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Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source
Nerval's Lobster writes: Diversity remains an issue in tech firms across the nation, with executives and project managers publicly upset over a lack of women in engineering and programming roles. While all that's happening on the corporate side, a handful of people and groups are trying to get more women involved in the open source community, like Women of OpenStack, Outreachy (which is geared toward people from underrepresented groups in free software), and others. How much effort should be expended to facilitate diversity among programmers? Can anything be done to shift the demographics, considering the issues that even large, coordinated companies have with altering the collective mix of their employees?
Fill all the forums with macho bravado. I hear that works every time.
just stop
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Id much rather that the executives worry about their product, and not work quota. While they worry about how to get X into Y, they are not using that time to better their product or their service.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I really wish my company had more female coders, because I'd like to see if they would provide a different perspective. As it is, we only have one, and she is good, but does not work in our sustainment group (instead she works on capital projects only).
Maybe coding is just something that attracts more men than women. I know it's always been that way for me. I've known very few women who take coding up as a profession, and those I have known were always very good (or at least, I've known men who were way worse).
However, it's entirely likely that men and women simply gravitate to different professions. We are not the same, to assume we are is to deny our differences.
We shouldn't mandate a 50/50 split, but we should ensure that there are no barriers to anyone wishing to pursue this profession. Once any barriers are removed (and I'm not sure there are any now), then we would see what the true diversity in backgrounds for coders would be.
You know how more women can be involved into open-source ? When there are more women coding open source. That's it. This is not a f**cking social issue.
If diversity improves the quality of code, then let every open source project or company decide that it is suffering from al lthose nasty bugs and lack of vision because there isn't enough estrogen in the mailing list. It isn't my problem. It isn't society's problem. It's not like women are banned from computer science and coding. And frankly, nobody how cares many women are coding, good for those who are, and good for those who aren't. It's coding...not suffrage or human rights or anything of fundamental importance to society. It's like cribbing about how all the cobblers in my town are men , no women. Well, boo fucking hoo.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Do open source coders meet in person much? I am not hip to that scene, but I thought it was mostly done online.
Is there a vagina-to-good-code ratio? Please cite the evidence for this.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
One of the things that draws me to Open Source is that the barriers to entry are absolutely fucking zero. You want to build an Open Source app? Do it. Release it. If people want to use it and contribute to it, they will. If not, they won't (see the billions of abandoned/disused apps on sourceforge, github, etc). Run it however the fuck you want.
However, this really smacks of "Oh, but doesn't feel welcome in the community!" that's been going around lately. So the fuck what? DO IT YOURSELF. Don't wait for my approval. Don't wait to look around to see if anyone cares. If you want to do it, DO IT. You don't like how some maintainer is maintaining a project? FORK IT and make SOMETHING BETTER. Show them how YOU would do it. Just SHUT THE FUCK UP AND START DOING instead of WHINING.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Obviously, all women that want to be coders and have the aptitude to be good ones have a more than good shot at becoming coders. That is what matters. As most women do not want to be coders (just like most men, incidentally, the tiny reminder is just larger for men), "getting more women into coding" sound like trying to trick or coerce people into doing things they do not want and what they have no reasonable aptitude for. That never has a good outcome.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
you're a dick
You think so? Well let's try something then.
Diversity remains an issue in hospitals across the nation, with executives and project managers publicly upset over a lack of men in nursing roles. While all that's happening on the corporate side, a handful of people and groups are trying to get more men involved in nursing school. How much effort should be expended to facilitate diversity among nurses? Can anything be done to shift the demographics, considering the issues that even large, coordinated companies have with altering the collective mix of their employees?
If you find TFA acceptable, but my alterations not, then I am (not) sorry to say that it is you who is the dick, not I.
Hey girls! Do you want to do programming work for zero compensation? Do you want to spend your free time doing labor? Then OPEN SOURCE is the place to be! Join us today!
I've been doing an open source project for about 4 years now (I have been working as a programmer since 1998 - I have a Comp Sci degree, too). Considering some of the places I've found my project in use (Middle Eastern locales) I'm almost certain they don't realize it's a one woman show project. I think we don't get tagged as female devs on our projects unless we cover our stuff with pink ribbons and flowers.
If things like gender are to genuinely supposed to not influence our reactions in the workplace, then we need to stop fucking focusing on them and accept people, men and women, for who they are, or whatever interests they happen to have that may, or may not, happen to direct them into a particular industry.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How many women would give up their nursing jobs to get more men in the field? How many Teachers?
Sound ridiculous? That is exactly what these vagina counters are doing to men in STEM occupations - they aren't creating new jobs for women, they are taking jobs away from men to give to women...
Ken
In my long (over 30 year) career, I've never once seen anyone hired because they were male despite there being a more-able female candidate.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen - I've just never seen it.
On the other hand, I *have* seen a less-capable candidate hired because they were female.
I'm not saying it's common (not least because I don't think it is) - but I have seen it.
