Can women actually write software?

Discussions computers, internet and mobile technology (cell phones, smart phones, iPads).
User avatar
publicduende
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4940
Joined: November 30th, 2011, 9:20 am

Post by publicduende »

Cornfed wrote:Fine, then you should be able to answer an earlier question in this thread and list a few females who are well known coders of open source software. That is the acid test of course, because while whorporations can hire female "programers" just because they have a v****a, to be well known in open source software you have to actually write workable code. You could also list innovative programs the females you mention have actually written, rather than just talk about what they are nominally hired to do.
An interesting article. It seems that women are indeed under-represented in the open source software community. That is though not much of an argument in favour of women being inferior software developers than men. It's just a fact of life.

http://women2.com/opening-open-source-to-women/

The scarcity of women, however, at this conference and on this project, wasn’t surprising. Women are estimated to represent 3% of open source contributors. In the US today, women represent 25% of all software developers and 18% of students currently graduating with computer science degrees. The participation of women in open source is particularly low even when compared to the already low participation of women in computer science.


Meet Loads of Foreign Women in Person! Join Our Happier Abroad ROMANCE TOURS to Many Overseas Countries!

Meet Foreign Women Now! Post your FREE profile on Happier Abroad Personals and start receiving messages from gorgeous Foreign Women today!

User avatar
publicduende
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4940
Joined: November 30th, 2011, 9:20 am

Post by publicduende »

Cornfed wrote:Of course it is. Open source coders are people with the ability and inclination to code. Corporate "programers" and the people the powers that be choose to hire to fulfil their warped political agendas. By examining the difference we can tell who the real coders are and aren't.
Well this is another one of your myths. Lots of very good developers work on open source of free of charge projects released on the various Google Code, CodeProject, Codeplex etc. But don't forget that the same developers have to pay their bills, which means they work on commercial projects, more often than not in large corporations. I know plenty of very good developers who work, like me, in various financial institutions and love to work evenings and weekends on various pet projects, websites or mobile apps chiefly, most of which are regularly released to the public free of charge or in the open source community.

Why oh why you have to see corporate evil everywhere, it's beyond me.
Cornfed wrote:But what reason does the article give for female non-participation in open source? They are "afraid that other members will not treat them respectfully" (i.e. shower them with effusive praise for being female). LOL, since when do talented men run scared from something they are deeply interested in just because everyone else may not bend over backwards to massage their egos? And I thought females were supposed to be strong and independent. I can't believe anyone takes crap like this seriously.
Consider that the above article stays within a narrow definition of open source. Open source ain't just Linux stuff anymore. It's web stuff, Microsoft stuff, let alone other IT resources such as design and styles, online courses. If you consider the broader "free stuff" market, the number of women involved does rise. I couldn't give you the exact figures, but I can guarantee you that rise it does.
User avatar
publicduende
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4940
Joined: November 30th, 2011, 9:20 am

Post by publicduende »

Cornfed wrote:
publicduende wrote:Well this is another one of your myths. Lots of very good developers work on open source of free of charge projects released on the various Google Code, CodeProject, Codeplex etc. But don't forget that the same developers have to pay their bills, which means they work on commercial projects, more often than not in large corporations. I know plenty of very good developers who work, like me, in various financial institutions and love to work evenings and weekends on various pet projects, websites or mobile apps chiefly, most of which are regularly released to the public free of charge or in the open source community.
Perfectly consistent with what I said. Some corporate programmers are good and work on OS projects, but despite the fact that many corporate programmers are female, virtually none of them work on OS projects. Conclusion: virtually no female programmers are any good. QED.
You're still not proving anything mate. Many good developers are active in the open source community, but that doesn't mean all developers who don't do OS stuff (including most women) are no good! Do you need a couple of Venn diagrams to understand this simple logic?

I think working and delivering to the open source community requires a certain mindset: you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away. Bar some rare example of uber-geeks, women want to spend their spare time doing something else, including the things we men find trivial and boring: shopping, taking care of ourselves, reading books, cooking. This even before we start accounting with the time they spend being mothers, wives and take care of the house!

