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Survey: More Women Are Going Into Programming
itwbennett writes: We've previously discussed the dearth of women in computing. Indeed, according to U.S. Bureau and Labor Statistics estimates, in 2014 four out of five programmers and software developers in the U.S. were men. But according to a survey conducted this spring by the Application Developers Alliance and IDC, that may be changing. The survey of 855 developers worldwide found that women make up 42% of developers with less than 1 year of experience and 30% of those with between 1 and 5 years of experience. Of course, getting women into programming is one thing; keeping them is the next big challenge.
In all my years working in IT I have NEVER seen the kind of behavior that is claimed. Women get out of IT because IT sucks. It's incredibly socially isolating (working with a machine all day). *Most* women want much more inter-personal interaction. That's a fact.
I think he's referring to situations like this one:
Three male developers have been tasked with improving the quality of the software systems they're responsible for. They're looking into using the Coq proof system.
They're sitting together in the office's open workspace discussing this tool. The conversation goes something like,
Programmer 1: "What do you guys think about playing around with Coq?"
Programmer 2: "I've played with Coq for a few minutes, but I don't like it very much."
Programmer 3: "Yeah, I've tried Coq a few times, too, and sometimes it's way too hard for me to handle."
Programmer 2: "Yup, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too."
Programmer 1: "Ok, that settles it. Coq is no good for us, so we won't touch it."
Well, since they're in an open environment, some of their coworkers overhead the conversation. These coworkers include a couple of women, and a male homosexual who is transitioning into becoming a woman, all of whom work in project management and design. All three are extreme feminists.
Taking the discussion totally out of context, these coworkers mistakenly hear "Coq" as "cock", as in penis.
As you can imagine, this brings an extreme level of outrage to these self-righteous coworkers. They think they're hearing sexually explicit, and possibly homophobic, discussion in the workplace. They go to HR, and raise a shitstorm.
HR cracks down hard on the three male programmers, who have no idea why they're being attacked. They try to explain what Coq is, and how it has absolutely nothing to do with penises or sex. It doesn't matter. They dared to say a word that sounds like "cock", and for that they must pay dearly, because coworkers got offended.
Instead of using their skills to improve the products that the customers want and need, the programmers are now stuck fighting political battles over a total non-issue.
I think that that's what the GP was talking about. Situations like those.