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The Economist on Mitchell Baker
Sara Chan writes "The Economist has a
story about a trapeze artist who, in her spare time, is the Chief Lizard Wrangler at a non-profit. You perhaps know her as
Mitchell Baker, leader of Firefox." From the article: "Ms Baker gradually found herself the leader of this project. Perhaps this is because she is a somewhat unusual member of the Netscape diaspora. For a start, she is a woman in a community populated, as one (male) colleague puts it, by geeky males with 'spare time and no social life'. Ms Baker herself has never even written code. She studied Chinese at Berkeley, and then became a lawyer--her role at the old Netscape was in software licensing. On all technical matters, she defers to Brendan Eich, her chief geek."
She was amazingly socially unsophisticated.
I'm not sure what that means. Could you elaborate?
She said she had no technical knowledge, but is a lawyer. She gave the impression that she needs to be replaced by someone more capable.
You are hiding behind a linguistic construct called the passive voice to express an opinion. But what is the basis for your opinion? You simply do not say.
Here's a quote from the Economist article about Mitchell Baker: 'For a start, she is a woman in a community populated, as one (male) colleague puts it, by geeky males with "spare time and no social life". Ms Baker herself has never even written code. She studied Chinese at Berkeley, and then became a lawyer -- her role at the old Netscape was in software licensing. On all technical matters, she defers to Brendan Eich, her chief geek.'
Although, as the Economist article says, Mitchell Baker "gradually found herself the leader of this project" (the Mozilla Foundation), she is not able to understand or detect when there is a technical problem. How can someone lead a group when she cannot begin to understand the conversations?
The word "geek" is extremely offensive, although the word is often used in a way that implies that it is acceptable. Calling someone a geek is the social equivalent of calling a black person a nigger.
Having "no social life" is not a benefit for a programmer. It is a huge shortcoming in everything in life, including programming.
Although I myself am a programmer, I'm married to the woman of my choice. I have no trouble getting and holding the attention of attractive women, and not because of looks. The unthinking assumption that technically knowledgeable people are socially unskilled is unacceptable, and for many, not true.
a story about a trapeze artist who, in her spare time, is the Chief Lizard Wrangler
Sounds like the synopsis of a porno movie.
No one cares what your captcha was
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