14 ms·

No Longer an Inspiration

362 points by e_d_g_a_r 12y ago

nonpctard 12y ago
Got to agree with this - stop patronising people with so-called "positive discrimination" and all the horrible PC bullshit. Give those who want to learn a helping hand, sure, but not some over the top tech minority outreach program that then pisses all over the very people you are claiming to try and help in the first place.
- Frondo 12y ago
  You'd like to toss out all of the women-focused (and I'd guess minority-focused in general) programs, but I'd be curious how much the people for whom those events/groups are intended generally feel. I think it's safe to say they sprung up in response to a market need--they didn't just come out of nowhere, for no point, and suddenly gain a lot of traction (because nothing does)--so how well do they work overall? I, unlike you, am not interested in dismissing them all, because I have seen lots of times how young white dudes get to run the show, and end up dismissing everyone who doesn't look like them, regardless of so-called merit. So I wonder...how much was this one an isolated "done wrong" event?
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    >I think it's safe to say they sprung up in response to a market need The politics of shaming and diversity guidelines are not market factors. This is like saying that the market wants us to have brainless middle managers. These things are all market inefficiencies that we should strive to eliminate or minimize. I can't imagine tech pioneers from the 80s and 90s being under scrutiny like groups today are. Would we have Linux if Linus worried that his largely white male contributors weren't diverse enough? Would we have Apple is Jobs felt like he needed to "white knight" the women at his company? Probably not.
    - Frondo 12y ago
      Whoa! I didn't realize that market forces now excluded stuff that you obviously don't like. If the market didn't want us to have "brainless middle managers," as you'd apparently characterize a wide swath of our colleagues, then those people would already have been efficiency'd out. Just like, if people who don't look like you weren't lining up to be involved in hackathons and groups that consist of people who don't look like you, those events wouldn't exist. People pay for it, whether you like it or approve of it or not. Behold, the market works!
      - cousin_it 12y ago
        then those people would already have been efficiency'd out If free market theory claimed that bad employees can't exist, that would be a pretty strong blow against free market theory ;-)
    - AlexandrB 12y ago
      > The politics of shaming and diversity guidelines are not market factors. Of course they are! Just like the politics of discrimination and dehumanization were market factors in previous eras. To pretend otherwise is to take a very narrow view of the market that ignores the full range of human interactions. Indeed, trends in industries such as fashion, music, film, and gaming are almost entirely driven by what ideas are popular at a given time and not by some objective utility function of the product.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    > I'd be curious how much the people for whom those events/groups are intended generally feel. I don't know about you, but I'm not at all interested in how the intended audience feels. I'm strongly interested in how their behaviors change with these programs. Programs that make people feel good but don't change behavior (i.e., don't get more women into tech) are not of value.
this2shallPass 12y ago
There are two issues: 1) What is the nature of hackathons? Many are pitchathons. 2) Think about people's incentives. There's a tech climate, constantly perpetuated in media and many people's conversations, where women are under attack in technology. If you you don't show you care as a man, if you don't bend over backwards to make sure everyone feels extra welcome, you might be branded sexist. I think people are tired or being attacked, and wanted to encourage some people new to programming.
- MartinCron 12y ago
  Do you have evidence for someone being branded sexist for merely not bending over backwards to prove that they aren't? Serious question. I have never seen it.
  - josephspens 12y ago
    They usually don't call you out on it, but they respond as if they're defending the position of women should be in tech, which is not the issue. I've experienced this personally.
  - borgia 12y ago
    >Do you have evidence for someone being branded sexist for merely not bending over backwards to prove that they aren't? Maybe not a specific person or event, but would the constant demand for "diversity reports" from tech companies from the "tech media" not be an example of this? And the subsequent shaming by the same media of these same companies for having too many penises in the office, or too few vaginas? I apologise for the vulgarity of the above, but that's what it is when it comes down to it.
    - MartinCron 12y ago
      And people say that women are too sensitive and just need to grow a thicker skin. You realize that there is a difference between saying there is a sexism problem and saying that everyone is a sexist, right?
  - 12y ago
kaitai 12y ago
I really enjoyed the beginning of the piece. We're all losers. Recently someone asked me how I did math and I replied that I failed repeatedly until a few times I didn't. Still true. Also true of coding, although google is much more helpful. The second half of the piece just didn't seem that compelling, though. What if the pdfs were inspirational? Maybe they were about saving baby seals or something. And novice guys get passes on all sorts of stuff too. So once some girls got a prize that seems fake to someone who worked hard. Also, coding schools promise to make people ninja rockstars in six weeks, because they want to sell spots and people want to believe it. Maybe the piece is upvoted because people resonate with that feeling of being mad that someone "undeserving" got a prize. I don't see that as a useful feeling to cultivate.
- tabrischen 12y ago
  Agreed. Different people may have different reasons for going to hackathons. For some, it may be to practise their skills at solving more technical problems and for others it may be simply to validate an idea, for which a wix side and a PDF are perfectly reasonable MVPs. It's a great thing idea to set aside categories to encourage participation for novice / beginners to hackathons. We all have to start somewhere, perhaps the author forgot that she herself was in a similar situation just a few months ago.
67726e 12y ago
Well how about that, a realistic look at what pandering mess subsets of our industry and programming culture have become. My least favorite part was the little bit at the end, apologizing to the organizers of the hackathon. Don't apologize, they're just some pandering asshats being superficially progressive, because hey, someone without a dick and pale skin participated! And thank fuck someone touched on those "Pay us $30,000 and become a 1337 h4x0r camps. I don't know if we're in a bubble, but if it were to burst, there's gonna be some surprised folks getting culled. If you attended one of camps, you better not stop clawing your way to the top. You better keep clawing util your fingers are bloody, nail-less nubs. You attended a Ruby camp? That's sweet, but you're applying to a Java shop, and you cannot "fake it till you make it" with your cargo-cult practices. You can't even begin to describe what an interface is, but hey, that $70k/year job is calling your name, isn't it? Hell, maybe I'm just bitter and jaded at the ripe old age of 21 after doing this professionally for 4 years, or that I've been attending the prestigious LMGTFY University since I was about 9. Or maybe I'm a little brain damaged after my copy of Sedgewick dropped of the bookshelf and onto my head. Maybe those early, informative years spent cutting my teeth on assembly have done some irreparable damaged to my psyche. Stop pandering, lend a hand, lend encouragement to the folks who need it. Everyone had helped along but way, and I spend way too much time tutoring folks, but stop pushing folks into the industry who are chasing the almighty dollar or just aren't interested. Help them get their feet wet, but if they don't like it, don't force them off the diving board. I'm gonna be maintaining their cruft long after they're gone.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
onion2k 12y ago
Looks like the winning team hacked the hackathon by finding a solution to the problem of "how to win a hackathon" in a clever way. I say well played. If the judges accepted this PDF entry, and it was within the rules, then it's very bad sportsmanship for the other contestants to say they didn't deserve a prize. The fact they didn't write any code makes absolutely no difference at all. Hackathons are about finding solutions to problems, not writing code.
- bradjohnson 12y ago
  It doesn't look like they found or exploited any solution but rather the judges were determined to let them win regardless of the quality of their entry.
parfe 12y ago
The author writes: "After deliberating, the judges announced a new “Most Inspirational” category" but this category is not new. The author seems to have misinterpreted the course of events. Based on clicking the blog's twitter link, this is the hackathon attended by the author: https://2013.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2013.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2015.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york-ny/ https://2015.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york-ny/ And the project in question that didn't deserve the award, in the author's opinion: http://aekblaw.wix.com/asteroidascent http://aekblaw.wix.com/asteroidascent they also have a sample curricula http://media.wix.com/ugd/57f674_99d136685bfe400f80022bc3652e9f7f.pdf http://media.wix.com/ugd/57f674_99d136685bfe400f80022bc3652e... and a code repo https://github.com/spaceappsnyc/asteroidascent https://github.com/spaceappsnyc/asteroidascent
- gooseus 12y ago
  EDIT - I didn't realize those links where for 3 years of the same event... The hackathon you link to is from 2013, the article is from 2 days ago and that repo you link had its first commit 4 days ago. Perhaps her experience is based off what was presented 2 years ago at the actual hackathon and not what they've produced in the subsequent time?
  - sirclueless 12y ago
    I think the timeline is correct and the article is about 2015. The Most Inspirational of the 2015 event, which was held April 11, 4 days ago, involved a Wix website. Neither of the other years appear to.
    - gooseus 12y ago
      Yeah, I realized that... decided to edit the comment with that info (rather than delete) in case someone else was gonna make the same wrong assumption as me.
- jff 12y ago
kaylarose 12y ago
As a woman engineer I understand what the OP is trying to say, but it sounds callous and (surprisingly) oblivious to the realities of this field. As someone else pointed out: "1) What is the nature of hackathons? Many are pitchathons." I have also lost "hackathons" to projects that were objectively NOT technical (mocked-up images of an app, without a single line of code). It happens often, and it's always a bummer to lose, but often they might actually be solving a bigger issue than me or my team. For the group of women (girls?) that won - as you pointed out - maybe they will continue doing hackathons (and maybe - despite your doubt - they even eventually progressing beyond the Wix stage) because they won an encouragement award at their first hackathon. It's like a consolation prize for mustering up the courage to present their product that was obviously not as technically advanced as some other products. That takes guts, a lot of people (men/women/other...) might just slink out the back door after the first few presentations. So good for them, in that sense - they indeed are an inspiration for people just starting out.
- knowtheory 12y ago
  Yeah, one of the huge problems our field has is that it doesn't give people a solid sense of how you upgrade your skills and what kind of waypoint you're at relative to others (and that that's okay!). It is magnificent to encourage newcomers to the field. We should also have level playing fields for folks to participate with everyone (and not stratify further than we already do). But it sucks when these sorts of objectives collide and end up alienating people. (and heck sports have awards for rookies for example!) The other thing that's really gear-grinding about OP is that... we're judging our worth based on what happens in hackathons? I hope to $deity most people aren't doing that, because hackathons are super slanted POVs on the world.