In my experience, whether you keep your reproductive organs internally or externally has exactly ZERO influence on how good your code is - so can we just cut all this SJW bullshit, and hire the best person for the job?
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
Recognize that there is no justification for the treatment received by Anita Sarkeesian for challenging sexim in games, that would help.
99% of the treatment she calls harassment is people calling her out on her bullshit. She spins this into "Its because I'm a woman/feminist", but the reality is its just the internet doing what it does best: Calling you out publicly on your bullshit. She is also a public figure at this point, and as such, has been receiving what plenty of public figures get - Non-credible death threats and some pretty mean tweets. So what you are saying is that we should treat her different because she is a woman? Or are you being sexist and not saying that all harassment of that nature is bad, but you will only defend it because it is happening to a woman?
I keep trying to convince my teenage daughters that they should get into coding since they are absolutely guaranteed to get a great job after college, even if they are just mediocre developers, purely because of their gender! But no... they would rather study things like journalism and anthropology. My mind boggles. I am a professional coder who also teaches a college level web development course on the side. I have the resources and experience to train them, but my offers fall on deaf ears. Sigh. Even after being married to a woman and having four daughters I just don't get girls.
Most people who get into computers and programming are naturally introverted.
This is a stereotype, and not really true.
On the other hand, it's important to understand that men and woman at NOT the same, and they may have different ideas about what they want to do in life.
The idea that in every field, we must have 50/50 is simply stupid.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"Diversity remains an issue in tech firms across the nation"
It's a bullshit issue, and its importance is artificially inflated by SJW groups. Frankly, these companies that think there has to be a 50/50 split in everything need to get their heads out of the collective asses.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Build your own fucking community, run by your rules. Shut the fuck up and build something.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Considering we're talking about open source, how it is not open and accessible? You can take whatever code you want and contribute as much or as little as you want. If you don't like the way the project is going, you can fork the code and head off in your own direction and if the community thinks you're doing a better job, eventually you'll pick up contributors.
Forcing morals on everyone else and telling them that if they don't accept it they're being discriminatory is not making things better.
5) We need wives and mothers.
Ah, now the truth comes out.
We need husbands and fathers just as much as we need wives and mothers. In fact, we probably need them more at the moment, because the ones who work in the corporate world currently aren't around for their families as much as they should be or want to be. Women are allowed to have a family-work balance; indeed, they are expected to. Men are not.
If we as a society valued care as much as we value making money, institutional sexism in the workplace would be mostly gone within a generation.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
This sort of environment is going to repel a significant proportion of men as well.
"But that's not how it works in real life."
It's only that, well, yes it is. The vast majority of open source software projects, either successful or not, are the creation of just one single person. See? "person", as in "I don't give a damn if they are man, woman or aliens from XK-578".
Anyone can, say, open an account at github and publish their code to their leisure, accept patches from whoever they want and publish about their code and the community of users and developers they want to build around it as much as they want. It's difficult to think of any other human activity more agnostic to personal identity than producing software. And still, there's a gender bias: maybe it comes from somewhere different.
If you count stock, I sold my business for a XXX digit sum. It was grown from the ground up. It was created at the cusp, highly immature and risky as hell. Yet it succeeded. It thrived. It grew and, as the sphere matured, it grew in ways I'd have never expected. The compute power increases made us thrive and manipulate data in new and interesting ways - also, we could store data that was impossibly large just a few years before.
Now, to share a few things...
We were merit based. I'm not hiring you just because you have a vagina.
We had multiple women employees and they were very good at what they did.
We were, at times, assholes to one another - bad work means you do it again.
We had an unbelievably low turn-over rate - truly mind blowing.
We didn't give a shit who you slept with but you don't need to bring that shit into the office.
We probably, eventually, knew your family and wept when you did or celebrated with you.
We did things thought impossible, or improbable, on a regular basis.
We only wanted the best and not some absurd hire because of hurt feelings or supposed inequality.
We had multiple races - including myself.
Screw those who argue that things shouldn't be based on merit. It's infantile and absurd at the very front. Where you pee from or who you love hasn't a damned thing to do with it. If you can't do the work get the fuck out of the way and stop trying to hinder those who can. You don't deserve shit, you earn it. You don't even earn it on your own - you earn it with the help of those around you. Your drama and juvenile fantasies have no place in the real world. You can rightly fuck off back to your basement if you don't comprehend this - it's not difficult.
However, don't worry. We did open-invite interviews where you'd be reviewed by your peers before hiring. You'd have not made it past the interview process. Keep your drama queen shit off my code and out of my face.
Simple enough? The conversation has been had, it's over. Whining isn't going to change this. It's just going to piss people off even more. What you can do is what matters. If you can't do then shut the hell up and learn from those who can. Keep your drama to your friends. I'm not your friend.
[sum total redacted, none of your business and I don't need my ego stroked - suffice to say a lot]
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You absolutely and completely nailed it.