
Let's End Programmer Bigotry - cjoh
http://infovegan.com/2010/07/21/lets-end-programmer-bigotry
======
qjz
I don't know, I think it's fair to say that computing is a field where really
smart, but shy, individuals can participate and excel, compared to many other
fields of work. That doesn't mean that everyone in computing fits that
description, but it does suggest this group will be overrepresented.

He goes on to say, "Every developer I’ve ever worked with, for instance, is
probably more qualified to be a member of Congress than most of the members of
Congress we have now." I could say the same about almost everyone I've ever
_known_. The problem is that politics isn't appealing to the type of
individuals we consider exemplary, regardless of background. Just look at
local politics, where you'll often find aimless drifters or self-serving
candidates on the ballot among others who understand that government is
complicated machine that needs to be run competently for everyone's benefit.
But back on topic, how many of your school board or city council members are
also software developers? My guess is few or none, because they just aren't
interested or feel that it's too challenging to promote logical solutions in
an environment of irrational rivalry.

~~~
Aaronontheweb
"I don't know, I think it's fair to say that computing is a field where really
smart, but shy, individuals can participate and excel, compared to many other
fields of work. "

I'd argue that the IQ distribution amongst programmers is no different than
that of the general population - there are just more people who mistakenly
believe that they're smarter because they can throw together spaghetti code in
a text editor.

As for this stereotype about social intelligence being an issue with most
programmers - I call b.s. on that too. There are plenty of programmers who
know how to socialize and how to relate to people - they're just not the ones
portrayed in mass media.

~~~
zephyrfalcon
"I'd argue that the IQ distribution amongst programmers is no different than
that of the general population - there are just more people who mistakenly
believe that they're smarter because they can throw together spaghetti code in
a text editor."

That would imply that the average IQ of programmers is 100. Seems unlikely, I
do think it attracts people smarter than average (at least in times when
programming is not "popular" because big $$$ are promised). I do agree that
some programmers have an overinflated sense of intelligence and/or self-
importance, though. But there are probably job types where this is much
worse...

~~~
Aaronontheweb
Why would it be unlikely? Is it just because programmers have more college
degrees than average? Isn't that more a measure of opportunity and background
than it is of ability? In fact, don't you need to come from a relatively
affluent background (read: can afford computers and resources needed for
development) to even be exposed to programming?

I'm not trying to incite anything, but having worked in a couple of very
different roles in my short career thus far, development being one of them,
the proportion of mediocre programmers seems empirically equal to the
proportion of medicore marketers, sales people, and so forth.

Programmers can do special things, but the mere act of programming itself
doesn't make us special, better than average, or superior to anybody else.
Programmer bigotry goes both ways.

~~~
orangecat
_Why would it be unlikely?_

Because programming requires a baseline of logical reasoning ability.
Certainly you don't have to be a genius, but I wouldn't expect to find many
with IQs below 95 or so.

 _the proportion of mediocre programmers seems empirically equal to the
proportion of medicore marketers, sales people, and so forth._

That's true by definition. Half of all theoretical physicists are "below
average", but I'd expect their average IQ to be well over 100.

~~~
anthonyb
Depends on what you're measuring and the distribution of it through your
population. For example, most people have greater than the average number of
feet.

------
moxiemk1
A lot of this problem is people's misconceptions of the idea of what kind of
person a programmer is. The public at large has a big part of this problem.

But another huge part of this problem is the people among us who try and
propagate the stereotypes of the 'hacker' of yore. I was at my community
hackerspace yesterday, and there were some visitors who were perfect
embodiments of the "loud and obnoxious computer nerd who will talk your ear
off about something even if you clearly don't understand"

The enemy is us. We need the loudest and most opinionated voices among us to
_not_ be the ones who try and mystify computers and programming, the ones who
love to use unnecessary jargon with the public. We need the most well known of
us to be the smartest, the best spoken, the charming.

~~~
api
"We need the loudest and most opinionated voices among us to not be the
ones..."

Aren't the loudest voices always the ones that represent any group? Look at
religion... most religious folks do not agree with hate-mongering
fundamentalists or crazed wild-eyed apocalyptic preachers, but look who gets
on TV.

~~~
hugh3
Is that true? Every time I see someone preaching on TV it seems to be a
kindly-looking badly-dressed dude repeating some platitudes about how love is
nice. The preachers who get on TV are the Oprahs of the world, the ones who
are best at raising money by mumbling things that everyone agrees with, rather
than ones with fringe opinions.

On the other hand, there are a whole lot of people who _want_ to believe that
all Christians are hate-hongering fundamentalists.

~~~
sesqu
Good point. I'm not well versed in such TV, but it seems that the Christians
who get on TV are pastors or community organizers or what have you, very nice
people who you might tire of in a half hour. In contrast, the loud, obnoxious,
and persistently followed loudmouths who get on TV claim to be Christians.