  - orbitur 12y ago
    (and heck sports have awards for rookies for example!) Well, for rookies who outperform what's expected of rookies... rookies who perform at the same level as their more experienced peers.
    - 12y ago
ElComradio 12y ago
This article is problematic. It's common knowledge that women need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development as well as a shield wall of allies to fend off constant microaggressions, so we have to ask, in the most nonjudgmental way possible, why the author is so obviously acting against her own interests. [Edit: /s]
- josephspens 12y ago
  Your assertion that women "need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development" is insulting and distasteful. My mother and grandmother were both software engineers at IBM, at a time where the male dominated tech culture was MUCH worse than it is today, and they both did really well. My boss, a woman, is arguably the best software engineer at our company. Women don't need handholding. They need incentive. They need to be exposed to tech culture. Lowering the bar for women and putting them on a pedestal for showing up does a great injustice to women like my mother and grandmother who, despite working in a culture which heavily discriminated against women, became kick-ass engineers.
  - jff 12y ago
    Carefully re-read the parent comment and ask yourself if he was being truly serious.
    - josephspens 12y ago
      It's not obvious, I've heard similar remarks from people who genuinely believe it.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    > Your assertion that women "need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development" is insulting and distasteful. Please, please for the love of root do not use rhetoric like this. It's hollow posturing that offers nothing beyond scolding someone for the sin of not agreeing with you. Being insulting is not the same as being wrong. Being distasteful is not the same as being wrong. Only one thing is the same as being wrong, and that's being wrong. I know this is an insulting, disrespectful, and distasteful thing to say... but being offended does not make you right. So I have a question for you: why did you write the first line of your comment?
borgia 12y ago
Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing we can expect a lot more of in the coming months and perhaps years as the "tech media" continue to attack it from the fringes. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. There is no satiating the thirst from the "tech media" for faux outrage driven clicks. This is a woman in tech, but more specifically she is a techie in tech. She has been assimilated into the normality of the modern tech industry and is participating in a highly competitive, skill driven arena. Make no mistake, any company that does not behave as the organisers of this hackathon here - not actively displaying an organised, certainly biased, effort to promote the "Women in Tech" narrative - are open to being squatted on from above from the "moral highground" occupied by the tech media. This is what happens when you attack meritocracy in the name of making people feel good. It is what happens when you create an unrelenting narrative that continually assaults an industry over how many or few people with a penis or vagina they have in it. It is what happens when you've an industry surrounded by "journalists" who've never spent an actual day in it, ready to fire out articles shaming you for your lack of, or apparent abundance of, penises or vaginas in your company. The author here is simply another bystander to the continued assault on the technology industry.
- hedgew 12y ago
  The media loves gender-related news because they are so divisive. They provoke our emotions and pull us into wasteful and hateful arguments. Such news are almost always the most read ones - the most profitable ones.
  - beat 12y ago
    The article was an individual's blog post, not the mainstream media.
    - saint_fiasco 12y ago
      Replace money with attention and their point stands.
    - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
metaphorm 12y ago
This Gina woman, I like her. Maybe I'm sympathetic because I agree with her point and enjoy a good rant post, but my own acknowledged biases aside, I think she really does make a great point here.
protomyth 12y ago
Credibility is important. We all want to be credible and have or accomplishments actually mean something. We do, as a society, give special prizes to folks who are doing there best but have some disability (in the broad sense of the word) that makes their best spectacular only in the light of the realization of their disability. We cheer their accomplishment because it is amazing, and we wonder what might have been if fate hadn't dealt them a bad hand. Their best might not even make it to normal and certainly not world-class. But, it inspires and we acknowledge that as a society. This isn't one of those situations. This is giving the same credibility to people who are not encumbered as people who put the time in and understood the rules of the situation. This is giving a "Most Effort" prize to someone entering a vegetarian salad at a BBQ competition. It diminishes the credibility of the hackathon, cheapens the sense of accomplishment for participants when they finally win, and diminishes the value of experience in our industry which is a huge problem.
Dirlewanger 12y ago
Awesome article. This is something much of the HN crowd will have trouble coming to terms with I'm sure. An actual woman programmer (that is, not a tech journalist/some other peripheral body commenting on an industry they are not intimate with) who (apparently) sees behind the veil of getting as many on-the-fence women kinda-sorta interested in programming into the field in an effort for an employer/organization to say "Look, we're diverse! Look at how many women we employ!" while being 100% disingenuous in the same breath.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Are you sure you didn't just write: "An 'actual women programmer' said something from which I can extrapolate into my own agenda?" Also: if what they wrote was right, what does it matter what their gender is? Right is right, wrong is wrong.
  - philh 12y ago
    > if what they wrote was right, what does it matter what their gender is? There seems to be a strand of thought which claims that men have nothing to say on these issues. Pointing out that the author is a woman may be an attempt to head off such objections.
    - gaius 12y ago
      Keep an eye on such people. If they are white, do they feel entitled to voice their opinions on race issues? If they are middle class, or went to a $40,000/year college, do they expect to be heard when they speak about poverty? That will be enlightening.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kalium 12y ago
    > Also: if what they wrote was right, what does it matter what their gender is? Right is right, wrong is wrong. This depends greatly on who the commentator is. Meredith's recent piece touched on this - https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c To some, you do not get to have a voice unless you comply with certain identity requirements. How right or wrong you are is irrelevant unless you have the identity that says you get to speak. To others, such as us, this is madness and truth is no respecter of identities.
cbhl 12y ago
"Building static HTML pages" is not always inappropriate for a hackathon. For most college-level demos, a mostly-static demo with just enough javascript to pull data to make it feel fresh is a "hack" that will get you further than your peers. Depending on your level of ethics, some companies will actually do demos that are this level of wire-and-duct-tape to sell the product, and then build it afterwards. The one big catch with this approach is that you can't pitch something that's non-trivial technically -- if you do, and can't demonstrate you figured out the secret sauce, then your pitch becomes worthless. Many first-timers will walk into a hackathon with just their laptop, and get stuck in the trap of setting up their environment over the whole weekend. They'll spend hours trying to download an IDE and interpreter/compiler and libraries over a poor or nonexistent internet connection. For these people, "build some static web pages" is one of the easiest ways to get them to the point where they have something they can comfortably demo in front of their peers -- and so what if it doesn't really work; they had fun and can come back next time. If you build a thing that really works, fine. But a lot of people also walk into hackathons with pre-formed teams and 80% completed projects (idea, mocks and artwork already done; IDEs already set up; maybe even hardware already wired up) and having an emphasis on "real working code" for a time-constrained event only encourages this sort of "cheating".
jobu 12y ago
In my limited experience with hackathons it's usually the most polished looking entry that wins - technical merit has little to do with it. If they built a cool site without a line of code then who the hell cares! Were there rules or a theme for this hackathon that were overlooked for this specific entry? Article seems overly critical to me.
fsk 12y ago
If hackathons are stupid and unfair, then stop going to them. Pick a project that takes longer than a weekend and do it.
Somasis 12y ago
Not really a big fan of the conflation of womanhood with a vagina.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  Given the heavy prevalence of BIOTRUTHS and gender normativity on this forum, I'm not at all surprised by the trans-erasure. Disappointed, yeah, surprised, no.
neilk 12y ago
I don't know anything about the hackathon Gina is referring to. But I think we've all seen the same thing - a faux commitment to diversity by just giving the most brown, female, or otherwise disadvantaged person in the room an award for trying. But let's not take the GamerGate approach that diversity is therefore just a conspiracy of political correctness. It doesn't mean that diversity is a bad idea, it's just that it's harder than giving people BS awards. If you're committed to diversity, it means you are committing to undoing disadvantages that other people have been enduring their whole life. In other words: training, in a respectful and supportive environment. The good news for techies is that it takes relatively little time to train a talented and intelligent person from zero to productive. We're used to smart 16-year-olds sometimes coding circles around industry veterans. Surely we can do the same for other kinds of people in their 20s and 30s.
0xCMP 12y ago
There are two sides to this. For one, I agree with her that people who actually want to be a part of this world (not just observing with interest) and contribute, either to the field or just on a team, do not need to be held up as 'inspirational.' I hope that team knew that, yes, they didn't do a good job but at least you're doing something. I know I hated in college when I saw it happen to men and women equally. On the other hand, there is something to be said for those people actually hacking. They have experience and knowledge they don't need to gain all at once right there to make something cool. I went in to that college I mentioned with like 6-7 years of programming under my belt. Projects and clients and etc. These people barely knew that there was a command line in Windows, let alone how pointers or c strings worked. That happened to everyone, but there were a few 'hackers' like me who knew a lot coming in. All of us were guys. There were no girl 'hackers' and I don't presume to know exact reasons why but their actions basically had to do with what those women who could have been one of the 'hackers'. The judges were trying to combat, or at least show they combat that horrible situation. I hated it when girls would say they couldn't do CS/IT stuff because it was too hard for them or something. Like if it was magic or whatever. Since, I've realized its not true
phkahler 12y ago
