3 ms·

How do you know that she's not also "doing something?" Actually, she is. She is an active developer, and the co-chair of a back-breakingly large, totally volun

How do you know that she's not also "doing something?" Actually, she is. She is an active developer, and the co-chair of a back-breakingly large, totally volunteer run conference, Open Source Bridge, taking place in Portland in late June. (OSCON-like in content, I won't too deep about the event here, but I do in other HN posts, feel free to crawl my comments.) I do not know her personally, but we have enough peers in common, that I know she also does "Amy Hoy's" (I like that phrase, btw :D ) and regularly puts out pretty cool tools (I'm pretty sure she's a key contributor to Calagator (Ruby events calendar)) and blog posts. But even if she didn't... I think if you witness something you're not comfortable with, and everybody else is quiet about it, it's actually brave AND valuable to speak up. I know it gets old reading about it on Hacker News, heck, I agree with these gender-posts most of the time, and I never vote them up, just because I wince in fear at the threads that happen. I'm sick of the debate, but even sicker of the reality. Still, I identify with whatever that sensation it is you feel (petercooper) when you see a gender topic on HN. My heart sinks, too. But I still admire the bloggers who take the time write a post, knowing full well they'll get tons of cruel, off-topic comments from strangers (so far she's been called a whore, ideally removed by now), and bite the bullet and write anyway ... [apologies, i lightly edited my last line right before somebody quoted it]

petercooper 18y ago
But I still admire the bloggers who take the time write a post, knowing full well they'll get tons of cruel, off-topic comments on their blog from Digg users, and bite the bullet and write anyway ... I see it more along the lines of unnecessary repetition, like the incessant blog posts about how "Rails sucks" or how "slow" Ruby is. We get the message. If one can't bring something new to the table or at least let a year pass to see how things progress, does it need to be said yet again?
- thesethings 18y ago
  Hmm. I'm not sure the "Ruby sucks," or "Ruby is slow" is totally accurate analogy. If somebody made something new with Ruby, and then it did something really cool or really bad, I would want to hear about it that developer's experience and opinion with it. The anecdote described in the blog post, whether you agree with it or not, just happened, it was "new."
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  does it need to be said yet again? Apparently so, since certain ruby programmers think it's appropriate to put soft-core porn into conference presentations.
  - axod 18y ago
    Come on now. There's racier images in each issue of Cosmo. People should stop being so offended by everything.
    - halostatue 18y ago
      Cosmo images have about as much place in a professional presentation about software. This isn't about offence, it's about context, and the context was wrong. A lot of men don't understand context very well, or we'd have more than 2% of all OSS developers being female.
- kingsley_20 18y ago
  Speech is not code. Repeating yourself, and others, has value in ways peculiar to social animals.

petercooper 18y ago

But I still admire the bloggers who take the time write a post, knowing full well they'll get tons of cruel, off-topic comments on their blog from Digg users, and bite the bullet and write anyway ... I see it more along the lines of unnecessary repetition, like the incessant blog posts about how "Rails sucks" or how "slow" Ruby is. We get the message. If one can't bring something new to the table or at least let a year pass to see how things progress, does it need to be said yet again?

thesethings 18y ago
Hmm. I'm not sure the "Ruby sucks," or "Ruby is slow" is totally accurate analogy. If somebody made something new with Ruby, and then it did something really cool or really bad, I would want to hear about it that developer's experience and opinion with it. The anecdote described in the blog post, whether you agree with it or not, just happened, it was "new."
menloparkbum 18y ago
does it need to be said yet again? Apparently so, since certain ruby programmers think it's appropriate to put soft-core porn into conference presentations.
- axod 18y ago
  Come on now. There's racier images in each issue of Cosmo. People should stop being so offended by everything.
  - halostatue 18y ago
    Cosmo images have about as much place in a professional presentation about software. This isn't about offence, it's about context, and the context was wrong. A lot of men don't understand context very well, or we'd have more than 2% of all OSS developers being female.
kingsley_20 18y ago
Speech is not code. Repeating yourself, and others, has value in ways peculiar to social animals.