
So a female programmer walks into a bar… - filozynka
https://netguru.co/blog/posts/so-a-female-programmer-walks-into-a-bar-dot-dot-dot
======
mindcrime
_“you’re a chick, leave this crap to REAL developers”._

I really don't understand guys who say (or think) shit like this. Honestly, it
annoys me not so much because it's sexist, or misogynistic, or bigoted or
whatever, but rather because it's _fucking stupid_.

I've been doing this stuff professional for around 20 years now, and I've
worked with oodles of female programmers over the years, and I've _never_ seen
any reason to believe that female programmers are in any way less competent
than their male counterparts. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

It really boggles the imagination... where do these guys come up with this
shit? Making crude jokes, sexually charged statements, some of these other
things I can understand (that doesn't make them _right_ mind you, I'm just
saying I can understand the place some of it comes from), but I can't even
begin to understand a mindset of insinuating that women are less capable as
developers/hackers/programmers/whatever.

To anybody who believes that women are somehow inherently inferior at coding,
let me just say that you're wrong. Absolutely, totally, completely wrong.
Maybe you haven't worked with enough women, or maybe you had the bad fortune
to work with the wrong women, or maybe you just weren't paying attention, but
it's just not true.

~~~
lmm
So at what point have you worked with enough women to be allowed to make
inferences? At what point do you stop trusting what you've read on the
internet and start going by your own experience?

Because thinking back over all the people I've programmed with or inherited a
codebase from[1], the average female programmer was significantly worse than
the average male programmer (which is not to say that I haven't also worked
with some excellent female programmers, because I have). I wish that wasn't
true, and I make every effort to treat every new programmer I meet with an
open mind. But it is. Maybe it's just statistical bad luck, but it's reached
the point where it's very hard to ignore.

[1] And in the case of one inherited codebase with a foreign name I wasn't
aware of the gender until long after I'd formed my judgement, so I think I'm
being reasonably objective.

~~~
vectorpush
_Because thinking back over all the people I 've programmed with or inherited
a codebase from_

So basically, when considering a minuscule, poorly defined and poorly measured
data-set, you've decided to draw broad conclusions about half the human
population.

I'm not sure how great a programmer _you_ are, but I'll tell you right now
that your logic skills need some work.

~~~
lmm
Broad conclusions? No, more like weak inferences. Not everything can be a
formally-verified proof; a vital skill in programming (for debugging if
nothing else) is the ability to make a best guess based on limited data (and
to know how much weight to give such guesses).

(If there were reliable science on the subject I would of course prefer to go
by that, but that's practically impossible for a question that's so
politicised)

~~~
vectorpush
_No, more like weak inferences_

Indeed, quite weak; weak to the point of being useless. In ten years of
programming, I've only worked with two developers who were comfortable with
the use of regular expressions, both were women... what does that tell me
about women?

Nothing.

Similarly, whatever experiences you've had with female programmers who are
"worse than the average male" programmer is pretty clearly worthless (for the
purpose of drawing conclusions about female programmers), especially when one
considers that your definition of average is, at best, a nebulous amalgamation
of your own subjective impressions.

~~~
lmm
You're right that two probably isn't enough for a significant result - though
it might be, if the effect size is large enough. How large was the rest of
your sample, and how big was the difference? I won't stoop to insults the way
you did, but are you really not even _curious_ about these kind of
differences?

~~~
vectorpush
_I won 't stoop to insults the way you did_

How noble of you. You're right though. I apologize for disparaging your
faculties of logic, it was tongue in cheek but wholly unnecessary.

 _though it might be, if the effect size is large enough. How large was the
rest of your sample, and how big was the difference?_

How can effect size be determined when we don't even know what is being
measured? What is the criteria for determining the quality of a programmer?
How is that criteria applied? Are there controls for education? exposure to
programming as a child? years of experience? quality of experience? quality of
tools available to the programmer? quality of the work environment in which we
seek to evaluate the programmer's quality? It's reasonable for one to leverage
professional experience in judging the skill level of colleagues, but it'd be
foolish to think that those observations can be generalized across an
arbitrary dimension of the programmer population (such as gender, or race, or
political leaning).

 _are you really not even curious about these kind of differences?_

I guess? I'm always eager to learn more, but I don't really find the question
of programmer aptitude as a function of gender very interesting since I can't
identify anything unique about programming that would suggest either gender
would be qualitatively predisposed to the craft.

------
hawkharris
Have you ever noticed that HN posts concerning gender discrimination tend to
attract hundreds of comments?