I really don't understand this at all. Yes, there are fewer women in tech than men. But where I come from they are not rare. At one workplace we had at least one woman in almost every role. Nobody ever made mention of the fact that they are women. Nobody ever treated them differently, and AFAICT none of them ever had a complaint about gender issues. Is this a coastal thing? Anyone else in the Detroit area agree or disagree with my assessment?
- TwiztidK 12y ago
  Not in Detroit but at another large company in Michigan with a mostly male engineering and IT staff. I witnessed* one situation where a woman was treated inappropriately (*I was told about it the day after it when she was trying to figure out if it was worth reporting to HR. Short story: it was, she did, no idea what happened to the guy because he doesn't normally work with engineers). Other than that situation, my female peers are always treated with respect, people have a high opinion of them, and they don't seem to have trouble getting promotions.
mwill 12y ago
Sort of related, reminded me of this: a friend of mine who is a very skilled lady, attended some "programming for women only" type events, her intention was to meet people and pitch in to lend a hand. She told me that 4 out of 5 that she went to were charging exorbitant amounts and teaching things like how to configure a pre-hosted Wordpress install and maybe basic HTML+CSS, and calling it programming. She was pretty pissed about the whole ordeal, I remember her saying something like: When you compare the content of some 'women only' events in tech to the non-specific counterparts, it's condescending and borderline exploitative (ie, charging for pretty limited services) Kind of a raw deal, especially for a beginner, I imagine.
- tehfedaykin 12y ago
  I'm a woman who runs these kind of events. We did one on Saturday night, and I was criticized(by other mentors even) for "making things too hard" and "scaring women away". We were using node and the command line. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
  - duckmysick 12y ago
    Hey. I'm interested in the logistics behind hosting such events. How many people were present? Was this just a one-off event or is this a part of a longer workshop? Did everyone bring their own computers or did you provide them for the participants? If people brought their own, how did you deal with the fact that node.js is not pre-installed - was there any introductory period where you gave instructions how to install/configure the environment? If so, did you account for different operating systems? If, on the other hand, you provided the computers, who supplied them? A local library, a school, a private company, yourself? I don't need a specific name, just a rough category. I'm asking, because I'm interested in hosting a similar event, but for a younger crowd. I figured pure JavaScript would be the best choice because you don't need a fancy setup - it works straight in your web browser, no matter the platform. Using something like Python or Ruby (not to mention C++ or Java) would be more difficult to coordinate.
whoisthemachine 12y ago
I agree that rewarding people for not doing anything other than showing up is antithetical to a hackathon, or the software engineering community in general. However, I really liked your line "Pass the mountain dew, brah. Git push -f, brah.", I might steal that.
- pekk 12y ago
  I thought a hackathon was for people to do projects, and not always or necessarily to "beat" other people.
lordnacho 12y ago
I don't see what the problem is. They didn't get the gold medal, they got an encouragement prize. When I was in high school, I was on the soccer team. We went to a tournament where we were by far the smallest school. We had our asses handed to us. At the ending ceremony, for the first time ever, they handed out a fair play award. To us. Did we think we'd won? No, of course not. It's just a token of appreciation, a thanks for attending. I don't see why this kind of thing is so bad. You want to encourage people to show up to your event, so you make up a reason to thank them.
femto113 12y ago
Categories that specifically reward participation by newbies aren't new nor unique to hackathons. The only chess trophy I ever won was for "Top Unrated", which, obviously, you are only eligible for in your first rated tournament.
sfiles 12y ago
Woman software engineer here. This article, although maybe not totally on point for why the female team won an award, does hit home on gender issues in the tech. As has been said in this thread multiple times, less women are in the field probably (and partially) because there is less interest. I believe a large part of that is how male-centric tech is portrayed while growing up. But once I displayed an interest in high school opportunities were thrown at me from left and right, to the point that I felt bad for guys who didn't get similar opportunities. As expected, as a techie in college I was surrounded by mostly guys, which was fine 99% percent of the time. There were those special few who saw themselves superior and made sexist remarks. Guys who wanted to help with homework because they didn't think the female brain could figure it out. You just prove them wrong and move on. There is a gender issue, but it is not all one sided. Talking to the ladies who let the gentlemen do their hw for them (and the swath of everything else)
verytrivial 12y ago
Honest question to those defending the status quo with the word "meritocracy": How would a functional meritocracy produce the absolute sausage-fest that is the GCC maintainers list[1]? If that seems like an unfair reference, then what makes the GCC maintainers list either so especially non-functional or not meritocratic at selecting people based purely upon skill instead of their genitals? [1] https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/MAINTAINERS https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/MAINTAINERS
- iza 12y ago
  Maybe because the contributors are mostly men?
cenazoic 12y ago
I'm an (older) woman attempting a career change into programming. (But not new to tech or being the only/few woman in a given environment.) It's disappointing that every time this conversation comes up, it devolves into mean-spirited pseudo-'objective' statements about how 'maybe women just aren't as interested'/'not as good'/'PC/SJW-bullshit'/etc. Look, I'm basically a reasonable person. I'm not looking to be offended at every turn or by every possible 'microaggression' (a concept I personally dislike, btw). I personally haven't experienced many of the issues that other women have. That doesn't mean those issues don't exist in the macro, simply because I haven't experienced them in the micro. Nor does it mean that despite one's 'objective/rational' view, that there aren't underlying subconscious assumptions/biases at work in some situations. Small example. I'll be attending a new coding school in June, developed by the Nerdery in Minneapolis, called Prime Digital Academy. The guys (and they're all guys) running/developing curriculum/teaching seem like genuinely nice people who are putting a particular emphasis on diversity (women, older career changers, etc.) In fact, the oldest person accepted so far is 60! Now, take a look a some of the recent images posted on their @goprimeacademy twitter account. Notice the seating. You're wanting to be accommodating to, among others, older people (not to mention potential disabled people), so you put them in beanbags and on hard (or maybe foam) cubes? Perhaps, despite good intentions, they're making unconscious assumptions about the people that have to sit on them. I don't speak for all women, nor do I think that all women have some universally shared experience. However, I do think that it's very possible (if not extremely likely) that despite one's best intentions, preconceived notions/biases (including the idea that you're an 'objective' person) can preclude you from seeing other people have had different experiences than you, or came to different conclusions. Those notions/biases don't make you a bad person (we all have them, of course), but if you're unwilling to examine them honestly at some point, then it seems reasonable to conclude that you're probably speaking/acting in bad faith. If a lot of (women, POC, or yes, even men, in the case of nursing[1]) are telling an existing environment that they're unwelcoming/unfriendly in some way, then perhaps the most 'reasonable' or 'objective' conclusion is that there's a problem. [1]http://www.professionalnursing.org/article/S8755-7223%2810%2900146-8/abstract http://www.professionalnursing.org/article/S8755-7223%2810%2...
rotoole 12y ago
Gina, I think the first part of your essay is inspirational. I liked and related to your experience learning to code. I'm sure many others on HackerNews would agree. The second part was the opposite though. I had to read it a few times to fully grok what you were actually mad about: 1) the "inspiration award" winning team's built something without writing code. 2) the judges "lied" to these women that they were/could-be coders. To the first point, I would say, expand your definition of hacking. This team defined a problem, worked on a solution, pitched it to a jury, and got awarded for it. Isn't that what a hack-a-thon is all about? And it really seemed contradictory for you to say, "a real hacker is someone who tries to code all night, and regardless of how shitty it looks, stands up there and says proudly, “Yeah, I made this. It didn’t work out very well, but I learned a lot." Then to turn around and bash their submission for not meeting your own standard of hacking. Why? Because they aren't "real" programmers? Because you doubt they will ever be "real" programmers? Because the judges awarded them for being women who tried? Because you felt slighted? You come off as self-interested, snobby, elitist, and bitter. As a woman and engineer, what kind of role-model are you projecting for your community? I hope the promise of more women in engineering is to change the dominant "brogramming culture" to be less homogenous and more inclusive of alternative people, ideas, and processes. Don't you?
- minthd 12y ago
  Most people at hackatons expect they'll need to build something in order to win. So they constrain their ideas around that - and then do the hard work of building that. It's about fairness towards the other participants of the hackatons. Otherwise ,if hackatons were about ideas, most people wouldn't bother coding.
  - rotoole 12y ago
    I'd argue they did build a technology solution, they did constrain their ideas to achieve it during the hack-a-thon, and their "inspiration" award is just that. They were awarded for their ideas and efforts, despite their lack of skills. It's a message of encouragement to others who are just starting out. This article is like a high schooler getting jealous of a kindergardener for getting a gold star on their homework.
DannoHung 12y ago
I don't get it. They put together documentation. If that doesn't count for the Hackathon, why does building 3D models count?
AhrowTway 12y ago
When Clinton's election campaign starts funding hit pieces about the obvious gender bias in mining and garbage collection industries, I'll start taking this narrative seriously. Until then, keep being a sucker for #hilary2016, HN.
atmosx 12y ago
Am I the only here thinking that it's not a big deal if some guys at a hackthon erroneously promoted a shitty application (Essentially a non-application) just because the team was composed of women? I mean this is how life works. Women in this context are seen as newcomers and by nature, they are more fragile. It's only natural that men try to promote women in the tech industry, since they are a scarcity. It would be the same thing if the team at the hackathon was composed by 5 13-year olds building a simple 3D-printer. They are 13-year-olds, they are out-of-context and require special attention. That's something that is bound to change, especially given the publicity women-related posts seem to get. More and more women are going to start programming. Then, this is probably going to change. Generally speaking, I work (and communicate) better with women than men. Women seem to be much more flexible, easier to communicate. I understand the point the author is making, but again, I think it's not a big deal. It's not like Google hired 4 women instead of 4 men as a developers because they were females.
- tdaltonc 12y ago
  You might want to clarify what you mean by "fragile" because some people are going to interpret you as saying that women are emotional/physically fragile by virtue of being women.
  - andypants 12y ago