As you can see there are reasons why women aren't generally too preoccupied with proving their professional worth outside the designated office hours. None of those reason makes them less capable than men.
lmd12358
Freshman Poster
Posts: 5
Joined: July 10th, 2013, 2:52 pm

Post by lmd12358 »

Cornfed wrote:
publicduende wrote:I think working and delivering to the open source community requires a certain mindset: you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away. Bar some rare example of uber-geeks, women want to spend their spare time doing something else, including the things we men find trivial and boring: shopping, taking care of ourselves, reading books, cooking. This even before we start accounting with the time they spend being mothers, wives and take care of the house!
Couldn't have put it better myself.
It is a fair point that many(definitely not all, but many) women DO enjoy shopping cooking, etc. However you could argue the same point for men. Many if not most men enjoy sports, video games(males claim the video game industry is male dominated and most consider girls 'fake gamers'), watching TV, etc. You might not consider them to be 'trivial and boring', but they are just as much of a time-suck as shopping, taking care of ourselves, etc. You cannot honestly say men spend more time coding because they do less 'trivial' activities. Totally incorrect. There are some activities that are socially more of a woman's job like taking care of the children, but that is actually changing, slowly for sure, but it is getting more and more common for men to take of the kids. Plus there are many women who are single and don't have kids or whose kids are off at college and don't rely on their mothers anymore. So while being a mother/wife may effect some women, it most definitely does not effect all women.

"you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away"

I don't see how this is a 'male' thing. Why can women not be idealistic or enjoy working with ever-changing teams? And willingness to be inside coding has nothing to do with gender, but personality.

Your points are such BS
lmd12358
Freshman Poster
Posts: 5
Joined: July 10th, 2013, 2:52 pm

Post by lmd12358 »

Cornfed wrote:
publicduende wrote:I think working and delivering to the open source community requires a certain mindset: you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away. Bar some rare example of uber-geeks, women want to spend their spare time doing something else, including the things we men find trivial and boring: shopping, taking care of ourselves, reading books, cooking. This even before we start accounting with the time they spend being mothers, wives and take care of the house!
Couldn't have put it better myself.
It is a fair point that many(definitely not all, but many) women DO enjoy shopping cooking, etc. However you could argue the same point for men. Many if not most men enjoy sports, video games(males claim the video game industry is male dominated and most consider girls 'fake gamers'), watching TV, etc. You might not consider them to be 'trivial and boring', but they are just as much of a time-suck as shopping, taking care of ourselves, etc. You cannot honestly say men spend more time coding because they do less 'trivial' activities. Totally incorrect. There are some activities that are socially more of a woman's job like taking care of the children, but that is actually changing, slowly for sure, but it is getting more and more common for men to take of the kids. Plus there are many women who are single and don't have kids or whose kids are off at college and don't rely on their mothers anymore. So while being a mother/wife may effect some women, it most definitely does not effect all women.

"you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away"

I don't see how this is a 'male' thing. Why can women not be idealistic or enjoy working with ever-changing teams? And willingness to be inside coding has nothing to do with gender, but personality.

Your points are such BS
lmd12358
Freshman Poster
Posts: 5
Joined: July 10th, 2013, 2:52 pm

Post by lmd12358 »

Cornfed wrote:
lmd12358 wrote:This is one of the most sexist and frankly annoying posts I have ever seen.

First off, being a male does not give you some special advantage in writing computer software. None.
Being a man means that I have ~ 6 times the grey matter of you insect-brained females and don't think any hysterical hormone-driven emotions I happen to have define reality. That is an advantage in creative pursuits.

This has no scientific standing whatsoever and I'd love to see your proof. And 'i read it in an article at one point' is never proof.
I can list many, many women that I know, personally and professionally, who are excellent programmers.
Fine, then you should be able to answer an earlier question in this thread and list a few females who are well known coders of open source software. That is the acid test of course, because while whorporations can hire female "programers" just because they have a v****a, to be well known in open source software you have to actually write workable code. You could also list innovative programs the females you mention have actually written, rather than just talk about what they are nominally hired to do.
lmd12358
Freshman Poster
Posts: 5
Joined: July 10th, 2013, 2:52 pm

Post by lmd12358 »

Cornfed wrote:
lmd12358 wrote:This is one of the most sexist and frankly annoying posts I have ever seen.

