

Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project - ash
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/ten_easy_ways_attract_women_your_free_software_project

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jrockway
Wow, this is perhaps the worst article I've ever read in my life. Very low on
facts, very high on random statements passed off on facts. Not good.

I don't think the author has ever been involved with a real open source
project before. It seems like he just has some ideal of what "open source" is
and thinks that's reality. His ideal seems to be lots of constructive
discussion and the open exchange of ideas. That's nice, but we already have
the ideas. What most projects need to do is actually write the code. All
easily-accessible discussion forums do is create lots of bikeshedding that
wastes the time of people actually trying to do work. )Interestingly, the
bikeshedders tend to find mailing lists "too hard to use" while the people
actually writing code wouldn't use anything else. Do you really wonder why
developer discussion forums aren't web-based?)

The thing about flat conversation is also junk. I've used forums with flat
comment systems before. Basically, there is no organization and no discussion
happens, everyone just posts their feel-good thoughts about the original
article. Do not want. (See Metafilter for an example of this.)

I agree that wikis are a nice place for creating documentation, but wtf is
this: "Everybody has a browser, but women may have less control over what
equipment and software they use, especially as beginners." WTF? Every woman I
know has her computer set up exactly the way she needs it to get work done.
That includes lots of specific tools.

The advice about using a high-level language is good. Low level languages suck
and are horrible historical artifacts that need to die. But all of the reasons
the author gives are terrible -- "A language that emphasizes readability, like
Python, can make recovering from an interruption easier, and less time is
wasted as a result."

Do you have any data, or did you just pull that out of your ass? The syntax of
a language is not what makes code hard to read -- the interactions between
various parts of the program is. You can make the interactions easy to
understand in any langauge, or you can make them completely unreadable. Python
is no magic bullet.

The rest of the article is just tedious and continues to be a bunch of
opinions the author passes off as fact.

 _How hard is it to say those two little words, “Thank you”? Men often won’t
care (but some will). Women often will care, and the cold shoulder of not
responding to a contribution with some kind of acknowledgment is truly
unacceptable_

I'm a guy, and I care. I get upset when people say, "your software sucks!" and
I like it when people say "jrockway++". This is human nature, not some
property only shared by women. (After a while it becomes pretty easy to ignore
criticism, however. Having a thick skin is always good.)

Anyway, terrible article. Next time do some research instead of making shit
up.

~~~
stcredzero
I need to disagree: the syntax of a language does make it hard or easy to
read. Anything with postfix syntax is going to be strange to the uninitiated.
Lisp's parentheses everywhere is going to be daunting to many, at least at
first. Heavily stacked pointer/array operators in C require "language lawyer"
personnel in some shops. Perl regexps can be quite cryptic. APL?
Fuggedaboudit!

The author doesn't quite go far enough, however. As you point out, how you use
a language is significant -- moreso by a factor of 3, I'd say. But the choice
of language clearly doesn't have zero influence on its readability.

~~~
jrockway
_I need to disagree: the syntax of a language does make it hard or easy to
read. Anything with postfix syntax is going to be strange to the uninitiated.
Lisp's parentheses everywhere is going to be daunting to many, at least at
first. Heavily stacked pointer/array operators in C require "language lawyer"
personnel in some shops. Perl regexps can be quite cryptic. APL?
Fuggedaboudit!_

