4 ms·

Jeans and t-shirt/hoodie are the official uniform/suit of programmers. You stand out if you wear anything else.

silencio 12y ago
I feel like there's an expectation for me to dress up more than my husband or any other programmer I know, just to be taken a little more seriously. I don't know that many female programmers that wear tshirts except for promo purposes or at home/super duper casual settings either. Not to mention most tshirts don't fit female bodies in an ideal way anyway...
- lobotryas 12y ago
  That's why there are women's t-shirts that are much better tailored for women. Personally I never understood the "dress down" culture in programming. I dress up (sports coats, shirts, nice jeans) because I like it.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    "I dress up (sports coats, shirts, nice jeans) because I like it." Likewise, though I trade out the jeans for slacks. I don't like jeans with a sport coat (on me - you can wear what you want).
- lmm 12y ago
  I'd say the correlation runs the other way. The best female programmers I've worked with dressed like stereotypical nerds (just like the best male programmers I worked with). The ones who "dressed up" were, by and large, those trying to compensate for substandard programming skills (again, just like the guys who wore suits).
smacktoward 12y ago
This is less true in company-town DC than it is in places like SF, NYC, etc.
gaius 12y ago
Yes it's ironic. The guys who say they don't care about clothes actually care far far more than the suit wearers.
- pgeorgi 12y ago
  Among suit wearers and non-suit wearers there are people who don't care about other people's clothes, as long as everyone get the job done without much distraction. And then there are suits and non-suits who care strongly about whatever brand of etiquette they adopted. Now guess who will also put up a fight over harmless technical/business/political/you-name-it minutiae.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Jeans and t-shirt/hoodie are the official uniform/suit of programmers. There's lots of different contexts that programmers work in. In some of them, that's true, in others its not. Plenty of places, khakis and sports/polo shirts is a lot more common than jeans and t-shirts. And in others, its suits.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I think it's kind of funny that SF is probably the place with a pile of programmers who are least enamored of suits, when it's the one place that always has weather in which a suit is comfortable.

I feel like there's an expectation for me to dress up more than my husband or any other programmer I know, just to be taken a little more seriously. I don't know that many female programmers that wear tshirts except for promo purposes or at home/super duper casual settings either. Not to mention most tshirts don't fit female bodies in an ideal way anyway...

lobotryas 12y ago
That's why there are women's t-shirts that are much better tailored for women. Personally I never understood the "dress down" culture in programming. I dress up (sports coats, shirts, nice jeans) because I like it.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  "I dress up (sports coats, shirts, nice jeans) because I like it." Likewise, though I trade out the jeans for slacks. I don't like jeans with a sport coat (on me - you can wear what you want).
lmm 12y ago
I'd say the correlation runs the other way. The best female programmers I've worked with dressed like stereotypical nerds (just like the best male programmers I worked with). The ones who "dressed up" were, by and large, those trying to compensate for substandard programming skills (again, just like the guys who wore suits).

smacktoward 12y ago

This is less true in company-town DC than it is in places like SF, NYC, etc.

gaius 12y ago

Yes it's ironic. The guys who say they don't care about clothes actually care far far more than the suit wearers.

pgeorgi 12y ago
Among suit wearers and non-suit wearers there are people who don't care about other people's clothes, as long as everyone get the job done without much distraction. And then there are suits and non-suits who care strongly about whatever brand of etiquette they adopted. Now guess who will also put up a fight over harmless technical/business/political/you-name-it minutiae.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Jeans and t-shirt/hoodie are the official uniform/suit of programmers. There's lots of different contexts that programmers work in. In some of them, that's true, in others its not. Plenty of places, khakis and sports/polo shirts is a lot more common than jeans and t-shirts. And in others, its suits.

dllthomas 12y ago
I think it's kind of funny that SF is probably the place with a pile of programmers who are least enamored of suits, when it's the one place that always has weather in which a suit is comfortable.