That's not intrinsically bad. What's questionable is the quality of the
comments. It seems that almost all the remarks on this page are drawn from
opinion or personal anecdotes. Don't get me wrong... personal stories can be
interesting and insightful; it's just that, in most discussion threads, HN
tends to balance opinion with links to more objective qualitative and
quantitative sources. That's what differentiates HN from sites like Facebook
and Reddit.

So, there should be a barrier to participating in discussions about gender on
HN. If you have personal or professional experience that qualifies you to
discuss the topic, please share it. If you took the time to research the issue
and present a substantial, new perspective, please share it. But if you want
to chime in with a vague, unsubstantiated opinion that dozens of others have
already shared, please consider using another forum. That's what makes these
discussions less productive.

~~~
muglug
Why the need to explicitly police the discussion? Doesn't HN's system of up-
and-down votes already accomplish that?

~~~
wambotron
I still don't see downvotes. I don't really post or comment very often, but
I've been reading this site almost daily for years.

Maybe they could work that in to an algorithm that gives you the downvote
option..

My point is that there are many, many people who are just readers (of posts
and comments) who don't feel the need to comment on everything but are
perfectly capable of helping police the content. Right now, I can only upvote
if I like something. There is no other option for "this is not good/helpful"

~~~
steveklabnik
> Maybe they could work that in to an algorithm that gives you the downvote
> option..

There is, actually. You need 500 karma, and you don't have that yet.

~~~
wambotron
I think you misunderstood me. I meant the age of your account + your recent
activity (as in, visits to the page) would account for something in the
formula.

------
ufmace
Misleading title, there is no bar in this story.

But seriously, I think this is a refreshing article, considering the usual
gender in tech articles here. I'd like to think that there are plenty of
places a woman can work as a professional developer and not be subject to such
rampant discrimination and sexual harassment that most of us find it difficult
to believe.

I recommend everybody believe and act as if there are plenty of awesome
companies to work at. If you find yourself at a company that sucks, for
whatever reason, kick their asses to the curb and find a new one.

~~~
JPKab
I was recently in an 11 week class for Machine Learning. 3 of the best
students in this course were females. What was funny to me was how gender was
never really an issue for anyone. Competent people are typically awestruck by
smart people who are displaying brilliance. I was always cracking jokes about
"well, I'm not (insert her name here), so I'll have to go look at her code
before I can do that."

The big difference in treatment occurred with the lone female in the course
who wasn't a good coder. Despite her having more experience than many in the
class, she quickly fell behind. I witnessed a vicious cycle, in which she
(probably due to the way she had been treated in the past) was ultra defensive
when criticism came down, which then caused a difference in how she was
criticized, which was then picked up on by her...... She complained to me
about being discriminated against for her gender. While I'm very sympathetic
to females in our industry who suffer at the hands of these brogrammer idiots
(anytime I see anything remotely like that kind of behavior, I don't hesitate
to LITERALLY GRAB the guy/guys, pull them aside, and give them a menacing
rebuke), this was a case in which gender wasn't actually the issue. It was
personality. And I have no doubt that gender discrimination in her past helped
create this personality. Such a challenge to deal with this.

~~~
ufmace
Interesting touchstone for something that I've always thought about these
things, but that seems to go against the popular opinion here.

From my general experiences, I believe that the majority of what appears to be
sexism, racism, etc is actually about respect, and not what the poor treatment
appears to be about. When a person has self-respect and is generally respected
in the peer group, these sorts of ridiculous, cruel, ad-holmium type attacks
just don't happen, or vanish about as soon as they start.

When a person does not respect themselves, though, or acts in such a way as to
lose respect in their group, then there's a certain type of person (mostly
those brogrammer idiot types) out there that will seize upon that and attack
that person with whatever they think will make them the most uncomfortable and
upset. Sexism, racism, bigotry, any way that the person is different from the
others, anything that they're insecure or uncomfortable with. The person
doesn't really feel that way; they just use it to attack the weak. Of course,
that's pretty asshole-ish behavior too, and I'm not sure that I'd call that
better than actually being bigoted.

------
andrewguenther
Over 50% of this article is a job posting... I find it a little messed up to
take a real issue and spin it as a hiring campaign. A footnote about the
positive work environment at Netguru? Sure. But this is just plain
advertising.

~~~
phkahler
Even worse, the link goes to some dude who copied the blog so he could get
page views instead of the author. HN posts it with a link to his page, not
hers. He doesn't even talk about it, just "hey this is cool I'm gonna repost
it so I get hits."

------
unfamiliar
What a creative job advertisement.