What you are saying is that if you don't know a programming language, it's
hard to read it. Well, yes.

~~~
stcredzero
Nope. I'm saying, a syntax can make a language that you _do_ know harder to
read.

 _Heavily stacked pointer/array operators in C require "language lawyer"
personnel in some shops._

In this case, it's professionals helping other seasoned professionals. I was
_not_ talking about noobs here! You get a C- for reading comprehension!

------
yummyfajitas
While this topic tends to attract ridiculous, poorly thought out articles,
this one is the worst I've seen so far. From the article:

"Everybody has a browser, but women may have less control over what equipment
and software they use, especially as beginners"

"Artificial distinctions like “Turing-completeness” are a silly way to divide
the world"

And my absolute favorite:

"Emphasize community process over manufacturing products"

Turn a a software project into a social event. That's sure to attract women.
It won't create software, but at least women will be involved.

------
sanj
Wow, this really is awful.

Half my team is women. They're also both parents, brilliant, brutally honest,
and a joy to work with.

I've "found" that if you treat women -- like all humans -- with respect and
loyalty you're pretty much done.

But what really annoys me is the fact that people think "It matters when you
have kids, it really does." only applies to women. If you're a guy with kids
and having kids _doesn't_ matter, then I think you should find a different
hobby than pretending to be a father. Golf perhaps.

I've found that parents, regardless of gender, require additional flexibility
in their schedule. You could argue that this is self-serving because I'm
parent, but it is also true.

~~~
msg
Well said. My wife and child have some special needs as well. There's more
than one way for developers to be on the hook, if they care about their
families.

------
cujo
And make sure your article on the subject comes off as extremely patronizing.
That always works.

~~~
boredguy8
If this is the most patronizing thing a woman in IT hears, they should
consider themselves lucky. I've seen worse comments on HN.

------
wheels
Honestly, this is horrible. It's actually the kind of stuff that I find pushes
women _out_ of open source projects a lot of the time. "You're different. You
need special help." Women, like men, like being respected for their work.
Singling them out and treating them like they're some kind of different
species, usually exacerbated by unwanted sexual attention, seems to be the
major annoyance.

A rant of mine from a few years ago, called "Human Interface Guidelines":

<http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1051>

(Note that the "full ack" comment in there is from KDE e.V.'s former
president, Eva Brucherseifer.)

Edit: Sidenote, these things also tend to ignore the more fundamental issue:
most OSS contributors are computer scientists. There are less women studying
computer science. If you want to figure out how to get more women in OSS, you
have to take a step back and figure out how to get more women in CS.

------
ken
I'm offended by this article as a man.

"Macho superiority contests are generally boring to women, and let’s face it,
they’re dumb"

"Women don’t like to “blow their own horns”, but they love to be appreciated,
and they’ll do more work when they are"

"Women like working cooperatively, they don’t just tolerate it"

"Even if women do have the control they need to install development
environments, they generally don’t want to waste as much time “fiddling with
the tools”, and want fewer obstacles to simply getting the job done"

"Pairs programming is a very “feminine” way to work"

I've considered using a female name online just to avoid being stereotyped
like this. Apparently my Y chromosome makes me a macho horn-tooting
uncooperative tool-fiddling loner.

------
tdavis
I've also heard their periods attract bears. Just something to look out for.

From the pictures to the actual article, I'd swear this was created in the
70s.

------
swombat
A notionally noble aim, but I agree that the article is condescending as fuck.

Maybe it's aimed at recruiting "little girls" rather than "women".

------
dzorz
> Things like gender status and dating information can be communicated in
> profiles, by those who want them, and ignored by those who don’t,
> eliminating the motivation for talking about it in a thread

Are we talking about free software projects or dating projects?

------
sprachspiel
This article doesn't mention the actual reason: There are very few female
geeks. And geeks are those who create open source software. Women who go into
computing do it in order to earn money.

~~~
palish
Consider Natalya Tatarchuk: [http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/ati-natalya-
tatarchuk-8-14-thu...](http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/ati-natalya-
tatarchuk-8-14-thu/10998166/)

I doubt she "went into computing to earn money" any more than anyone else.

------
biohacker42
This is the stupidest caricature of women I've seen in a long time. Who's
voting it up?

~~~
gaius
I think it's being upvoted for the lulz.

------
yan
I looked at the top of the article, expecting to find:

By: Ron Burgundy

------
maxklein
And THAT's why there are no women in free software projects!

------
jbrun
Can anybody say math?

