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I code like a girl
- digital-rubber 12y agoBut can you cook like one?
- sixty4bit 12y agoActually, yes I can.
- digital-rubber 12y agoAh well as long as you receive equal pay, it's all good. And at least you eat good :)
- M8 12y ago"The only human labor noted in the press was the initial design of the machine, which was performed by men." Who gets the credit for e.g. iPhone? Chinese workers? That person who was tweaking the icons to look pixel-perfect (pre-iOS7)? CEO?
- danparsonson 12y agoApple does - I doubt anyone truly believes that Steve Jobs personally designed the whole iPhone; also, the Chinese workers are at least in the public consciousness - apart from the Foxconn labour controversies, each unit has 'Made in China' written on it somewhere. If as the article says the ENIAC news reports were along the lines of 'here is a machine that can calculate trajectories, and these are the men who designed it', who's to know that maybe half of the effort was undertaken by others not mentioned?
- M8 12y agodesigned != implemented
- danparsonson 12y agoMy wording not theirs, and incidental to the point I was making.
- detcader 12y agoSo it wouldn't be odd in the least if the programmers of iOS were just totally erased from Apple's history?
- Dewie 12y agoI feel so emasculated. snark.
- throwawayaway 12y agothe title is provocative, but the content is better. it's funny how grown women are referred to as girls, yet it's less common that grown men are referred to as boys - in my experience.
- digital-rubber 12y agoI've seen this more often, i think its because girls can be acting like adults/grown ups. And boys… well that sounds (and generally is correct) like they are immature, not grown up. Just my penny.
- jaredmcateer 12y agoNot boys, not men either though, but guys. Guys and girls tends to be the informal nomenclature for men and women. Why not guys and gals? Gal sounds so antiquated yet guy does not.
- throwawayaway 12y agoI don't think of guys as gender specific any more, but I suppose it is now that you mention it.
- mrits 12y agoWomen often refer to each other as girls. Men don't usually to each other as boys.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoLike, in "going out with the boys" or "my boys have my back" or "boys will be boys"?
- dijit 12y agoall those phrases are used by the immature referring to the immature. those _are_ boys.
- huehue 12y agoTIL programmers evolved from being secretaries to bricklayers.
- hobs 12y agoI have never heard anyone in real life tell a woman that she "codes like a girl.", as if that would be a diss anyway? Given that anyone with even a basic understanding of history would be awed by some of the women in the industry (ada and grace anyone), you would have to pretty stupid to come to the conclusion that women cant code.
- wernercd 12y agoWhen a guy tells another guy "You run like a girl.", "You hit like a girl", "sit like a girl", etc... it's historically an insult. Recently, there has been an effort to "take the phrase back" and turn "... like a girl" into a good thing - instead of being considered an insult - Like the commercials that tout "Running like a girl". I've never heard "coding... like a girl" either, so you have to frame it as part of this movement.
- VLM 12y agoThe article has a problem WRT "women used to code 50 years ago" and coding has changed and we don't have women anymore, from a statistical rounding perspective. Sure Ada and Grace were cool, but so are Limor Fried and Radia Perlman. There are real female programmers out there, not just activists or management plants or ancient history. The whole world isn't SV startup "brogrammer" culture where women are not permitted under a cloak of "culture fit". Personally I wish there were a judicial ruling that candidate rejection due to culture fit was prima facie legal evidence of racial or gender bias in hiring, because I know that to be the truth in practice.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- rmc 12y ago> Given that anyone with even a basic understanding of history Y'know how some film might have "hackers trying to break the FBI's firewall key"? And we all laugh because those film makers are so stupid about technology? Or how a newspaper will tell you how magnets and cabbage will cure your brain age? Find some forums for historians[1], and you'll see historians laugh at how bad common understanding of history is. Many people don't have an understand of basic history. [1] e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/ http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/
- maaaats 12y agoI've heard You punch like a girl, You drive like a girl and similar before, but never You code like a girl. Which is good, I guess.
- detcader 12y agoCoding doesn't involve as much kinetic and immediate action, and I can't imagine it being infantilized. When it comes to violence, you can be weak, and so "like a girl". "Driving like a woman" I think means to drive naively, like a child, which women have generally been seen as equivalent to for thousands of years. (Edit: not that I agree with any of that, of course; it's how gender is constructed)
- sthreet 12y agoNow that Ip Man is a popular movie (?) is "punch like a girl" still an insult?