------
lmaonade
"This is bigotry, plain and simple. Its taking sterotypical prejudices based
on what may be real-life encounters with a relatively small sample group, and
applying them to a wide class of people. It’s gross and it needs to end."

this could be equally as well applied to dilbert comics.

seriously, some random guy calls programmers autistic and this somehow
deserves a blog post breaking down the argument? give me a break.

~~~
KirinDave
Yeah, most of us are crying ourselves to sleep every night sleeping on our
giant dragon horde of money. You know who's actually facing significant
persecution and bigotry? Gay people. We get a few odd jokes and have to endure
the existence of “Big Bang Theory”.

I had hoped this article would be about admonishing programmers to stop being
bigots. The community has a lot of sexism and ageism in it (levied in all
directions). It also has a lot of irrational wu in it. For example, there are
people who think that if you don't use a certain text editor, you aren't fit
to work.

~~~
hugh3
_Yeah, most of us are crying ourselves to sleep every night sleeping on our
giant dragon horde of money_

Man, I hope you meant "dragon hoard". A dragon horde just sounds dangerous.

~~~
KirinDave
I'm pretty much a perpetual motion machine of funny iPad typos.

At this point I'm leaning into it. If the word substituted is funny and it
doesn't totally ruin the meaning, I am down.

------
barryfandango
As an upper class western white male, I am thrilled to consider the
possibility of feeling oppressed.

~~~
cousin_it
This is like saying it's okay to steal from rich people because they have a
lot of money.

------
pg
Actually it's a sign of strength when it's not unPC to make fun of a group. I
wouldn't want that to change.

(I wrote about the phenomenon in "What You Can't Say." Search for "English.")

~~~
rortian
How have you not thought through this? Black people must have been incredibly
powerful in the Jim Crow-era south.

It's not cool when people find it socially acceptable to say something
venomous about a group of people.

------
robryan
Politics has a way of becoming a popularity contest, I can see the programmer
type presenting a rational, realistic and effective set of policies just to be
beaten out by a more charismatic opponent who managed to visit more schools
and old peoples homes during the campaign. I really hate in interviews when a
politician will go off on a tangent with an answer to avoid and tough but
direct question.

~~~
pjscott
I also hate when the interviewers just let them get away with giving non-
answers to questions. I once saw an interviewer -- I forget the name -- who,
after hearing such an evasive tangent, calmly repeated the question, word for
word. It was beautiful, and I've never seen it happen since.

~~~
Benjo
I'm guessing that tactic doesn't win too many repeat interviews,
unfortunately.

~~~
jamii
It worked pretty well for Jeremy Paxman.

------
api
Every vocation has its stereotypes.

Politicians, marketers, and other "people professions" are slimy and
superficial fast-talkers. Businessmen are sociopaths. Neither of those is any
more flattering than "engineers are autistic."

------
joubert
I wouldn't want people who are (purely) programmers running congress either;
why would they make more rational decisions than lawyers?

However, I _would_ put my money behind scientists and engineers, because on
the continuum of rationality, they're probably the best experts to make
decisions.

Caveat: of course the nature of politics would still corrupt the integrity of
a congress made up by scientists/engineers, because of (a) influence (b)
psychological "imbalance" (c) ambition (d) uneducated public, and (e) sex
scandals

~~~
raganwald
I think we have different perceptions of the point of the OP. I read it as
suggesting that basing decisions on stereotypes is flawed. It doesn't really
matter whether few, some, or even most programmers would be poor politicians:
The point of a democracy is to allow us to judge the _one_ programmer running
for office and elect them based on their actual characteristics.

Are scientists really rational? I would like to think so, but have you looked
at science lately? There's brutal infighting over the credit for research,
outright corruption over licenses and patents, taking $250 an hour from BP to
be "oil spill consultants" and agreeing to three years of silence, working for
tobacco companies, and on and on.

I am skeptical that all scientists are rational, but I certainly wouldn't
dismiss any one scientist as irrational. I would like to judge her on her
merits.

~~~
joubert
I agree with you 100% that basing decisions on stereotypes is flawed.

But I was of course replying in the context of, not only the poster's reply to
the Gartner reply, but to his original post
([http://infovegan.com/2010/07/19/why-developers-should-run-
fo...](http://infovegan.com/2010/07/19/why-developers-should-run-for-
congress))

In there he espouses programmers' (and for some reason he thinks web
developers are higher up the totem pole than "regular" developers) knack for
solving problems, looking for novel solutions, etc. etc., in the context of
issues that are increasingly technical (which I think is debatable).

I think one particular aspect of programmers, a stereotype if you will, is
that they don't like to compromise and are generally quite independent of
mind. Perhaps one could argue this would be a Good Thing™. But, if you look at
all the disagreement amongst programmers, I don't see why their proposed
solutions would be better than they are currently (in the end it is about
_politics_ ).

To your question: "Are scientists really rational?" - see my caveat :-)

(PS: I think politicians should focus on creating _policy_ , not try to solve
problems that the free market solves _better_ ).

~~~
raganwald
Excellent clarification and expansion, thank you.

------
dgabriel
Oh, I agree. It's misconceptions like these that keep very smart, talented
people out of programming and development.