    I assume more fragile by virtue of being newcomers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- fny 12y ago
  I rather consider this part of a feedback loop. There's such a thing as "going to far." When that happens people naturally react and provide a valuable perspective, which will help guide future "affirmative action." Gina's concerns are extremely valid. Perhaps we've reached a point where gender shouldn't entirely trump merit. Perhaps a mixed-gender team (like the one she was on) with a more technical project should have been considered. Perhaps we're starting to piss off our hard-working women by promoting superficial yet PR-worthy success stories like the winners of that hackathon. We just need to find a balance. I'm confident that for as long as we stay open to having these discussions, listen to the people we intend to effect, and make future decisions accordingly, we'll reach true gender equality sooner.
moron4hire 12y ago
Discounting the politics and focusing strictly on mechanics for a moment--the purpose of a participating in a hackathon should be to compete in a hackathon. I know a lot of people who have gone to them because they want to start a startup. What an absurd idea. If your purpose is to start a project, you should be able to start projects on your own. If your purpose is to meet people, there are far more frequent and better places to meet people than hackathons. If you want to be a programmer, you should be programmering. I trained in martial arts for years and competed in tournaments. After a while, I got bored of tournaments. I kept training, because I liked martial arts. I wasn't in it for the tournaments, and not going to the tournaments didn't make me any less of a martial artist. I always found it strange that there were always a few students who mostly only showed up for the tournaments. They would come to maybe one class every other week, but if there was a tournament, they were there. Mostly, they didn't do well (of course, because they didn't train in even the things that were important to tournaments), but if all they wanted was to be there in the tournament atmosphere and be able to say they competed, then that would have been fine. But that was not the case. They also complained that they didn't win. If their goal was to win martial arts tournaments, then they were doing it wrong. They should have been practicing forms routines in front of mirrors, to the detriment of learning wrist-locking and take-down techniques. Much, much more common were the students who did show up to class every day (even though they only had two classes a week) but only ever phoned it in. They were certainly punching the card, but they weren't particularly talented. Yes, most of the time they'd win because they were the best of the worst, they were in a division of other card-punchers. But sometimes they'd win against much more dedicated students, people who put serious training in, people who exerted a lot of effort. And before I understood what tournaments were about, it upset me. Tournaments are just a reinforcement structure for an industry of selling tournaments. The market for tournaments is mediocre students. Hell, the market for martial arts schools is mediocre students. It's all a self-feeding system. It makes money for the ring masters by providing a fantasy of achievement to the customer. If it were about skill, they'd lose their monetization base. My point is, understand what your goals are, and do those things that further your goals. You want to be a martial artist, you get in the dojo and you train harder than everyone else. You want to compete in tournaments, just show up to the tournaments. You want to win tournaments, get in the dojo and you skip the pushups and skip the self-defense techniques and focus only on flexibility and forms. If all you want is to be a programmer, then just program. If you want to win hackathons, then focus on learning the latest and greatest JS frameworks for rapid app development. Not for building big, scalable applications. Not for robust security. Not for elegant code. Just for meeting the goals. The problem is that these things--hackathons, martial arts tournaments, Olympic gymnastics, junior-varsity-anything--they're all just different types of beauty pageants. They're inconsequential to anything that is not in their immediate sphere of influence, and that sphere is tiny. Gina's complaint is not caused by the realization that hackathons are bullshit, it's caused by her being exposed to the hackathon. It's caused by her conflating being a programmer with competing in hackathons. Which I ultimately think is a pretty rosy picture. It means that, by avoiding the hackathon, not only will she not know about the bullshit that goes on there, but she will also have more time to do the thing that really makes her happy: programming.
lnanek2 12y ago
I don't see anything wrong with this. No one complains when programmer only teams turn in something ridiculously ugly and complex that could never achieve consumer adoption. So why should we complain when design/ux/business/beginners turn in the other side of a project? Just laying things out and producing content and thinking about the user experience. Both sides of talent are needed to make quality entries anyway, so railing against this is just going to drive off the designer, artist, and other fields that are needed to produce good work.
jaimebuelta 12y ago
One of the main problems on tech is the "middle ground", covering that special place after rookie and before being an expert... It's incredibly difficult to effectively communicate about this, and I think is why people get frustrated or think they are not good. Because they are not on the "expert level" on something (knowing every single detail), but the simple hello world small apps are too easy and doesn't feel awesome any more... The area in between is not visible, so it feels a little like not making progress sometimes... Though is arguably the most interesting/common one. Related joke: http://9gag.com/gag/4614736/if-an-author-of-a-computer-book-wrote-a-math-textbook http://9gag.com/gag/4614736/if-an-author-of-a-computer-book-...
amyjess 12y ago
If you want to know why there are so few women in tech, I suggest reading this comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883#comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883#comic The pressure doesn't come from within the industry, nor is it aimed at adults who have already expressed an interest. It comes from society as a whole, and it's aimed at children. At first, it comes from parents and teachers. Later on, it comes from their peers. By the time a girl graduates high school and starts figuring out what she wants in life, she's already biased against tech. Attempts at recruitment aren't going to significantly affect the gender ratio if they're aimed at college students or college graduates. It's already too late. Politically-biased hackathons and hiring policies will never have any real effect, except maybe to breed resentment on every side of the issue. Hey, I'm going to share some personal experience. I'm MtF transgender, and I began my transition at 28. It's pretty well known, at least in the trans community, that MtFs are overrepresented in tech, and that overrepresentation increases proportionally with the age of transition (though the age thing is becoming less relevant as the average age of transitioning is dropping, and the sharp contrast between "older transitioners" and "younger transitioners" is starting to blur). On the other hand, the ratio of MtFs to FtMs in the tech industry is about the same as the ratio of cis men to cis women (and possibly even more dramatic). The only possible answer is that people are encouraged/discouraged from tech during childhood, well before transition. It's also accelerated by how the tech community tends to be open and accepting of people who don't fit in socially. Most trans people -- MtF and FtM -- tend to associate with groups of misfits and outcasts even well before transition. For MtFs, that includes tech geeks, and for FtMs, that includes various fandoms. Compare the MtF dominance on reddit vs. the FtM dominance on tumblr: reddit was aimed at techies, and tumblr was aimed at fandoms.
ebbv 12y ago
If you really care about programming and not having someone else tell you you're good, then do it because you want to. I have been programming for over 25 years. I have never and would never go to a hackathon. I program because I want to. I program because I'm paid to. I don't program because I want a room full of strangers to stare at me. Turning programming into the type of popularity contest they had at the high school prom I never went to sounds like a nightmare.
orthoganol 12y ago
Isn't the OP a beginner in tech herself (bootcamp graduate, seemingly of recent)? She's not in a position to judge others as not being 'true coders' or as being 'too much of beginners.' It's also a rather quirky dramatization of what it means to be a programmer, but amusing to read either way.
- e_d_g_a_r 12y ago
  She didn't go to any bootcamp.
  - vellum 12y ago
    >I was a female who went to the bootcamp of LMGTFY A lot of us went there.
digitalzombie 12y ago
Yeah hackathon feels like mostly free code for you. There's competition for that like Kaggle which doesn't dress it as hackathon imo. It's hey it's a competition, here's the usually term and conditions and you might win some money and it'll be good for resume. Hackathon seems like a nicer word for something else, like death tax or climate change (instead of global warming). With hackathon I'm not sure about that, it have become some sleezy thing, there are a few exception like projects that help a certain causes or open source. OpenBSD had a hackaton and replaces Nginx with the hackton server. It was a funny article where they were drunk and committed to the tree without testing it throughly. Unfortunately in her case the causes was just political bs. I do agree we shouldn't lie to people how easy it is. But we should mention that it's a skill and like all skill it takes time and deliberate exercise to be good. I love the post. It seems like a dairy of growth as a person and gaining humility. I think she's a bit harsh on the women in term of not being programmer and then define hacker. I'm guessing her definition of hacker and programmer are the same? In general, being positive would be better but it does highlight and emphasize on not lying about how easy it is to code.
kragen 12y ago
I thought it was kind of bullshit when Aaron Swartz was like 10 that he won an Ars Digita prize for a static-HTML site, because the contest was for database-backed web sites. (I hadn’t entered, I think I wasn’t even eligible, I didn’t have any skin in the game.) About two or three years later, at my first startup, he was telling us for free all the things we would later learn through hard experience we were doing wrong because we didn’t listen. Later he became one of the best programmers I ever had a chance to work with. In short, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with distinguishing between levels of technical mastery, and honoring more highly the higher levels of technical mastery. We’ll never get anywhere as a civilization if we let the mundanes think that your cousin Brian, who knows how to install antivirus software, is equivalent to Vint Cerf and Don Knuth. But that doesn’t mean we can’t honestly recognize and encourage people’s progress, even before they reach world-class status. And, as kaylarose points out, it’s totally legit to reward people for making progress on important problems, even if they aren’t hard problems.
MollyR 12y ago
This article really hit home. Especially her line about "Now I’m part of the irrelevant, established order of brogrammers." I worked my ass off. Instead of going out to party, I studied. Even after graduating and beginning a job, I still studied every night. Because tech is hard and I wanted to be more than just a programmer,I want to be a competent professional Software Engineer. I still study a few hours a day. I watch new lectures on youtube, I occasionally follow people like John Carmack on twitter, and I experiment with new coding techniques or styles. I do not understand why working hard to gain skills is not "inspirational", or makes me a "brogrammer". And I too have been told I'm not "inspirational" before. It makes me wonder if its some kind of code word. I honestly am beginning to resent the politics involved.