~~~
pestaa
Honestly I was expecting a little more meat in the article, and it turned out
not to be primarily an article.

On the other hand, I'd love to work with female programmers more. The one I
had the pleasure to work with had good insight, took care of legacy code like
only a mother can, and documented every wtf line tenfold.

There might be tasks men are genetically more suited to, but women could also
bring a lot to the table.

~~~
pja
That is the most back-handed set of compliments I've seen in a while - you're
doing a great job of entrenching the "HN is irredeemably sexist" image so many
people already have.

~~~
romanovcode
This is one person who states his opinion, saying that "HN is irredeemably
sexist" because of one person is irredeemably stupid.

------
ColinDabritz
I'd like to acknowledge the courage of Gosia to put something like this
online. (Original post: [http://ineedmorehobbies.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/so-
a-female...](http://ineedmorehobbies.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/so-a-female-
programmer-walks-into-a-bar/) )

It frustrates and angers me knowing the article will almost certainly draw
asinine comments and threats that are wholly inappropriate.

It takes a kind of bravery I'm not sure I have, and I can't tell if I do
because it isn't required when I write.

The reasons it's needed aside, the signal of this blog that this is a safe
place for women to work is important.

To the author, well done, and know that support is out there.

------
amykhar
I've been a professional programmer since 1997. I've worked for defense
contractors, consulting companies and medical software shops. I've NEVER had a
problem with my gender in the workplace. I've always been treated the same as
the other developers.

Now, I can't be certain that my resume hasn't been skipped in the pile because
I'm a woman. But, it's been my experience that developers on a team just want
somebody who can do the work and can appreciate the good work that they do.

With so many articles posted about discrimination and sexism, it's refreshing
to see others share their experience as being just one of the gang.

------
mathetic
This is a terrible PR article but we might actually need more of these.

That's basically how one changes social stigmas in a society/industry. Just
make sure all cool places are doing the exact opposite of unwanted behaviour.
If that's not possible, then everybody needs to fake it with PR stunts like
this until everyone else believes that's the thing to do.

------
EGreg
You know that comic, from back in the 90s?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_y...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog)

Well, this is another point for the distributed, asynchronous programming
championed by [http://asyncmanifesto.org/](http://asyncmanifesto.org/)

I would be happy to hire a woman programmer at our company provided she was
awesome at the stuff we need -- Javascript, PHP, etc. In fact if someone here
is reading this (man or woman) and thinks they would like to work with us on
[http://github.com/EGreg/Q](http://github.com/EGreg/Q), I would be very happy
to talk to you -- if you can figure out how to contact me from there.

In programming, the internet is the great equalizer. Have your work speak for
itself, have your reviews speak for themselves, and this may be a faster
vector for advancement than at a job.

PS: Recently I did reach out to one woman who I found on oDesk and she was
busy with a project, but recommended someone else, a man. And now I'm talking
to him, because she recommended well.

PPS: We do have a woman working in our company, doing sales. I really hire
based simply on competence with the stuff we need and so far it's ben mostly
men doing the programming.

~~~
commandar
>In programming, the internet is the great equalizer. Have your work speak for
itself, have your reviews speak for themselves, and this may be a faster
vector for advancement than at a job.

The problem is that it shouldn't require anonymity to get people to simply
treat each other like people.

~~~
sbirchall
According to google/youtube anonymity positively encourages inhumane
treatment? ;)

------
swalsh
Where was the substance to the post? The post she linked to was far more
interesting:

[https://netguru.co/blog/posts/brace-no-more-going-from-
java-...](https://netguru.co/blog/posts/brace-no-more-going-from-java-to-ruby-
on-rails)

~~~
twic
That article raised a frown with me. It presents some Java code, then shows
the Ruby version, which ends up being much more concise. But the Java code is
needlessly verbose. Here's how i'd arrange it:

    
    
        @Override
        public boolean equals(Object object) {
            if (!(object instanceof Gallery)) return false;
            Gallery other = (Gallery) object;
            return (this.gid != null || other.gid == null) && (this.gid == null || this.gid.equals(other.gid));
        }
    

Apart from the cast, which you need because Java has static types and Ruby
doesn't, it's the same length. It's basically the same code, token for token.

Actually, the logical structure of the final line is a bit obscure to me; i'd
write it:

    
    
            return this.gid != null ? this.gid.equals(other.gid) : other.gid == null;
    

Or, in Java 7 or later:

    
    
            return Objects.equals(this.gid, other.gid);

------
tootie
It's kinda sad that she has to call out Netguru as someplace safe for women.
Honestly, I think it's just a bit of moral panic brought on by a few high
profile stories. I've been in and out of a lot of organizations and never
witnessed female colleagues being given a hard time. A few instances of creepy
guy behavior, but I've also seen guys get bothered by creepy gay guy behavior.
That's not unique to the programmer world at least.

