

Where are the Female Programmers? - blu3jack
http://blog.overclocked.com/2012/07/01/where-are-the-female-programmers/

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meaner
I graduated in 2003 with a computer science degree. I was one of two females
out of 60 in my program. Neither myself or my other female counterpart
continued on programming for very long after graduating. Why? Its simple after
4 yrs of basically communicating only with a computer we needed the human
interaction element that is missing from programming. Women love to talk to
real people, end of story.

~~~
blu3jack
Huh.

That doesn't ring true to me. Professional software development is inherently
a collaborative process. Yes, there are portion of the day or week when the
primary interaction is the human struggling with the computer to bend the
machine to the human will, but the process of defining the product, the
architecture, and the implementation -- even in a small company -- is work
that involves interpersonal interaction.

I don't know any software developer who doesn't need to -- and benefit from --
talking to real people on a daily basis. The successful programmers are the
ones who can actually do this without burning bridges and making enemies.

So: I'd love to hear more about your experience, because it's a pretty far cry
from anything I've seen.

------
rachelbythebay
One possible answer: "looking for another career".

Seriously, after you move around a few times and keep seeing the same things
happen, you might decide it's unfixable and move on.

~~~
blu3jack
What kinds of things have you seen that you think would send people out of the
industry? I'm not disagreeing--I'm curious.

~~~
rachelbythebay
Well, in general, and I know this is circular, but ... a lack of people who
think like me. Basically, you'll just be there, doing your thing in your
natural way, and it will clash with someone important sooner or later. This
will hold you back. This can be really stupid stuff like communication styles
(or the fact that you talk your way through things while your coworkers
don't).

At that point you can jump to another venue and hope for improvement, or try
to alter your behavior to be less than genuine. Basically, start acting like
someone else at work. The acting thing wears thin sooner or later.

I can dig up a citation for that last claim if you like. I've also written a
bunch of my own posts about these topics over the past year or so.
<http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/04/fireandforget/> is one of them.

~~~
blu3jack
Thanks for the link to your blog, and this post. The irony of this post is
that I have _never_ worked _anywhere_ where the developers did not think the
codebase was a pile of crap. That's pretty much what a codebase is. See also,
<http://www.osnews.com/story/19266/WTFs_m>

That's not male or female developers, that's all developers. However, I am
interested in the "Fire and Forget" meme applied to software management. I'm
going to noodle on that some more.