362 points by e_d_g_a_r 12y ago

Got to agree with this - stop patronising people with so-called "positive discrimination" and all the horrible PC bullshit. Give those who want to learn a helping hand, sure, but not some over the top tech minority outreach program that then pisses all over the very people you are claiming to try and help in the first place.

Frondo 12y ago
You'd like to toss out all of the women-focused (and I'd guess minority-focused in general) programs, but I'd be curious how much the people for whom those events/groups are intended generally feel. I think it's safe to say they sprung up in response to a market need--they didn't just come out of nowhere, for no point, and suddenly gain a lot of traction (because nothing does)--so how well do they work overall? I, unlike you, am not interested in dismissing them all, because I have seen lots of times how young white dudes get to run the show, and end up dismissing everyone who doesn't look like them, regardless of so-called merit. So I wonder...how much was this one an isolated "done wrong" event?
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  >I think it's safe to say they sprung up in response to a market need The politics of shaming and diversity guidelines are not market factors. This is like saying that the market wants us to have brainless middle managers. These things are all market inefficiencies that we should strive to eliminate or minimize. I can't imagine tech pioneers from the 80s and 90s being under scrutiny like groups today are. Would we have Linux if Linus worried that his largely white male contributors weren't diverse enough? Would we have Apple is Jobs felt like he needed to "white knight" the women at his company? Probably not.
  - Frondo 12y ago
    Whoa! I didn't realize that market forces now excluded stuff that you obviously don't like. If the market didn't want us to have "brainless middle managers," as you'd apparently characterize a wide swath of our colleagues, then those people would already have been efficiency'd out. Just like, if people who don't look like you weren't lining up to be involved in hackathons and groups that consist of people who don't look like you, those events wouldn't exist. People pay for it, whether you like it or approve of it or not. Behold, the market works!
    - cousin_it 12y ago
      then those people would already have been efficiency'd out If free market theory claimed that bad employees can't exist, that would be a pretty strong blow against free market theory ;-)
  - AlexandrB 12y ago
    > The politics of shaming and diversity guidelines are not market factors. Of course they are! Just like the politics of discrimination and dehumanization were market factors in previous eras. To pretend otherwise is to take a very narrow view of the market that ignores the full range of human interactions. Indeed, trends in industries such as fashion, music, film, and gaming are almost entirely driven by what ideas are popular at a given time and not by some objective utility function of the product.
- Kalium 12y ago
  > I'd be curious how much the people for whom those events/groups are intended generally feel. I don't know about you, but I'm not at all interested in how the intended audience feels. I'm strongly interested in how their behaviors change with these programs. Programs that make people feel good but don't change behavior (i.e., don't get more women into tech) are not of value.

this2shallPass 12y ago

There are two issues: 1) What is the nature of hackathons? Many are pitchathons. 2) Think about people's incentives. There's a tech climate, constantly perpetuated in media and many people's conversations, where women are under attack in technology. If you you don't show you care as a man, if you don't bend over backwards to make sure everyone feels extra welcome, you might be branded sexist. I think people are tired or being attacked, and wanted to encourage some people new to programming.

MartinCron 12y ago
Do you have evidence for someone being branded sexist for merely not bending over backwards to prove that they aren't? Serious question. I have never seen it.
- josephspens 12y ago
  They usually don't call you out on it, but they respond as if they're defending the position of women should be in tech, which is not the issue. I've experienced this personally.
- borgia 12y ago
  >Do you have evidence for someone being branded sexist for merely not bending over backwards to prove that they aren't? Maybe not a specific person or event, but would the constant demand for "diversity reports" from tech companies from the "tech media" not be an example of this? And the subsequent shaming by the same media of these same companies for having too many penises in the office, or too few vaginas? I apologise for the vulgarity of the above, but that's what it is when it comes down to it.
  - MartinCron 12y ago
    And people say that women are too sensitive and just need to grow a thicker skin. You realize that there is a difference between saying there is a sexism problem and saying that everyone is a sexist, right?
- 12y ago

kaitai 12y ago

I really enjoyed the beginning of the piece. We're all losers. Recently someone asked me how I did math and I replied that I failed repeatedly until a few times I didn't. Still true. Also true of coding, although google is much more helpful. The second half of the piece just didn't seem that compelling, though. What if the pdfs were inspirational? Maybe they were about saving baby seals or something. And novice guys get passes on all sorts of stuff too. So once some girls got a prize that seems fake to someone who worked hard. Also, coding schools promise to make people ninja rockstars in six weeks, because they want to sell spots and people want to believe it. Maybe the piece is upvoted because people resonate with that feeling of being mad that someone "undeserving" got a prize. I don't see that as a useful feeling to cultivate.

tabrischen 12y ago
Agreed. Different people may have different reasons for going to hackathons. For some, it may be to practise their skills at solving more technical problems and for others it may be simply to validate an idea, for which a wix side and a PDF are perfectly reasonable MVPs. It's a great thing idea to set aside categories to encourage participation for novice / beginners to hackathons. We all have to start somewhere, perhaps the author forgot that she herself was in a similar situation just a few months ago.

67726e 12y ago

Well how about that, a realistic look at what pandering mess subsets of our industry and programming culture have become. My least favorite part was the little bit at the end, apologizing to the organizers of the hackathon. Don't apologize, they're just some pandering asshats being superficially progressive, because hey, someone without a dick and pale skin participated! And thank fuck someone touched on those "Pay us $30,000 and become a 1337 h4x0r camps. I don't know if we're in a bubble, but if it were to burst, there's gonna be some surprised folks getting culled. If you attended one of camps, you better not stop clawing your way to the top. You better keep clawing util your fingers are bloody, nail-less nubs. You attended a Ruby camp? That's sweet, but you're applying to a Java shop, and you cannot "fake it till you make it" with your cargo-cult practices. You can't even begin to describe what an interface is, but hey, that $70k/year job is calling your name, isn't it? Hell, maybe I'm just bitter and jaded at the ripe old age of 21 after doing this professionally for 4 years, or that I've been attending the prestigious LMGTFY University since I was about 9. Or maybe I'm a little brain damaged after my copy of Sedgewick dropped of the bookshelf and onto my head. Maybe those early, informative years spent cutting my teeth on assembly have done some irreparable damaged to my psyche. Stop pandering, lend a hand, lend encouragement to the folks who need it. Everyone had helped along but way, and I spend way too much time tutoring folks, but stop pushing folks into the industry who are chasing the almighty dollar or just aren't interested. Help them get their feet wet, but if they don't like it, don't force them off the diving board. I'm gonna be maintaining their cruft long after they're gone.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

onion2k 12y ago

Looks like the winning team hacked the hackathon by finding a solution to the problem of "how to win a hackathon" in a clever way. I say well played. If the judges accepted this PDF entry, and it was within the rules, then it's very bad sportsmanship for the other contestants to say they didn't deserve a prize. The fact they didn't write any code makes absolutely no difference at all. Hackathons are about finding solutions to problems, not writing code.

bradjohnson 12y ago
It doesn't look like they found or exploited any solution but rather the judges were determined to let them win regardless of the quality of their entry.

parfe 12y ago

The author writes: "After deliberating, the judges announced a new “Most Inspirational” category" but this category is not new. The author seems to have misinterpreted the course of events. Based on clicking the blog's twitter link, this is the hackathon attended by the author: https://2013.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2013.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york/ https://2015.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york-ny/ https://2015.spaceappschallenge.org/location/new-york-ny/ And the project in question that didn't deserve the award, in the author's opinion: http://aekblaw.wix.com/asteroidascent http://aekblaw.wix.com/asteroidascent they also have a sample curricula http://media.wix.com/ugd/57f674_99d136685bfe400f80022bc3652e9f7f.pdf http://media.wix.com/ugd/57f674_99d136685bfe400f80022bc3652e... and a code repo https://github.com/spaceappsnyc/asteroidascent https://github.com/spaceappsnyc/asteroidascent

gooseus 12y ago
EDIT - I didn't realize those links where for 3 years of the same event... The hackathon you link to is from 2013, the article is from 2 days ago and that repo you link had its first commit 4 days ago. Perhaps her experience is based off what was presented 2 years ago at the actual hackathon and not what they've produced in the subsequent time?
- sirclueless 12y ago
  I think the timeline is correct and the article is about 2015. The Most Inspirational of the 2015 event, which was held April 11, 4 days ago, involved a Wix website. Neither of the other years appear to.
  - gooseus 12y ago
    Yeah, I realized that... decided to edit the comment with that info (rather than delete) in case someone else was gonna make the same wrong assumption as me.
jff 12y ago

kaylarose 12y ago

As a woman engineer I understand what the OP is trying to say, but it sounds callous and (surprisingly) oblivious to the realities of this field. As someone else pointed out: "1) What is the nature of hackathons? Many are pitchathons." I have also lost "hackathons" to projects that were objectively NOT technical (mocked-up images of an app, without a single line of code). It happens often, and it's always a bummer to lose, but often they might actually be solving a bigger issue than me or my team. For the group of women (girls?) that won - as you pointed out - maybe they will continue doing hackathons (and maybe - despite your doubt - they even eventually progressing beyond the Wix stage) because they won an encouragement award at their first hackathon. It's like a consolation prize for mustering up the courage to present their product that was obviously not as technically advanced as some other products. That takes guts, a lot of people (men/women/other...) might just slink out the back door after the first few presentations. So good for them, in that sense - they indeed are an inspiration for people just starting out.