- detcader 12y agoI haven't seen it. One can only assume insults like "[violent act] like a girl" is still used among male youth to horrible effect, encouraging more violence and self-hatred.
- sthreet 12y agoAs a male youth with very little experience with people in general, I hate people who make me look bad.
- smhenderson 12y agoA good read. Although I was surprised the grandmother of programming, Ada Lovelace, wasn't mentioned. Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
- Svip 12y agoAs interesting as Ada Lovelace's and Charles Babbage's story is, their efforts have had little (if any) influence on the computer we know today. In a sense, they are not completely relevant when talking about modern computing. I also feel Lovelace tend to distract the subject on women in computing.
- tormeh 12y agoLikewise Leibniz was the first computer scientist. As if anyone cares.
- MollyR 12y agoI care. I like to know the truth not the marketing angle. Do you mind explaining ?
- andyjohnson0 12y agoProbably a reference to Leibniz having discovered/invented the binary number system back in the 1679 [1]. He also worked on theories of algorithms and designed calculating machines [2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#History [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz#Computation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz#Compu...
- mhurron 12y ago
- lorddoig 12y agoSometimes I get a little happy - maybe even proud - when I read about the achievements of women who pioneered this field (especially the awesome Admiral Hopper.) Then I stop smiling and remind myself that, even in praise, it's not relevant.
- minikites 12y agoWhy isn't it relevant?
- lorddoig 12y agoBecause any other approach, even those with the best of intentions, eventually boils down to the supposition that what you've got between your legs is somehow relevant. And you know what - on an aggregate, societal level - it might actually be: men and women are not the same, and that's OK. But this is a statistical observation that only applies to the population as a whole and is completely invalid at the individual level. If you feel yourself reaching for this knowledge at that level then evidently you don't have enough good information about the individual in front of you - that is the problem you need to fix. If we took away all the contextual stuff we know about our founding mothers and fathers and referred to them only with asexual codenames like 'Person X', absolutely nothing would change. If one's aim is achieving equality, the only way to truly do that is to strip away all the bullshit: gender - just like hair colour, accent, and anything else you care to name - shouldn't even register. It's a non-thought. If that's what feminism is about then I'm a feminist; but I'd never actually call myself that because 90% of the feminism I see today is most definitely not like this, it seems instead to be about making gender register in a very big way - and that's just as misguided and self-destructive as misogyny.
- minikites 12y agoIt's extremely relevant for women. Women are harassed more online and the harassment is more personal for women than men. Men get their work attacked, women get their identity attacked: http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170 http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome... > According to a 2005 report by the Pew Research Center, which has been tracking the online lives of Americans for more than a decade, women and men have been logging on in equal numbers since 2000, but the vilest communications are still disproportionately lobbed at women. We are more likely to report being stalked and harassed on the Internet—of the 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents from 2000 to 2012 to the volunteer organization Working to Halt Online Abuse, 72.5 percent were female. Sometimes, the abuse can get physical: A Pew survey reported that five percent of women who used the Internet said “something happened online” that led them into “physical danger.” And it starts young: Teenage girls are significantly more likely to be cyberbullied than boys. Just appearing as a woman online, it seems, can be enough to inspire abuse. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. > Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7. http://time.com/3305466/male-female-harassment-online/ http://time.com/3305466/male-female-harassment-online/ > [W]omen’s harassment is more likely to be gender-based and that has specific, discriminatory harms rooted in our history. The study pointed out that the harassment targeted at men is not because they are men, as is clearly more frequently the case with women. It’s defining because a lot of harassment is an effort to put women, because they are women, back in their “place.”
- MollyR 12y agoWhy can't we just code like professionals ? Sidenote: Disclaimer: I was heavily influenced by my Biology professors. I don't think society evolved in vacuum separate from genetic evolution. So while I don't appreciate insulting people by gender. I do however think there are gender differences. Another person on HN linked me to this documentary, which opened my mind. https://vimeo.com/19707588 https://vimeo.com/19707588
- liotier 12y ago> Why can't we just code like professionals ? Because we put our heart in it - so we code like amateurs. The best professionals are amateurs who just happen to be paid.
- MollyR 12y agoIs it fair to say putting your heart into something makes you an amateur at something ? I dunno, this feels off. Did I misunderstand the analogy ?
