
Why women make gifted coders - sonabinu
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11643191/Why-women-make-gifted-coders.html
======
dvdcxn
I feel like articles like these are not helping the problem they attempt to
solve but rather reinforcing it. An article named "what makes people gifted
programmers" and then a profile of this talented person who just happens to be
a women would do far more good for enforcing the idea that anyone can be a
programmer if they develop the right skillset.

Rather than frame the subject as someone beating the statistics, fighting the
institution, frame as someone who is just a straight up talented person whose
skills speak for themselves.

Let the reader infer that this talented developer is female, as if it was a
totally normal, acceptable thing, which it should be.

All this article does say is "LOOK EVERYONE THIS IS A WOMEN THAT HAPPENS TO
CODE", as if the only thing that makes a female programmer valuable is their
gender.

~~~
forgottenpass
When I was 10 I watched a episode of Scooby Doo where all the characters took
turns looking at the camera to say "ick, drugs" to really drive home the point
that drugs are bad.

I remember it well because it was the most hamfisted writing I've ever seen.
Until I started reading the tech press, that is.

The coverage of social issues in tech is a case study of writers snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory. Which isn't surprising, they're just
following the lead of outlets like Jezebel who have done more to set women
back than the C-suite of the Fortune 500 ever could.

~~~
makeitsuckless
This isn't the tech press. If anything, it's the dead opposite of the tech
press. This is the mainstream press, and this is what they have been doing for
decades. Including the "ick, drugs" part.

~~~
dvdcxn
In my experience, a lot of the left-leaning tech press is guilty of the same
thing as this article. Horseshoe theory in action.

------
dghf
> The problem is that the software industry doesn’t reflect the needs of
> society as a whole, she argues. ‘Twentysomething-year-old boys are solving
> their problems with dating or meeting friends, but there are different
> problems in the world,’ she says.

I very much hope Linda Liukas has been quoted out of context, because this is
one of the most ignorantly reductionist portrayals of the role of IT that I've
read. I can scarcely imagine _any_ social problem that hasn't had software
applied to it in some shape or form, even if it's just collecting statistics
on said problem.

I also question the implicit assumption that the majority demographic for
users of dating websites and social media is "twentysomething-year-old boys".

~~~
icebraining
Of course IT has been applied to everything, but that doesn't mean the
investment in the industry reflects the needs of society.

 _I also question the implicit assumption that the majority demographic for
users of dating websites and social media is "twentysomething-year-old boys"._

That's not actually what it says, though. It just means the problems that get
solved are the most common problems affecting 20-year-old boys, not that those
problems aren't shared by must vaster demographics.

~~~
dghf
Fair points. But:

\- The software industry is more than just twenty-something males writing
dating and social media applications.

\- The software industry will produce what it thinks it can make a profit on,
which is an imperfect proxy for what people (and governments) want, which in
turn is an imperfect proxy for what society needs. But, absent a centrally
planned economy or other non-market mechanism, two imperfect proxies are the
best we've got.

\- Much software is general purpose, and can be applied equally to frivolous
and worthy matters: operating systems, databases, networking, web browsers &
servers, office tools, etc.

\- If one is going to complain that the software industry is not addressing
society's problems, it would help if one would specify what those problems
are.

~~~
icebraining
\- Sure the software industry is more than that, but that still doesn't mean
it reflects the needs of society.

\- As for it producing what it thinks it can make a profit on, that only
explains _why_ it doesn't reflect the needs of society, it doesn't refute that
the claim.

\- Is it really "much"? How many production-quality web servers do we have,
really? How many operating systems? They are certainly extremely important,
but represent little of the actual effort and investment expended.

\- I don't think _complain_ is the correct term for what she's doing, and
besides she didn't exactly write the article herself, so it wasn't her
decision to specify anything.

~~~
dghf
Do you agree with the proposition that "the software industry doesn’t reflect
the needs of society as a whole"?

If so, in what way does it not reflect those needs? What are those needs? How
could the industry reflect them?

~~~
icebraining
If you're interested, wouldn't you be better off reading up on what Linda
Liukas has to say on it? She has certainly giving it much more thought than I
have.

------
dozzie
> Currently, 80 per cent of software programmers in America are male [...]
> Liukas believes that the profession only became dominated by men after
> people realised that it was well paid and highly creative.

Well, no. It became male-dominated when it became a subject of tinkering, so
one could do that at home. Now that it's established that it pays good, it
started to gain attention from women.

~~~
Jem
Yes, you're right. All male progammers are in it for the tinkering and the
women are just in it for the money.

~~~
kamaal
Actually if you are in for the money, feeding your family and if your life
depended on it you will more likely succeed at doing it. Because the sheer
focus, seriousness and commitment you will throw towards it will make it
happen.