knowtheory 12y ago
Yeah, one of the huge problems our field has is that it doesn't give people a solid sense of how you upgrade your skills and what kind of waypoint you're at relative to others (and that that's okay!). It is magnificent to encourage newcomers to the field. We should also have level playing fields for folks to participate with everyone (and not stratify further than we already do). But it sucks when these sorts of objectives collide and end up alienating people. (and heck sports have awards for rookies for example!) The other thing that's really gear-grinding about OP is that... we're judging our worth based on what happens in hackathons? I hope to $deity most people aren't doing that, because hackathons are super slanted POVs on the world.
- orbitur 12y ago
  (and heck sports have awards for rookies for example!) Well, for rookies who outperform what's expected of rookies... rookies who perform at the same level as their more experienced peers.
  - 12y ago

ElComradio 12y ago

This article is problematic. It's common knowledge that women need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development as well as a shield wall of allies to fend off constant microaggressions, so we have to ask, in the most nonjudgmental way possible, why the author is so obviously acting against her own interests. [Edit: /s]

josephspens 12y ago
Your assertion that women "need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development" is insulting and distasteful. My mother and grandmother were both software engineers at IBM, at a time where the male dominated tech culture was MUCH worse than it is today, and they both did really well. My boss, a woman, is arguably the best software engineer at our company. Women don't need handholding. They need incentive. They need to be exposed to tech culture. Lowering the bar for women and putting them on a pedestal for showing up does a great injustice to women like my mother and grandmother who, despite working in a culture which heavily discriminated against women, became kick-ass engineers.
- jff 12y ago
  Carefully re-read the parent comment and ask yourself if he was being truly serious.
  - josephspens 12y ago
    It's not obvious, I've heard similar remarks from people who genuinely believe it.
- Kalium 12y ago
  > Your assertion that women "need special handholding and encouragement to succeed at software development" is insulting and distasteful. Please, please for the love of root do not use rhetoric like this. It's hollow posturing that offers nothing beyond scolding someone for the sin of not agreeing with you. Being insulting is not the same as being wrong. Being distasteful is not the same as being wrong. Only one thing is the same as being wrong, and that's being wrong. I know this is an insulting, disrespectful, and distasteful thing to say... but being offended does not make you right. So I have a question for you: why did you write the first line of your comment?

borgia 12y ago

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing we can expect a lot more of in the coming months and perhaps years as the "tech media" continue to attack it from the fringes. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. There is no satiating the thirst from the "tech media" for faux outrage driven clicks. This is a woman in tech, but more specifically she is a techie in tech. She has been assimilated into the normality of the modern tech industry and is participating in a highly competitive, skill driven arena. Make no mistake, any company that does not behave as the organisers of this hackathon here - not actively displaying an organised, certainly biased, effort to promote the "Women in Tech" narrative - are open to being squatted on from above from the "moral highground" occupied by the tech media. This is what happens when you attack meritocracy in the name of making people feel good. It is what happens when you create an unrelenting narrative that continually assaults an industry over how many or few people with a penis or vagina they have in it. It is what happens when you've an industry surrounded by "journalists" who've never spent an actual day in it, ready to fire out articles shaming you for your lack of, or apparent abundance of, penises or vaginas in your company. The author here is simply another bystander to the continued assault on the technology industry.

hedgew 12y ago
The media loves gender-related news because they are so divisive. They provoke our emotions and pull us into wasteful and hateful arguments. Such news are almost always the most read ones - the most profitable ones.
- beat 12y ago
  The article was an individual's blog post, not the mainstream media.
  - saint_fiasco 12y ago
    Replace money with attention and their point stands.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago

metaphorm 12y ago

This Gina woman, I like her. Maybe I'm sympathetic because I agree with her point and enjoy a good rant post, but my own acknowledged biases aside, I think she really does make a great point here.

protomyth 12y ago

Credibility is important. We all want to be credible and have or accomplishments actually mean something. We do, as a society, give special prizes to folks who are doing there best but have some disability (in the broad sense of the word) that makes their best spectacular only in the light of the realization of their disability. We cheer their accomplishment because it is amazing, and we wonder what might have been if fate hadn't dealt them a bad hand. Their best might not even make it to normal and certainly not world-class. But, it inspires and we acknowledge that as a society. This isn't one of those situations. This is giving the same credibility to people who are not encumbered as people who put the time in and understood the rules of the situation. This is giving a "Most Effort" prize to someone entering a vegetarian salad at a BBQ competition. It diminishes the credibility of the hackathon, cheapens the sense of accomplishment for participants when they finally win, and diminishes the value of experience in our industry which is a huge problem.

Dirlewanger 12y ago

Awesome article. This is something much of the HN crowd will have trouble coming to terms with I'm sure. An actual woman programmer (that is, not a tech journalist/some other peripheral body commenting on an industry they are not intimate with) who (apparently) sees behind the veil of getting as many on-the-fence women kinda-sorta interested in programming into the field in an effort for an employer/organization to say "Look, we're diverse! Look at how many women we employ!" while being 100% disingenuous in the same breath.

tptacek 12y ago
Are you sure you didn't just write: "An 'actual women programmer' said something from which I can extrapolate into my own agenda?" Also: if what they wrote was right, what does it matter what their gender is? Right is right, wrong is wrong.
- philh 12y ago
  > if what they wrote was right, what does it matter what their gender is? There seems to be a strand of thought which claims that men have nothing to say on these issues. Pointing out that the author is a woman may be an attempt to head off such objections.
  - gaius 12y ago
    Keep an eye on such people. If they are white, do they feel entitled to voice their opinions on race issues? If they are middle class, or went to a $40,000/year college, do they expect to be heard when they speak about poverty? That will be enlightening.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Kalium 12y ago
  > Also: if what they wrote was right, what does it matter what their gender is? Right is right, wrong is wrong. This depends greatly on who the commentator is. Meredith's recent piece touched on this - https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c To some, you do not get to have a voice unless you comply with certain identity requirements. How right or wrong you are is irrelevant unless you have the identity that says you get to speak. To others, such as us, this is madness and truth is no respecter of identities.

cbhl 12y ago

"Building static HTML pages" is not always inappropriate for a hackathon. For most college-level demos, a mostly-static demo with just enough javascript to pull data to make it feel fresh is a "hack" that will get you further than your peers. Depending on your level of ethics, some companies will actually do demos that are this level of wire-and-duct-tape to sell the product, and then build it afterwards. The one big catch with this approach is that you can't pitch something that's non-trivial technically -- if you do, and can't demonstrate you figured out the secret sauce, then your pitch becomes worthless. Many first-timers will walk into a hackathon with just their laptop, and get stuck in the trap of setting up their environment over the whole weekend. They'll spend hours trying to download an IDE and interpreter/compiler and libraries over a poor or nonexistent internet connection. For these people, "build some static web pages" is one of the easiest ways to get them to the point where they have something they can comfortably demo in front of their peers -- and so what if it doesn't really work; they had fun and can come back next time. If you build a thing that really works, fine. But a lot of people also walk into hackathons with pre-formed teams and 80% completed projects (idea, mocks and artwork already done; IDEs already set up; maybe even hardware already wired up) and having an emphasis on "real working code" for a time-constrained event only encourages this sort of "cheating".

jobu 12y ago

In my limited experience with hackathons it's usually the most polished looking entry that wins - technical merit has little to do with it. If they built a cool site without a line of code then who the hell cares! Were there rules or a theme for this hackathon that were overlooked for this specific entry? Article seems overly critical to me.

fsk 12y ago

If hackathons are stupid and unfair, then stop going to them. Pick a project that takes longer than a weekend and do it.

Somasis 12y ago

Not really a big fan of the conflation of womanhood with a vagina.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Given the heavy prevalence of BIOTRUTHS and gender normativity on this forum, I'm not at all surprised by the trans-erasure. Disappointed, yeah, surprised, no.

neilk 12y ago

I don't know anything about the hackathon Gina is referring to. But I think we've all seen the same thing - a faux commitment to diversity by just giving the most brown, female, or otherwise disadvantaged person in the room an award for trying. But let's not take the GamerGate approach that diversity is therefore just a conspiracy of political correctness. It doesn't mean that diversity is a bad idea, it's just that it's harder than giving people BS awards. If you're committed to diversity, it means you are committing to undoing disadvantages that other people have been enduring their whole life. In other words: training, in a respectful and supportive environment. The good news for techies is that it takes relatively little time to train a talented and intelligent person from zero to productive. We're used to smart 16-year-olds sometimes coding circles around industry veterans. Surely we can do the same for other kinds of people in their 20s and 30s.

0xCMP 12y ago

There are two sides to this. For one, I agree with her that people who actually want to be a part of this world (not just observing with interest) and contribute, either to the field or just on a team, do not need to be held up as 'inspirational.' I hope that team knew that, yes, they didn't do a good job but at least you're doing something. I know I hated in college when I saw it happen to men and women equally. On the other hand, there is something to be said for those people actually hacking. They have experience and knowledge they don't need to gain all at once right there to make something cool. I went in to that college I mentioned with like 6-7 years of programming under my belt. Projects and clients and etc. These people barely knew that there was a command line in Windows, let alone how pointers or c strings worked. That happened to everyone, but there were a few 'hackers' like me who knew a lot coming in. All of us were guys. There were no girl 'hackers' and I don't presume to know exact reasons why but their actions basically had to do with what those women who could have been one of the 'hackers'. The judges were trying to combat, or at least show they combat that horrible situation. I hated it when girls would say they couldn't do CS/IT stuff because it was too hard for them or something. Like if it was magic or whatever. Since, I've realized its not true

phkahler 12y ago

I really don't understand this at all. Yes, there are fewer women in tech than men. But where I come from they are not rare. At one workplace we had at least one woman in almost every role. Nobody ever made mention of the fact that they are women. Nobody ever treated them differently, and AFAICT none of them ever had a complaint about gender issues. Is this a coastal thing? Anyone else in the Detroit area agree or disagree with my assessment?