- kazinator 12y agoThe professional puts the customer's heart into something, not his own. My heart says I should spend the next ten weeks optimizing this interesting function that gets called once a year, because all higher priority tasks look like boring grunt work.
- liotier 12y ago> The professional puts the customer's heart into something, not his own. I like your definition - it puts authenticity in caring for one's partner at the center of the professional relation... First time in a long time that I read "professional" and it does not ring empty !
- liotier 12y ago> Is it fair to say putting your heart into something makes you an amateur at something ? Yes, that is the etymology of the word 'amateur' : 1784, "one who has a taste for (something)," from French amateur "lover of," from Latin amatorem (nominative amator) "lover," agent noun from amatus, past participle of amare "to love" - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=amateur http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=amateur Later this word has been used derogatorily, but it is not its original meaning. When people use 'amateur' derogatorily, I believe that 'dilettante' is the more accurate word.
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- ianstallings 12y agoOn the topic of equality in general - As an old man and a father of a 22 year old woman let me tell you what I've observed - women don't need your help and when you act like they need your protection you're no better than someone who treats them as weaklings. It's a fine line and imho the best bet is to just treat them as you would anyone else.
- detcader 12y agoWhether or not someone is "act[ing] like [women] need [their] protection" is relative assessment and you haven't even accused anyone of fitting the description.
- ianstallings 12y agoI reject your new grammatical protocols. RESEND in human format.
- detcader 12y agoI have no idea what you mean here. Again: who are you accusing of paternalism and why?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mercurial 12y agoDo you feel the women mentioned in the article were treated like their male colleagues? Or maybe I'm missing your point.
- vdaniuk 12y agoUgh. I am considering your intentions good, but your statement sounds evil. Most human beings need protection and help. Programming is hard. Learning to program is hard. Leaving happily in these crazy times is hard. Just be empathetic, dont be condescending and bam, your help will be greatly appreciated by men and women. That's what I think one should treat anyone else in this particular regard.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- kazinator 12y ago> What is now considered a male-dominated field, was once defined as “women’s work.” Once? It's naive to think that these attitudes do not persist, albeit in somewhat disguised forms, perhaps. At some universities, for instance, engineers regard CS majors as "wimps". Engineering is hard, CS is soft. Moreover, think about how there is an attitude that some "softer" or "easier" programming is lower on the pecking order. While programming as a broad category may not be "women's work", web design (even with client and server scripting) is "for girls" and, say, writing drivers for a network switch is for "real men". Oh, the hard/soft stereotyping in digital tech is alive and kicking!
- Dewie 12y agoWhat do they think about math majors? It's similarly "soft" in that it is a study of entirely intangible and abstract concepts - nothing to do with manly machinery or contraptions at all. What do they think about electrical engineers? Circuit board sewers...?
- mechg 12y agoAs someone who went to school for ME. The general opinion was: ME was harder than CS. Math majors were unlikely to get a job. Electrical and Chemical engineering were harder than ME (especially chemical) Civil engineering was a joke. (Probably because our statics and mechanics of materials classes were so easy in comparison with ME classes). These aren't my opinions just some observations of general opinions of undergrads.
- tonyarkles 12y agoThat definitely matches what seemed to be the prevailing perceptions for me when I was in undergrad. Whether or not they're actually accurate... hard to say, but that's how the people around me generally felt.
- detcader 12y agoWho says that the categorization of CS majors as wimps by engineers is related at all to CS being formerly dominated by women? Social construction of gender will seep into dynamics at any point where something can be argued as "weaker" than another thing.
- fmitchell0 12y ago> It becomes increasingly important to value each member of a programming team regardless of gender, age, race, or creed to attract and keep the best minds to build our future software. And this is actually what you don't want to do. You don't want to ignore gender, age, race, or creed. You want people to understand it, be open to the value it brings, connect with others outside their comfort zone, and embrace the differences. Doing things 'regardless' is how we've got here in the first place. We are all different. Ignoring those differences is not helping the problem.