~~~
steveklabnik
> I've been in and out of a lot of organizations and never witnessed female
> colleagues being given a hard time.

Liberally stolen from Anil Dash, consider this sentence and how it compares to
yours:

> I'm an iPhone user, and I've been in and out of a lot of organizations where
> I also work with Android users, and they're always complaining about bugs. I
> can't ever reproduce their bugs on iOS.

------
matthewmacleod
_“you’re a chick, leave this crap to REAL developers”_

Seriously, what kind of a dick says that to anybody - even if it was nothing
to do with gender, it's an egregious offence.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
My guess? An insecure one, who therefore is trying to build up his own self-
esteem by tearing other people down.

------
commandar
>Because we have a motto that says “you’re not your code” that all of us stick
to and it works in many ways.

This struck a chord with me.

I work in the healthcare sector, so I deal with what is, for IT, an unusually
high proportion of women. I've dealt with bad female developers, but I've also
worked with absolutely great ones. Just like I've dealt with incompetent and
solid male developers.

Maybe it's just my exposure and the fact that it's a normal thing for me, but
gender just doesn't even register on my radar when I have to work with
someone. All I care about is the ability to get the job done.

While I think the dearth of women in the tech sector is systematic on a deep
enough level that it's very difficult to "solve" in any manner that won't take
decades, I do find myself somewhat worried about the byproducts of tech's
current insular nature. I feel that normalizing _dealing with people_ \--
diverse groups of people -- on a regular basis yields healthy benefits well
beyond simply saying "we're inclusive!" It breeds openness to just plain
working with people as people.

~~~
Shebanator
The important thing here is that despite the claims of some, there is _no_
evidence that the proportion of good to bad programmers is any different for
males vs. females. Same holds true for race, sexual orientation, etc. Anyone
claiming otherwise is merely displaying their own biases.

------
xamebax
It's very nice to read some women have positive experiences and that some
companies are able to create a discrimination-free culture. I'm happy for
Gosia and it gives me some hope for the future.

What I am scared of is some people using what Gosia wrote as an argument to
silence other women: "Look! Read! See? It's not bad! So shut up".

------
austinhutch
I wonder how significant the importance of the long-time/early female employee
was in shaping a welcoming culture. It is easy for a group of extremely like
minded and homogenous (male) group to start a company and grow to a decent
size before any diversity is introduced. It might prove to be a powerful
strategy to consciously introduce diversity before most would start thinking
about "company culture". (Obviously I don't mean this as something only white
male founders should worry about, I think it could be powerful for all young
companies)

------
imchillyb
Shady little advert there, masquerading as news.

~~~
dep_b
Right, my thoughts too.

Still good to have a positive story as well after all those awful stories of
lately.

------
dickface
So a female programmer walks into a bar... and nothing of importance in
relation to her gender happens. What a piece of crap article. Why is she
obsessing about her gender when it clearly isn't affecting her in any way
mentionable, let alone writing an article about it? Such a useless article.
Doesn't surprise me a woman wrote it.

------
Pxtl
It's sad that being generally decent to women is remarkable enough to be
newsworthy, but it's important to highlight successes instead of failures if
for no better reason than to remind the world that geek misogyny is far from
universal or universally tolerated.

------
song
Right now hiring women is a competitive advantage. If you're not an asshole
and make sure that the work environment is sane, you get an employee who is
grateful for the opportunity to do her job in a nice environment and who is
more likely to advertise her job...

------
skakri
Blogspam. Please visit original page –
[http://ineedmorehobbies.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/so-a-
female...](http://ineedmorehobbies.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/so-a-female-
programmer-walks-into-a-bar/)

------
jbeja
Rolling my eyes the whole post. Is overly dramatic for something so mundane,
and to be honest i don't even believe it.

“you’re a chick, leave this crap to REAL developers”.

Who say stupid thing like this on this day of age or even get dramatic when
someone say that to you?. Please give yourself some pride, you are better than
this.

------
madsheep
You might think this is fake, planned or otherwise staged - I get that, I
would think the same. But you should see my anger when I saw what's going on
with that tiny little excuse for a server, becouse nobody told me this is
happening. They did not think they need to, since it's only felt natural and
normal thing to do, reposting an article of one of our coworkers and going to
HN with it. passenger_max_instances_per_app 4 my ass.