If you in for tinkering, you will move on to something else once the clots of
curiosity are gone.

~~~
Jem
I'm not really sure what your point is?

------
leereeves
> You wouldn’t expect a petite, fair-haired, 28-year-old woman to be one of
> the most powerful people in coding.

Why not?

~~~
collyw
Because its a male dominated profession.

~~~
akerl_
We're unlikely to improve that by leading into articles by "reminding" the
reader that women usually can't code.

The fact that more men work in most tech offices today doesn't mean that I,
the reader, should be shocked to learn that coding ability isn't based on
gender.

------
whoisthemachine
I agree that women can be gifted programmers; it's generally accepted that the
first programmer was a woman, Ada Lovelace. But this article has all sorts of
attention-grabbing, unrelated links (for example, the link on "open source"
that proclaims Heartblead was the end for open source) in it that I had an
incredibly hard time staying on the topic of reading the article.

However, I did find the link to what I assume is her website, helloruby.com.
It's very nice and I admire what she's doing.

Now where's the article for why men are gifted coders? Or is it just because
we're monsters?

~~~
peterfirefly
> it's generally accepted that the first programmer was a woman, Ada Lovelace.

Really? Babbage couldn't program his own machine?

In any case, Heron is a much better bet:

[http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programm...](http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programmable-
robot-from-60ad.html)

Of course, he wasn't likely to have been the first, either.

~~~
lucozade
More precisely, Lady Lovelace wrote programs for the machine Babbage designed.
Whether Babbage could or couldn't write them isn't, to my knowledge, recorded
(presumably he could if he wanted to). The fact that Lady Lovelace did, is.

~~~
peterfirefly
It is recorded that Babbage more or less had to spoon feed her. She is way
overrated. Which is dumb, when there actually were women who did impressive
things in maths, physics, and engineering. Émilie du Châtelet or Philippa
Fawcet, for example.

~~~
peterfirefly
[https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/christmas-
trilogy-20...](https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/christmas-
trilogy-2012-part-ii-charles-and-ada-a-tale-of-genius-or-of-exploitation/)

[http://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/10/16/much-ada-about-
nothi...](http://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/10/16/much-ada-about-nothing/)

------
icebraining
This is offtopic, but I have to say it's the first time I've seen Bush Jr.
described as "suave" _!_

~~~
dvdcxn
Welcome to right wing UK Journalism. They have generally have a weirdly
fantastical obsession with republican party icons.

~~~
jstedfast
It wasn't the journalist that described Bush was suave, it was the woman being
interviewed.

~~~
dvdcxn
My bad, sorry.

------
wumbernang
What really makes the difference in how gifted someone is[1], comes down to
wanting to do the job because they enjoy it and being able to improve
themselves.

Not gender, race, socio-politics, genderists or media pressure.

[1] Is that even measurable?

------
ian012
The initial statement that women are creative applies to men too. In fact,
history would show men are far more creative in all fields. But also, being
creative isn't that much use in programming. The idea that men got involved
just to make money is more feminist claptrap.

------
dcre
Because they're people, and people make gifted coders?

Liukas is doing great work, but this headline is garbage.

~~~
danellis
> Because they're people, and people make gifted coders?

Generally not, no. The headline is garbage _because_ most women, being people,
do not make good programmers.

------
A_COMPUTER
Good article, lousy title. Immediately made me think "why women make uniquely
gifted coders" rather than "women make gifted coders too".

------
j-pb
> You wouldn’t expect a petite, fair-haired, 28-year-old woman to be one of
> the most powerful people in coding.

Its weird to see how the field gets divided into "computer science" and
"coding".

In coding the act of typing code, networking, and teaching Joe Shmoe how to
build a website is paramount. It doesn't require any real skill, doesn't solve
hard or important problems, but everybody can feel good afterwards.

~~~
mauricemir
If your looking for a site to discuss full on technical programming (aka real
Programming) your on the wrong site here.

And back in the day CS was considered the soft option real Engineers had done
physics or EE Degrees.

~~~
j-pb
This is not a critique of HN.

Just the realisation that there exist some sub community in the computer world
where you can be "one of the most powerful people in coding" without any
history of contributing to open source projects whatsoever.
[https://github.com/lindaliukas](https://github.com/lindaliukas)

------
ExpiredLink
But what is a 'coder' and why should someone - male or female - want to become
one?

~~~
mauricemir
Its a synonym for Developers in the UK.

~~~
ExpiredLink
I doubt that very much.

~~~
rjsw
Do you work in the UK ? The term "coder" is pretty common in the mainstream
press.

It helps to make it clear that a developer isn't as important as a business
person or journalist.

~~~
mauricemir
Yes keep the oily engineers outside other wise they might start wanting the
same status as us :-(