- xenophonf 12y agoIt's a damn shame that ENIAC's programmers and those that followed them get no greater mention in the annals of history than the footnote that "computers before 1945 were women". I had a really good CSSE education, yet until recently, if you asked me to name a notable female computer scientist, Countess Lovelace or Grace Hopper would be the only person to come to mind, and I would be a little hazy on their accomplishments to boot (then, I would have said something about Hopper creating COBOL when her work was really quite a bit more fundamental and wide ranging than that, and as for Lady Lovelace, even now without peeking at Wikipedia, I think she had something to do with the math surrounding Babbage's engines and couldn't be more specific). It took a recent Imgur posting to become aware of people like Margaret Hamilton, who _led_ some absolutely astounding work for the Apollo Program. I'm sure there are other women of whom I'm ignorant that are every bit as important to modern computer science and software engineering as luminaries such as Turing or von Neumann. If some kind of history of the profession is to be included (and I think it should), there should at least be some mention of them during one's CSSE education.
- amyjess 12y agoYou can also add a couple more in somewhat more modern times: * Lynn Conway, who co-launched the Mead & Conway revolution that made VLSI feasible for the first time * Sophie Wilson, who developed the ARM architecture
- xenophonf 12y agoNo kidding. I somehow forgot about Radia Perlman, too.
- kazinator 12y agoDid you cherry pick these examples to some ironic purpose? Sophie Wilson was "born Roger Wilson" (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson). "While struggling with life in a male role, Conway had been married to a woman and had two children." (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway)
- kazinator 12y agoBy the way, note that a "woman's work is never done"---aha! I missed this obvious connection to software at first. :)
- nadam 12y agoIt think this has nothing to do with gender: In those early projects those who got the biggest respect (like John Neumann) have done the intellectual heavy-lifting. Seriously, that guy was a genius. Today it is the same way: The CTO or chief scientist of an elite company gets much bigger respect than a subordinate programmer who mostly does what he/she is instructed to do. This is not a gender issue in my opinion. Women like Yahho CEO Marissa Mayer or researcher/Coursera founder Daphne Koller are much more respected than an average programer guy maybe at a mediocre company.
- detcader 12y agoYou are naming anecdotes (really just one that is relevant to the era of history in question) involving individual people, while the writer is pointing out more general trends. I'm going to sympathize with author.
- gigglesfact 12y agoIs that why the same few programmer women are mentioned in these discussions? It seems really simple to me: where are all the programming languages designed by women? Why is open source 95-98% men? This does not match gender in CS or IT at all. Answer: because women as a group are overwhelmingly not interested in it. The patriarchy isn't telling the men to clock 80 hour weeks or selflessly maintain repos through the night. So why don't the women do it at any level close to men? Almost 10 years since FLOSSPOLS showed this massive imbalance. Feminists still in denial.
- myself248 12y agoTip for anyone having trouble reading this in Chrome: Hit F12, select "elements", go over to "Styles", and scroll down to find the "font-weight" and "color" entries, and uncheck them. This will let the default (readable!) font settings show through. For those of us who spend a lot of time on needlework and other fine tasks, it helps a lot! I don't know squat about CSS or how to fix this for real, but I've bumbled around enough to be able to override this crap when it makes an article physically uncomfortable to read.
- zx2c4 12y ago> "Software design and programming were considered clerical work." I realize that there's a certain art of code, and even a science that goes into the underlying algorithms, languages, and methodologies. Indeed I've spent the majority of my life now in one way or another transfixed by software development. But it seems to me that the vast amount of code written is still, in fact, "clerical work". Whether it's gluing together enterpriseBeanBuilderExpressionListMochaBusinessLogicAuditingFactories, or hooking up your node.js to your express.js to your bootstrap.js to transfer JSON over REST into your DOM, or even converting your 4000 character, 50 pipe bash one-liners into nicely polished scripts that properly account for exit codes, handle non-standard locations for sysfs, and work on a multitude of platforms, at the end of the day, a lot of this really does come down to clerical-style work. The difference is that the language, terminology, abstractions, and platforms are more obtuse than the previous generation's clerical work. The nouns are different and strange, but the predicates are all the same. There are indeed wondrous areas in computer science and software engineering, but I think for most of us, we're just doing fairly menial work. We feel smart doing it, because it's still new enough that the objects and content of it are still uncustomary for most folks, and in fact the best of secretaries and clerks have indeed possessed great intelligence. But at the end of the day, we need to recognize that most of what we do is mere clerical work, glorified only by the odd shapes of the more obscure symbol keys on our keyboards. ducks "I swear, by clerical, I meant the clergy!" ducks again
- cbd1984 12y agoFlagged for being transphobic and gender-essentialist.
- cbd1984 12y agoFlagged for being transphobic.
- cbd1984 12y agoWhy is mentioning transphobia such a downvote-trigger?