First off, being a male does not give you some special advantage in writing computer software. None.
Being a man means that I have ~ 6 times the grey matter of you insect-brained females and don't think any hysterical hormone-driven emotions I happen to have define reality. That is an advantage in creative pursuits.

This has no scientific standing whatsoever and I'd love to see your proof. And 'i read it in an article at one point' is never proof.
I can list many, many women that I know, personally and professionally, who are excellent programmers.
Fine, then you should be able to answer an earlier question in this thread and list a few females who are well known coders of open source software. That is the acid test of course, because while whorporations can hire female "programers" just because they have a v****a, to be well known in open source software you have to actually write workable code. You could also list innovative programs the females you mention have actually written, rather than just talk about what they are nominally hired to do.
User avatar
publicduende
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4940
Joined: November 30th, 2011, 9:20 am

Post by publicduende »

lmd12358 wrote:
Cornfed wrote:
publicduende wrote:I think working and delivering to the open source community requires a certain mindset: you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away. Bar some rare example of uber-geeks, women want to spend their spare time doing something else, including the things we men find trivial and boring: shopping, taking care of ourselves, reading books, cooking. This even before we start accounting with the time they spend being mothers, wives and take care of the house!
Couldn't have put it better myself.
It is a fair point that many(definitely not all, but many) women DO enjoy shopping cooking, etc. However you could argue the same point for men. Many if not most men enjoy sports, video games(males claim the video game industry is male dominated and most consider girls 'fake gamers'), watching TV, etc. You might not consider them to be 'trivial and boring', but they are just as much of a time-suck as shopping, taking care of ourselves, etc. You cannot honestly say men spend more time coding because they do less 'trivial' activities. Totally incorrect. There are some activities that are socially more of a woman's job like taking care of the children, but that is actually changing, slowly for sure, but it is getting more and more common for men to take of the kids. Plus there are many women who are single and don't have kids or whose kids are off at college and don't rely on their mothers anymore. So while being a mother/wife may effect some women, it most definitely does not effect all women.

"you must be an idealistic person, enjoy collaborating with large and ever-changing teams dispersed the world over, and most importantly have plenty of spare time and the willingness to spend it indoor coding away"

I don't see how this is a 'male' thing. Why can women not be idealistic or enjoy working with ever-changing teams? And willingness to be inside coding has nothing to do with gender, but personality.

Your points are such BS
What BS, I was simply stating the obvious, as some of the posters here read feminist conspiracy in every single fact of life that affects either, or both genders. It is a fact that women would rather spend their free time taking care of their families or themselves, shopping or involved in some sort of leisurely outdoor activity. I see this happen everywhere in the world, and across different generations as well. Assuming there are very few full-time open source programmers, if you're a professional developer like me, you should know that putting after-office hours to code up something decent that the wider community will benefit free of charge requires not only idealism (which, agreeing with you, is indeed cross-gender) but the time and willingness to spend evenings and weekend sitting in front of your PC, writing code, reading tech reference books, solving challenges, interacting with your peers via forums and e-mail, etc.

Women just don't tend to have the predisposition, the time and willingness to do just that in their spare time. The call of duty from being mothers, wives, or just vain(er) individuals, is just too strong. That, to me, is a quite self-evident proof of why the OS community doesn't sport so many ladies. Within the boundaries of office time, where one's best effort is rewarded by a monthly paycheck, it's a different ball game, where women are indeed a minority, yet do thrive and can show their talents.

Just to wrap what has become a tired thread. I don't agree that the participation in the open source community is a such an important marker of quality of women as software programmers. If one is smart, he or she needs to feel free to show his/her potential as and when he/she fits. In fact, some of the best dev/architects I know in my industry spend little more than their office hours coding, and have a very rich social/personal life beyond work.
zboy1
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4648
Joined: October 3rd, 2007, 9:33 pm

Post by zboy1 »

lmd12358 is a female troll. I've banned her from this forum.
gsjackson
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 3759
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 7:08 am
Location: New Orleans, LA USA
Contact:

Post by gsjackson »

zboy1 wrote:lmd12358 is a female troll. I've banned her from this forum.
How did you know on the female part? Was it her use of the word "annoying." That was a real red flag for me. The word is right up there with "creepy" in the AW arsenal of disdain.
User avatar
Cornfed
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 12543
Joined: August 16th, 2012, 9:22 pm

Post by Cornfed »

lmd12358 wrote:
Cornfed wrote:
lmd12358 wrote:This is one of the most sexist and frankly annoying posts I have ever seen.