TwiztidK 12y ago
Not in Detroit but at another large company in Michigan with a mostly male engineering and IT staff. I witnessed* one situation where a woman was treated inappropriately (*I was told about it the day after it when she was trying to figure out if it was worth reporting to HR. Short story: it was, she did, no idea what happened to the guy because he doesn't normally work with engineers). Other than that situation, my female peers are always treated with respect, people have a high opinion of them, and they don't seem to have trouble getting promotions.

mwill 12y ago

Sort of related, reminded me of this: a friend of mine who is a very skilled lady, attended some "programming for women only" type events, her intention was to meet people and pitch in to lend a hand. She told me that 4 out of 5 that she went to were charging exorbitant amounts and teaching things like how to configure a pre-hosted Wordpress install and maybe basic HTML+CSS, and calling it programming. She was pretty pissed about the whole ordeal, I remember her saying something like: When you compare the content of some 'women only' events in tech to the non-specific counterparts, it's condescending and borderline exploitative (ie, charging for pretty limited services) Kind of a raw deal, especially for a beginner, I imagine.

tehfedaykin 12y ago
I'm a woman who runs these kind of events. We did one on Saturday night, and I was criticized(by other mentors even) for "making things too hard" and "scaring women away". We were using node and the command line. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
- duckmysick 12y ago
  Hey. I'm interested in the logistics behind hosting such events. How many people were present? Was this just a one-off event or is this a part of a longer workshop? Did everyone bring their own computers or did you provide them for the participants? If people brought their own, how did you deal with the fact that node.js is not pre-installed - was there any introductory period where you gave instructions how to install/configure the environment? If so, did you account for different operating systems? If, on the other hand, you provided the computers, who supplied them? A local library, a school, a private company, yourself? I don't need a specific name, just a rough category. I'm asking, because I'm interested in hosting a similar event, but for a younger crowd. I figured pure JavaScript would be the best choice because you don't need a fancy setup - it works straight in your web browser, no matter the platform. Using something like Python or Ruby (not to mention C++ or Java) would be more difficult to coordinate.

whoisthemachine 12y ago

I agree that rewarding people for not doing anything other than showing up is antithetical to a hackathon, or the software engineering community in general. However, I really liked your line "Pass the mountain dew, brah. Git push -f, brah.", I might steal that.

pekk 12y ago
I thought a hackathon was for people to do projects, and not always or necessarily to "beat" other people.

lordnacho 12y ago

I don't see what the problem is. They didn't get the gold medal, they got an encouragement prize. When I was in high school, I was on the soccer team. We went to a tournament where we were by far the smallest school. We had our asses handed to us. At the ending ceremony, for the first time ever, they handed out a fair play award. To us. Did we think we'd won? No, of course not. It's just a token of appreciation, a thanks for attending. I don't see why this kind of thing is so bad. You want to encourage people to show up to your event, so you make up a reason to thank them.

femto113 12y ago

Categories that specifically reward participation by newbies aren't new nor unique to hackathons. The only chess trophy I ever won was for "Top Unrated", which, obviously, you are only eligible for in your first rated tournament.

sfiles 12y ago

Woman software engineer here. This article, although maybe not totally on point for why the female team won an award, does hit home on gender issues in the tech. As has been said in this thread multiple times, less women are in the field probably (and partially) because there is less interest. I believe a large part of that is how male-centric tech is portrayed while growing up. But once I displayed an interest in high school opportunities were thrown at me from left and right, to the point that I felt bad for guys who didn't get similar opportunities. As expected, as a techie in college I was surrounded by mostly guys, which was fine 99% percent of the time. There were those special few who saw themselves superior and made sexist remarks. Guys who wanted to help with homework because they didn't think the female brain could figure it out. You just prove them wrong and move on. There is a gender issue, but it is not all one sided. Talking to the ladies who let the gentlemen do their hw for them (and the swath of everything else)

verytrivial 12y ago

Honest question to those defending the status quo with the word "meritocracy": How would a functional meritocracy produce the absolute sausage-fest that is the GCC maintainers list[1]? If that seems like an unfair reference, then what makes the GCC maintainers list either so especially non-functional or not meritocratic at selecting people based purely upon skill instead of their genitals? [1] https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/MAINTAINERS https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/MAINTAINERS

iza 12y ago
Maybe because the contributors are mostly men?

cenazoic 12y ago

I'm an (older) woman attempting a career change into programming. (But not new to tech or being the only/few woman in a given environment.) It's disappointing that every time this conversation comes up, it devolves into mean-spirited pseudo-'objective' statements about how 'maybe women just aren't as interested'/'not as good'/'PC/SJW-bullshit'/etc. Look, I'm basically a reasonable person. I'm not looking to be offended at every turn or by every possible 'microaggression' (a concept I personally dislike, btw). I personally haven't experienced many of the issues that other women have. That doesn't mean those issues don't exist in the macro, simply because I haven't experienced them in the micro. Nor does it mean that despite one's 'objective/rational' view, that there aren't underlying subconscious assumptions/biases at work in some situations. Small example. I'll be attending a new coding school in June, developed by the Nerdery in Minneapolis, called Prime Digital Academy. The guys (and they're all guys) running/developing curriculum/teaching seem like genuinely nice people who are putting a particular emphasis on diversity (women, older career changers, etc.) In fact, the oldest person accepted so far is 60! Now, take a look a some of the recent images posted on their @goprimeacademy twitter account. Notice the seating. You're wanting to be accommodating to, among others, older people (not to mention potential disabled people), so you put them in beanbags and on hard (or maybe foam) cubes? Perhaps, despite good intentions, they're making unconscious assumptions about the people that have to sit on them. I don't speak for all women, nor do I think that all women have some universally shared experience. However, I do think that it's very possible (if not extremely likely) that despite one's best intentions, preconceived notions/biases (including the idea that you're an 'objective' person) can preclude you from seeing other people have had different experiences than you, or came to different conclusions. Those notions/biases don't make you a bad person (we all have them, of course), but if you're unwilling to examine them honestly at some point, then it seems reasonable to conclude that you're probably speaking/acting in bad faith. If a lot of (women, POC, or yes, even men, in the case of nursing[1]) are telling an existing environment that they're unwelcoming/unfriendly in some way, then perhaps the most 'reasonable' or 'objective' conclusion is that there's a problem. [1]http://www.professionalnursing.org/article/S8755-7223%2810%2900146-8/abstract http://www.professionalnursing.org/article/S8755-7223%2810%2...

rotoole 12y ago

Gina, I think the first part of your essay is inspirational. I liked and related to your experience learning to code. I'm sure many others on HackerNews would agree. The second part was the opposite though. I had to read it a few times to fully grok what you were actually mad about: 1) the "inspiration award" winning team's built something without writing code. 2) the judges "lied" to these women that they were/could-be coders. To the first point, I would say, expand your definition of hacking. This team defined a problem, worked on a solution, pitched it to a jury, and got awarded for it. Isn't that what a hack-a-thon is all about? And it really seemed contradictory for you to say, "a real hacker is someone who tries to code all night, and regardless of how shitty it looks, stands up there and says proudly, “Yeah, I made this. It didn’t work out very well, but I learned a lot." Then to turn around and bash their submission for not meeting your own standard of hacking. Why? Because they aren't "real" programmers? Because you doubt they will ever be "real" programmers? Because the judges awarded them for being women who tried? Because you felt slighted? You come off as self-interested, snobby, elitist, and bitter. As a woman and engineer, what kind of role-model are you projecting for your community? I hope the promise of more women in engineering is to change the dominant "brogramming culture" to be less homogenous and more inclusive of alternative people, ideas, and processes. Don't you?

minthd 12y ago
Most people at hackatons expect they'll need to build something in order to win. So they constrain their ideas around that - and then do the hard work of building that. It's about fairness towards the other participants of the hackatons. Otherwise ,if hackatons were about ideas, most people wouldn't bother coding.
- rotoole 12y ago
  I'd argue they did build a technology solution, they did constrain their ideas to achieve it during the hack-a-thon, and their "inspiration" award is just that. They were awarded for their ideas and efforts, despite their lack of skills. It's a message of encouragement to others who are just starting out. This article is like a high schooler getting jealous of a kindergardener for getting a gold star on their homework.

DannoHung 12y ago

I don't get it. They put together documentation. If that doesn't count for the Hackathon, why does building 3D models count?