~~~
shadowsun7
I can't decide if you're being sarcastic or not.

~~~
dgabriel
I'm not being sarcastic at all. I know several people who would make excellent
developers, but they went into teaching, or consulting, or marketing, or
whatever. The pay is either equivalent or less, but the status for those
positions is higher.

Here's an anecdote: a friend of mine decided that the template blogs available
were not what he wanted for a website to showcase his art. So he taught
himself php, sql, html, javascript, and gimp, rolled his own site, and asked
me to look at the code. It was completely fine -- on par with work I've seen
from professionals with 2-3 years experience. He works at _Starbucks_ , which
is the kind of job you get with a BFA.

~~~
hugh3
Is it really a tragedy that the world is being deprived more software
developers? Doesn't the world already have pretty much all the software
developers it needs?

Or, to put it another way, if the (relatively mild) stigma of software
development keeps people out of the industry, it helps to raise the pay of
those who are in it.

~~~
dgabriel
I don't buy that argument. In my opinion, the more _talented_ developers there
are, the fewer bad ones will be able to remain in the industry. I don't see
the market being glutted by great developers under any circumstances.

Artificial limits on the number of Professional Software Developers
established by some governing body (ala dentistry or orthadontics) is a better
way of keeping salaries high. Of course, I think that's a terrible idea.

------
Tycho
I thought this was going to be about other nerds making fun of Visusl Basic
programmers.

~~~
younata
They aren't programmers, though.

------
moomba
Not sure why this guy has such a livid response to those columns. I think he
say's that kind of talk is "ugly" several times. Ok... well, I don't really
see a problem with stereotyping programmers to add a little spice to your
column. It wouldn't be the first time, and I got a laugh in at those two
columns at several points.

------
agentultra
I dunno if I would replace politicians with programmers per se... I'd be
afraid that they would be all too eager to replace congress with a monte-carlo
simulation, replace themselves with shell-scripts and auto-responders, and
introduce the use of 20-second slide-shows at press conferences.

But of course being a programmer myself, I find the stereotype humorous at
best. Although I will admit that there is a "tribe" mentality that does
perpetuate the stereotype even amongst programmers. Most programmers I've met
have some sort of eccentricity about them. Those who don't have a quirk or two
are often regarded as outsiders or met with suspicion. It's kind of like
porn... you know it when you see it.

Awful I know, and I totally agree with your post. But good luck. Humans love
simple classifications. It makes the big, bad world easier to deal with.

~~~
bitwize
20-second slideshows?

I think you mean hour-long talks with major points shown in Emacs Org-mode via
a projector. If military strategy is under discussion, then a working version
of the strategy in Dwarf Fortress will also be presented.

------
mfukar
This blog post is filled with the same amount of stereotypical bullshit it
supposedly is furious about. And it's not helping anybody.

The real question here is, how many will read it a second time while actually
thinking about what it says?

------
omouse
Why are we paying attention to Gartner?

------
Goosey
I like your word choice. I think next time someone casually reiterates
programmer stereotypes in conversation I will calmly assert they are being a
bigot (and pick my battles, take context and social relations into account,
etc). It sounds much more effective to just drop the B-word than to launch
into a counter-effective "let me prove to you this is incorrect" conversation.

------
enneff
"The stereotype of the antisocial developer has been untrue for decades"

It has _never_ been true.

------
drivebyacct2
I don't understand this at all. I've never had a problem with communication.
Maybe it's because I was always more social with adults than the annoying
other middle/high school idiots, maybe it's because I did debate, but I have
no problem chatting up CEOs and VPs on more than one occassion.

Also, this is why some new schools are blending their
business/communication/cs courses together to create projects that require the
interuse of all three skills.

~~~
itg
>Maybe it's because I was always more social with adults than the annoying
other middle/high school idiots

Having good communication also means being able to relate to your peers,
despite what you think about their intelligence.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Relating and wanting to socialize with them are two different things. If I
didn't socialize with adults and people with decent conversation skills that
wanted to talk about something besides who in my highschool was a "wangster"
or who was knocked up this week or what drugs he was doing etc then it would
be different. I can communicate with peers, mentors and managers just fine
both at school and at work.

My point, relating to peers and being able to communicate with them when
necessary is one thing, but as they say, you can lead a horse to water...

------
c00p3r
The real differences begins when some prefer, choice (because one wants,
enjoys it) to stay home coding instead of go out and socialize. This is how
great software projects, like nginx, created and evolved.

Find and take a look of a video of lectures given by Igor (nginx's author) and
you will, probably, understand - he isn't a public person.

You should be a little bit autistic (say, near Asperger's) in order to produce
something extraordinary. It is just a mater of time, energy and concentration.
And practicing, practicing, practicing.

Analogy with public activity, like a politics is rather stupid. You need
totally different skill set for any public relations, while those skills are
requiring a lot of time of practicing, practicing and practicing.

Professional communication is as difficult as professional programming, btw.
man NLP. ^_^

------
hackermom
Good luck.

------
phillyberg
Yes!

------
Kilimanjaro
If the majority of people is shy an introvert in a sense, I say we have a lot
of votes in our favor. And we don't need to be social to socialize, we can do
it all on the web.

Don't tempt us...