First off, being a male does not give you some special advantage in writing computer software. None.
Being a man means that I have ~ 6 times the grey matter of you insect-brained females and don't think any hysterical hormone-driven emotions I happen to have define reality. That is an advantage in creative pursuits.

This has no scientific standing whatsoever and I'd love to see your proof. And 'i read it in an article at one point' is never proof.
While this article is vomitsomely politically correct, it does prove the point about grey matter.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 100142.htm
User avatar
publicduende
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4940
Joined: November 30th, 2011, 9:20 am

Post by publicduende »

Cornfed wrote:While this article is vomitsomely politically correct, it does prove the point about grey matter.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 100142.htm
What exactly are you trying to prove here, my deranged friend? :)

From the first paragraph...

The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray matter related to intellectual skill, revealing that no single neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that different types of brain designs are capable of producing equivalent intellectual performance.

What you find "vomitsomely PC" is probably the main conclusion of the article, that using gray/white matter ratio as a marker of intelligence is...inconclusive. So a petite woman whose brain size is maybe 80 or 90% that of a giant man is doomed to be dumber than said giant? No evidence, either factual or experiential!

Call me a new-age idealist, but I like to lean on the "spiritualist" interpretation of conscience and human intellectual abilities as given by an immaterial soul connected to said brain no more no less the way a power cord to its source, or an antenna tuned to a radio station. With that in mind (no pun intended), it's blatantly obvious that a small radio tuned to a quality station is better than a massive one only picking up random noise.
mand38
Freshman Poster
Posts: 134
Joined: March 4th, 2013, 5:33 am

Re: Can women actually write software?

Post by mand38 »

Me too, I know few girls that are software engineers...
User avatar
igorpalkoo
Freshman Poster
Posts: 1
Joined: June 11th, 2018, 3:05 am
Contact:

Re: Can women actually write software?

Post by igorpalkoo »

opaque ...
it's developed by a woman voiptimecloud. Why such an attitude? a modern woman in the process of evolution is a very intelligent man. It is not necessary at this stage of life - to speak about women!
User avatar
publicduende
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 4940
Joined: November 30th, 2011, 9:20 am

Re: Can women actually write software?

Post by publicduende »

Just to tie two "beloved" themes together... Come here to the Philippines and walk into the average software house, like I did a few times with one of my Clients, a large conglomerate with bases in Manila (BGC), Cebu and Davao. At least, and I mean at least 30% of the kids I saw in there were girls.

Funnily enough, historically the first batch of programmers of automatic computing machines were mostly women. Whether Ada Lovelace has the primate of being the first known "computer programmer" (her friendship and mail exchange with Charles Babbage is proven, her involvement in the development of his Analytical Engine, less so) or not, it is a fact that most programmers assigned to writing logical code for the first electronic computers like the Colossus at Bletchley Park were women.

Image

Other historical "mothers" of modern computing include Grace Hopper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper).

If I may hazard, the discipline started to become a male-dominated one when many of the projects that grew the computer industry enormously were started by, or assigned to, the military or large corporations like Rand or IBM, which overwhelmingly employed men. Another reason could be that, with increasing complexity and integration of digital computers, the skills required to operate computers were less and less to do with mathematics and logic and more with electronic engineering and "informatics". The latter being study areas where far more men than women were present.

I can't think of any other reasons why women, from being well represented, became a tiny minority all of a sudden.

Things are now changing, as more and more girls embrace STEM degrees and they are happy to venture into the T(echnology) and E(ngineering) as well as the S(cience) and M(athematics). We are likely to see the number of women active in computer science and software engineering increase considerably over the next couple of decades, albeit never to match the number of men.
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Computers, Internet, Mobile Technology”