code they're working on and get feedback from select peers before releasing it publicly and they're being vilified for it? This is absurd, I've done exactly this with every piece of code I've ever released and I know many other devs who do the same, most OSS projects do so at some point in their lifetimes. Github providing a private repo for free simply lowers the bar to getting started a little further and that can only be a good thing. Against the principles of open source? What the hell does that even mean.
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  They are getting vilified for two reasons. #1. It implies women are delicate breakable flowers who can't take any criticism. #2. It implies men are tough and not delicate and don't need this protection. Both of those things are judging people only by their gender and ridiculous. EDIT: Also, creating an anonymous github account is easy, and use the name Pat Smith. Let there be a million Pat Smiths... then you won't be judged by your gender, just your work.
  - nohorse 13y ago
    All it implies is that they get a free private repo. Github's premium service. The free stuff is still free. No one should be insulted.
nsmartt 13y ago
Offering women free public repositories will expose more women to the open-source community. The idea is, of course, that they will slowly become more comfortable with the community and begin to open their work. This could go either way, but I suspect this idea is correct. IMO, this was a good move by GitHub.
- krapp 13y ago
  The idea may or may not have been correct, but it seems to me the implementation also reinforces negative stereotypes about women. The Ada initiative blog is quoted as saying that fear is a real impediment to women approaching the open source community, so this probably will help. But it also implies that female coders as a group have a reason to be ashamed of the quality of their work, and that they don't really belong in the community.
samatman 13y ago
For any male software developers who may be feeling left out, bitbucket provides unlimited private repositories for free. The headline strikes me as inflammatory. The move by GitHub is a bit like slapping a tar baby in the current sociopolitical environment, and is most likely going to lead to GitHub offering a limited number of private repos to all accounts. Which would be a net win, unless it affects GitHub's financial viability, which I doubt it would.
potatolicious 13y ago
Hurray, yet another snarky headline that borders on the edge of slander. Can we, like, have a conversation about issues like this instead of leaping for the linguistic equivalent of a bunker buster? There are real people behind Github trying to do good, verbally lynching them does no one any good. I'm so very sick and tired of how this community cannot disagree with one another without practically eviscerating each others' entrails.
krapp 13y ago
Why not just offer one free private repository per account to everybody? It would 'solve' the same problem this attempts to, without the attached stigma, plus it would keep a lot of people from moving to bitbucket just to have a private repo.
cheez 13y ago
So if I am a woman I am supposed to be free from harsh criticism? Isn't this the OPPOSITE of feminism???
- wmf 13y ago
  People saw that public harsh criticism doesn't work, so now they're trying something different even though they know it isn't "right".
thera 13y ago
I don't understand this - doesn't github already provide unlimited public repos? Can't someone (female or male or anything else) create a new, anonymous, account for stuff they are shy about sharing with the world? Then no one can know it is them, or what the account owner's gender is, etc.? And if at some point they feel more comfortable, they can rewrite git history and change the authors in their commits, and push that to their official repo if they so choose?
lake99 13y ago
I already use bitbucket for that. But if I felt compelled to use this feature on GitHub, without paying their monthly fee, there's not much preventing me from pretending to be female.
- krapp 13y ago
  Which brings up the question of who is going to do gender validation, and how?
nohorse 13y ago
Giving away premium services is great. This guy is totally missing the point in a very long winded way.
general_failure 13y ago
The underlying premise of the article (about women wanting to hide their code in fear) is pure garbage. TG;DR (Total garbage; didn't read)

21 points by glazemaster 13y ago

msy 13y ago

Github is providing a space where women can store code they're working on and get feedback from select peers before releasing it publicly and they're being vilified for it? This is absurd, I've done exactly this with every piece of code I've ever released and I know many other devs who do the same, most OSS projects do so at some point in their lifetimes. Github providing a private repo for free simply lowers the bar to getting started a little further and that can only be a good thing. Against the principles of open source? What the hell does that even mean.

MetaCosm 13y ago
They are getting vilified for two reasons. #1. It implies women are delicate breakable flowers who can't take any criticism. #2. It implies men are tough and not delicate and don't need this protection. Both of those things are judging people only by their gender and ridiculous. EDIT: Also, creating an anonymous github account is easy, and use the name Pat Smith. Let there be a million Pat Smiths... then you won't be judged by your gender, just your work.
- nohorse 13y ago
  All it implies is that they get a free private repo. Github's premium service. The free stuff is still free. No one should be insulted.

nsmartt 13y ago

Offering women free public repositories will expose more women to the open-source community. The idea is, of course, that they will slowly become more comfortable with the community and begin to open their work. This could go either way, but I suspect this idea is correct. IMO, this was a good move by GitHub.

krapp 13y ago
The idea may or may not have been correct, but it seems to me the implementation also reinforces negative stereotypes about women. The Ada initiative blog is quoted as saying that fear is a real impediment to women approaching the open source community, so this probably will help. But it also implies that female coders as a group have a reason to be ashamed of the quality of their work, and that they don't really belong in the community.

samatman 13y ago

For any male software developers who may be feeling left out, bitbucket provides unlimited private repositories for free. The headline strikes me as inflammatory. The move by GitHub is a bit like slapping a tar baby in the current sociopolitical environment, and is most likely going to lead to GitHub offering a limited number of private repos to all accounts. Which would be a net win, unless it affects GitHub's financial viability, which I doubt it would.

potatolicious 13y ago

Hurray, yet another snarky headline that borders on the edge of slander. Can we, like, have a conversation about issues like this instead of leaping for the linguistic equivalent of a bunker buster? There are real people behind Github trying to do good, verbally lynching them does no one any good. I'm so very sick and tired of how this community cannot disagree with one another without practically eviscerating each others' entrails.

krapp 13y ago

Why not just offer one free private repository per account to everybody? It would 'solve' the same problem this attempts to, without the attached stigma, plus it would keep a lot of people from moving to bitbucket just to have a private repo.

cheez 13y ago

So if I am a woman I am supposed to be free from harsh criticism? Isn't this the OPPOSITE of feminism???

wmf 13y ago
People saw that public harsh criticism doesn't work, so now they're trying something different even though they know it isn't "right".

thera 13y ago

I don't understand this - doesn't github already provide unlimited public repos? Can't someone (female or male or anything else) create a new, anonymous, account for stuff they are shy about sharing with the world? Then no one can know it is them, or what the account owner's gender is, etc.? And if at some point they feel more comfortable, they can rewrite git history and change the authors in their commits, and push that to their official repo if they so choose?

lake99 13y ago

I already use bitbucket for that. But if I felt compelled to use this feature on GitHub, without paying their monthly fee, there's not much preventing me from pretending to be female.

krapp 13y ago
Which brings up the question of who is going to do gender validation, and how?

nohorse 13y ago

Giving away premium services is great. This guy is totally missing the point in a very long winded way.

general_failure 13y ago

The underlying premise of the article (about women wanting to hide their code in fear) is pure garbage. TG;DR (Total garbage; didn't read)