I love how completely out of touch some of these social justice articles are.
When we see someone who does not look like [a young fit clean cut white male], we assume they are not a real programmer, he said. Almost all of the women he knows in the industry have a story about someone assuming they aren't a programmer. He talked to multiple women attending PyCon 2015 who were asked which guy they are there with—the only reason they would come is because their partner, the man, is the programmer. "If you're a dude, has anyone ever asked you that?"
As a hint, when some guy at a sausage fest event (all with a collective fantasy of meeting a similarly interested and intelligent girl) ask a girl which guy she's with, it's not because of some sort of pseudo-societal stereotyping and implicit dogmatic oppression.
What are our metrics? Lines of code—what does that measure? Story points?
Reminded me of a project I saw in /r/shittyprogramming maybe a year ago. It was 200,000 lines of code for a game of Battleship. Board analysis was done completely statically, meaning that he had entire case statement blocks for each and every single position on the board and used a single variable to store the board's state. Most hilarious thing I've ever scrolled through on pastebin.
I'm not a full time developer, but I will write specialized business apps. As a result of my background, I've seen similar disasters. Mostly on projects that involve a 3rd party for a specialized component.
The issue is a balance between the most sound, logical or even optimal approach and 'just get it done.' This is even more frightening when you have a consultant making $200-300/hr and which route do you think he'll take? It's not like he has to maintain that cluster...
Heh. Our company had a similar situation. Sort of a "make it work and get it out the door asap" type of project. We get paid, so I guess that's all that matters, haha.
If management accepts that as a valid solution, then they're accepting the negative dividends going forward as a result of maintenance. At that point, it's not really your issue.
I'll generally do everything I can to stall to get a solid solution in place, because otherwise it's: ITS DOWN FIX IT FIX IT! sigh
Lest we forget that some the brightest and smartest programmers before the korean War took place (in the U.S. only) were female. In fact, some of the best minds in the computer and digital industry (Atomic / Nuclear / Programming / Security / Software Engineering / Hardware architecture) were women, in different capacities. I would like to get back to this point.
Sometimes it's about the skills and not the education, gender, sex, or status of what a person has. I've met a lot of smart women in my life but they were skilled at something that I was not. Higher math, high-level programming, hardware, analytics, and logic. Nowadays, it's easy to get some of those skills online. It's not about sexism or racism, now. It's about the technological divide between those who have the desire for the skill set and between those who do not.
Err, I hoping I'm making sense. Please, at least give me the benefit of an ignorant doubt. Thanks!
Agreed, I think there's far too much emphasis on trying to prove the work environments are toxic as opposed to encouraging women to enter tech in the first place or fostering an environment that gaps that technological divide. The last I checked the applicant pool for my Alma Mater's Engineering School last year was 65-70% male and that was before the 'toxic' environments were experienced.
12 comments
10 u/rwbj 04 May 2015 20:24
I love how completely out of touch some of these social justice articles are.
As a hint, when some guy at a sausage fest event (all with a collective fantasy of meeting a similarly interested and intelligent girl) ask a girl which guy she's with, it's not because of some sort of pseudo-societal stereotyping and implicit dogmatic oppression.
7 u/moe 04 May 2015 19:52
Really nice read. I particularly liked this part:
Reminded me of a project I saw in /r/shittyprogramming maybe a year ago. It was 200,000 lines of code for a game of Battleship. Board analysis was done completely statically, meaning that he had entire case statement blocks for each and every single position on the board and used a single variable to store the board's state. Most hilarious thing I've ever scrolled through on pastebin.
3 u/Qi 04 May 2015 20:46
What the hell...
2 u/51rH0n3y84d93r 05 May 2015 04:27
I'm not a full time developer, but I will write specialized business apps. As a result of my background, I've seen similar disasters. Mostly on projects that involve a 3rd party for a specialized component.
The issue is a balance between the most sound, logical or even optimal approach and 'just get it done.' This is even more frightening when you have a consultant making $200-300/hr and which route do you think he'll take? It's not like he has to maintain that cluster...
3 u/Qi 05 May 2015 04:43
Heh. Our company had a similar situation. Sort of a "make it work and get it out the door asap" type of project. We get paid, so I guess that's all that matters, haha.
2 u/51rH0n3y84d93r 05 May 2015 04:54
If management accepts that as a valid solution, then they're accepting the negative dividends going forward as a result of maintenance. At that point, it's not really your issue.
I'll generally do everything I can to stall to get a solid solution in place, because otherwise it's: ITS DOWN FIX IT FIX IT! sigh
1 u/Qi 05 May 2015 04:56
Ugh, exactly. sigh
7 u/gnosticmike 04 May 2015 23:57
Lest we forget that some the brightest and smartest programmers before the korean War took place (in the U.S. only) were female. In fact, some of the best minds in the computer and digital industry (Atomic / Nuclear / Programming / Security / Software Engineering / Hardware architecture) were women, in different capacities. I would like to get back to this point.
Sometimes it's about the skills and not the education, gender, sex, or status of what a person has. I've met a lot of smart women in my life but they were skilled at something that I was not. Higher math, high-level programming, hardware, analytics, and logic. Nowadays, it's easy to get some of those skills online. It's not about sexism or racism, now. It's about the technological divide between those who have the desire for the skill set and between those who do not.
Err, I hoping I'm making sense. Please, at least give me the benefit of an ignorant doubt. Thanks!
0 u/jimmyrussel 19 May 2015 17:50
Agreed, I think there's far too much emphasis on trying to prove the work environments are toxic as opposed to encouraging women to enter tech in the first place or fostering an environment that gaps that technological divide. The last I checked the applicant pool for my Alma Mater's Engineering School last year was 65-70% male and that was before the 'toxic' environments were experienced.
3 u/puag 05 May 2015 13:33
Nah, Zuckerberg does not grow a beard, he ain't a programmer.
0 u/rhoark 20 May 2015 17:56
This seems to be trying to insinuate that since the distribution of aptitude might not be bimodal, aptitude doesn't matter.