AhrowTway 12y ago

When Clinton's election campaign starts funding hit pieces about the obvious gender bias in mining and garbage collection industries, I'll start taking this narrative seriously. Until then, keep being a sucker for #hilary2016, HN.

atmosx 12y ago

Am I the only here thinking that it's not a big deal if some guys at a hackthon erroneously promoted a shitty application (Essentially a non-application) just because the team was composed of women? I mean this is how life works. Women in this context are seen as newcomers and by nature, they are more fragile. It's only natural that men try to promote women in the tech industry, since they are a scarcity. It would be the same thing if the team at the hackathon was composed by 5 13-year olds building a simple 3D-printer. They are 13-year-olds, they are out-of-context and require special attention. That's something that is bound to change, especially given the publicity women-related posts seem to get. More and more women are going to start programming. Then, this is probably going to change. Generally speaking, I work (and communicate) better with women than men. Women seem to be much more flexible, easier to communicate. I understand the point the author is making, but again, I think it's not a big deal. It's not like Google hired 4 women instead of 4 men as a developers because they were females.

tdaltonc 12y ago
You might want to clarify what you mean by "fragile" because some people are going to interpret you as saying that women are emotional/physically fragile by virtue of being women.
- andypants 12y ago
  I assume more fragile by virtue of being newcomers.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
fny 12y ago
I rather consider this part of a feedback loop. There's such a thing as "going to far." When that happens people naturally react and provide a valuable perspective, which will help guide future "affirmative action." Gina's concerns are extremely valid. Perhaps we've reached a point where gender shouldn't entirely trump merit. Perhaps a mixed-gender team (like the one she was on) with a more technical project should have been considered. Perhaps we're starting to piss off our hard-working women by promoting superficial yet PR-worthy success stories like the winners of that hackathon. We just need to find a balance. I'm confident that for as long as we stay open to having these discussions, listen to the people we intend to effect, and make future decisions accordingly, we'll reach true gender equality sooner.

moron4hire 12y ago

Discounting the politics and focusing strictly on mechanics for a moment--the purpose of a participating in a hackathon should be to compete in a hackathon. I know a lot of people who have gone to them because they want to start a startup. What an absurd idea. If your purpose is to start a project, you should be able to start projects on your own. If your purpose is to meet people, there are far more frequent and better places to meet people than hackathons. If you want to be a programmer, you should be programmering. I trained in martial arts for years and competed in tournaments. After a while, I got bored of tournaments. I kept training, because I liked martial arts. I wasn't in it for the tournaments, and not going to the tournaments didn't make me any less of a martial artist. I always found it strange that there were always a few students who mostly only showed up for the tournaments. They would come to maybe one class every other week, but if there was a tournament, they were there. Mostly, they didn't do well (of course, because they didn't train in even the things that were important to tournaments), but if all they wanted was to be there in the tournament atmosphere and be able to say they competed, then that would have been fine. But that was not the case. They also complained that they didn't win. If their goal was to win martial arts tournaments, then they were doing it wrong. They should have been practicing forms routines in front of mirrors, to the detriment of learning wrist-locking and take-down techniques. Much, much more common were the students who did show up to class every day (even though they only had two classes a week) but only ever phoned it in. They were certainly punching the card, but they weren't particularly talented. Yes, most of the time they'd win because they were the best of the worst, they were in a division of other card-punchers. But sometimes they'd win against much more dedicated students, people who put serious training in, people who exerted a lot of effort. And before I understood what tournaments were about, it upset me. Tournaments are just a reinforcement structure for an industry of selling tournaments. The market for tournaments is mediocre students. Hell, the market for martial arts schools is mediocre students. It's all a self-feeding system. It makes money for the ring masters by providing a fantasy of achievement to the customer. If it were about skill, they'd lose their monetization base. My point is, understand what your goals are, and do those things that further your goals. You want to be a martial artist, you get in the dojo and you train harder than everyone else. You want to compete in tournaments, just show up to the tournaments. You want to win tournaments, get in the dojo and you skip the pushups and skip the self-defense techniques and focus only on flexibility and forms. If all you want is to be a programmer, then just program. If you want to win hackathons, then focus on learning the latest and greatest JS frameworks for rapid app development. Not for building big, scalable applications. Not for robust security. Not for elegant code. Just for meeting the goals. The problem is that these things--hackathons, martial arts tournaments, Olympic gymnastics, junior-varsity-anything--they're all just different types of beauty pageants. They're inconsequential to anything that is not in their immediate sphere of influence, and that sphere is tiny. Gina's complaint is not caused by the realization that hackathons are bullshit, it's caused by her being exposed to the hackathon. It's caused by her conflating being a programmer with competing in hackathons. Which I ultimately think is a pretty rosy picture. It means that, by avoiding the hackathon, not only will she not know about the bullshit that goes on there, but she will also have more time to do the thing that really makes her happy: programming.

lnanek2 12y ago

I don't see anything wrong with this. No one complains when programmer only teams turn in something ridiculously ugly and complex that could never achieve consumer adoption. So why should we complain when design/ux/business/beginners turn in the other side of a project? Just laying things out and producing content and thinking about the user experience. Both sides of talent are needed to make quality entries anyway, so railing against this is just going to drive off the designer, artist, and other fields that are needed to produce good work.

jaimebuelta 12y ago

One of the main problems on tech is the "middle ground", covering that special place after rookie and before being an expert... It's incredibly difficult to effectively communicate about this, and I think is why people get frustrated or think they are not good. Because they are not on the "expert level" on something (knowing every single detail), but the simple hello world small apps are too easy and doesn't feel awesome any more... The area in between is not visible, so it feels a little like not making progress sometimes... Though is arguably the most interesting/common one. Related joke: http://9gag.com/gag/4614736/if-an-author-of-a-computer-book-wrote-a-math-textbook http://9gag.com/gag/4614736/if-an-author-of-a-computer-book-...

amyjess 12y ago

If you want to know why there are so few women in tech, I suggest reading this comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883#comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1883#comic The pressure doesn't come from within the industry, nor is it aimed at adults who have already expressed an interest. It comes from society as a whole, and it's aimed at children. At first, it comes from parents and teachers. Later on, it comes from their peers. By the time a girl graduates high school and starts figuring out what she wants in life, she's already biased against tech. Attempts at recruitment aren't going to significantly affect the gender ratio if they're aimed at college students or college graduates. It's already too late. Politically-biased hackathons and hiring policies will never have any real effect, except maybe to breed resentment on every side of the issue. Hey, I'm going to share some personal experience. I'm MtF transgender, and I began my transition at 28. It's pretty well known, at least in the trans community, that MtFs are overrepresented in tech, and that overrepresentation increases proportionally with the age of transition (though the age thing is becoming less relevant as the average age of transitioning is dropping, and the sharp contrast between "older transitioners" and "younger transitioners" is starting to blur). On the other hand, the ratio of MtFs to FtMs in the tech industry is about the same as the ratio of cis men to cis women (and possibly even more dramatic). The only possible answer is that people are encouraged/discouraged from tech during childhood, well before transition. It's also accelerated by how the tech community tends to be open and accepting of people who don't fit in socially. Most trans people -- MtF and FtM -- tend to associate with groups of misfits and outcasts even well before transition. For MtFs, that includes tech geeks, and for FtMs, that includes various fandoms. Compare the MtF dominance on reddit vs. the FtM dominance on tumblr: reddit was aimed at techies, and tumblr was aimed at fandoms.

ebbv 12y ago

If you really care about programming and not having someone else tell you you're good, then do it because you want to. I have been programming for over 25 years. I have never and would never go to a hackathon. I program because I want to. I program because I'm paid to. I don't program because I want a room full of strangers to stare at me. Turning programming into the type of popularity contest they had at the high school prom I never went to sounds like a nightmare.

orthoganol 12y ago

Isn't the OP a beginner in tech herself (bootcamp graduate, seemingly of recent)? She's not in a position to judge others as not being 'true coders' or as being 'too much of beginners.' It's also a rather quirky dramatization of what it means to be a programmer, but amusing to read either way.

e_d_g_a_r 12y ago
She didn't go to any bootcamp.
- vellum 12y ago
  >I was a female who went to the bootcamp of LMGTFY A lot of us went there.

digitalzombie 12y ago

Yeah hackathon feels like mostly free code for you. There's competition for that like Kaggle which doesn't dress it as hackathon imo. It's hey it's a competition, here's the usually term and conditions and you might win some money and it'll be good for resume. Hackathon seems like a nicer word for something else, like death tax or climate change (instead of global warming). With hackathon I'm not sure about that, it have become some sleezy thing, there are a few exception like projects that help a certain causes or open source. OpenBSD had a hackaton and replaces Nginx with the hackton server. It was a funny article where they were drunk and committed to the tree without testing it throughly. Unfortunately in her case the causes was just political bs. I do agree we shouldn't lie to people how easy it is. But we should mention that it's a skill and like all skill it takes time and deliberate exercise to be good. I love the post. It seems like a dairy of growth as a person and gaining humility. I think she's a bit harsh on the women in term of not being programmer and then define hacker. I'm guessing her definition of hacker and programmer are the same? In general, being positive would be better but it does highlight and emphasize on not lying about how easy it is to code.

kragen 12y ago

I thought it was kind of bullshit when Aaron Swartz was like 10 that he won an Ars Digita prize for a static-HTML site, because the contest was for database-backed web sites. (I hadn’t entered, I think I wasn’t even eligible, I didn’t have any skin in the game.) About two or three years later, at my first startup, he was telling us for free all the things we would later learn through hard experience we were doing wrong because we didn’t listen. Later he became one of the best programmers I ever had a chance to work with. In short, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with distinguishing between levels of technical mastery, and honoring more highly the higher levels of technical mastery. We’ll never get anywhere as a civilization if we let the mundanes think that your cousin Brian, who knows how to install antivirus software, is equivalent to Vint Cerf and Don Knuth. But that doesn’t mean we can’t honestly recognize and encourage people’s progress, even before they reach world-class status. And, as kaylarose points out, it’s totally legit to reward people for making progress on important problems, even if they aren’t hard problems.

MollyR 12y ago

This article really hit home. Especially her line about "Now I’m part of the irrelevant, established order of brogrammers." I worked my ass off. Instead of going out to party, I studied. Even after graduating and beginning a job, I still studied every night. Because tech is hard and I wanted to be more than just a programmer,I want to be a competent professional Software Engineer. I still study a few hours a day. I watch new lectures on youtube, I occasionally follow people like John Carmack on twitter, and I experiment with new coding techniques or styles. I do not understand why working hard to gain skills is not "inspirational", or makes me a "brogrammer". And I too have been told I'm not "inspirational" before. It makes me wonder if its some kind of code word. I honestly am beginning to resent the politics involved.