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Facebook Rejects Female Engineers' Code More Often Than Male Counterparts, Analysis Finds (theverge.com)

According to The Wall Street Journal, female engineers who work at Facebook may face gender bias that prevents their code from being accepted at the same rate as male counterparts. "For Facebook, these revelations call into question the company's ongoing diversity efforts and its goal to build overarching online systems for people around the globe," reports The Verge. "The company's workforce is just 33 percent female, with women holding just 17 percent of technical roles and 27 percent of leadership positions." From the report: The findings come in two parts. An initial study by a former employee found that code written by female engineers was less likely to make it through Facebook's internal peer review system. This seemed to suggest that a female engineer's work was more heavily scrutinized. Facebook, alarmed by this data, commissioned a second study by Jay Parikh, its head of infrastructure, to investigate any potential issues. Parikh's findings suggested that the code rejections were due to engineering rank, not gender. However, Facebook employees now speculate that Parikh's findings mean female engineers might not be rising in the ranks as fast as male counterparts who joined the company at the same time, or perhaps that female engineers are leaving the company more often before being promoted. Either possibility could result in the 35 percent higher code rejection rate for female engineers. When contacted by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook called the initial study "incomplete and inaccurate" and based on "incomplete data," but did not shy away from confirming Parikh's separate findings.

450 comments

  1. Maybe by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Facebook Rejects Female Engineers' Code More Often Than Male Counterparts, Analysis Finds"

    Maybe it's just not as good, unless every female programmer signs it with "Coded by a Female Programmer!" That, and the little hearts above every lower-case "i".

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re: maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's impossible you sexist, racist xenaphobe!

    2. Re:maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, women are 100% identical to men in every way... unless it's convenient for women not to be.

    3. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      What about grrrl gamer and GirlBoss and GirlGeek? Maybe Trump can c u m on them?

      I love articles about gender issues and racism, it's why I originally started coming here 15 years ago. Well done Slashdot!

    4. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      burden of proof is always on the party making the claim.

    5. Re: Maybe by Derekloffin · · Score: 2

      Given this is presented simply as an alternate hypothesis, there is no need for proof. All this shows is that the 'proof' of the original assertion that there is a gender bias based simply on gender of the submitter can just as easily be explained by there being a gender bias in the quality of the work. Without further info, the original information does not lead us much of anywhere.

    6. Re: Maybe by ghoul · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just because their are fewer of a particular gender in an institution does not automatically translate to Gender Bias. There could be many reasons. After all noone ever accuses maternity wards of discriminating against men even though 100% of their clientele are female.
      Females mature much faster than males. By the time they get introduced to tech in schools nowadays they are already entering puberty and distracted by hormones. The key to get more women into tech is start introducing programming in elementary school and hook them on coding before they get sidetracked with stupid tween shit.
      Though one must ask the question - "Why is a society's priority to get more women into tech?" We dont see articles on how to get more men into nursing, teaching or rhythmic Gymnastics. People choose what interests them and social biases play a part in what interests them but unless someone is actually getting harmed by the choice why should Society spend resources balancing the trend? After all not all trends will ever be balanced.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    7. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Have to concur here. Maybe, just maybe, the women hired by Facebook as coders just can't code as well as the men. 33% female workforce in a male dominant industry is actually a lot. So maybe some of the women were hired just to add to the diversity roles instead of actually being good programmers.

    8. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given that code commits have their name attached, yeah, it's actually possible to tell if a woman or a man submitted the code.

      Other industries had this problem where women would get rejected or have mountains of scrutiny applied to their work, and get rejected over a mediocre male participant. A lot of these industries, instead of trying to pretend the problem didn't exist, actually moved to blind auditions and so on - unsurprisingly, the amount of women that got approved for jobs went up immediately when they were judged only on the content of their work because it was impossible for the interviewer or auditor to do anything but look at the work and not their identity.

    9. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do we even know if the code is rejected/accepted by a human?

      Or maybe female programmers just insert excessive commenting... I mean, you know how chatty they can be.. it's their way of *passing notes* to each other..

    10. Re:Maybe by msauve · · Score: 3, Insightful

      unless every female programmer signs it with "Coded by a Female Programmer!"

      Exactly how does a code reviewer know the sex of the code submitter, which would be a prerequisite to any claim of bias? I'd guess the only way would be a real name was attached to the submission. But why should that be the case? Why not anonymize submissions? If it's felt there is a need for reviewers to know the past quality of submissions for a each submitter (but why, isn't the review supposed to judge the current submission?), have the system show a quality metric (% of submissions accepted?).

      Is there any real need for submitters to be personally identifiable to others, besides perhaps via a back-end system only available to management?

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    11. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mom? Is that you?

    12. Re: Maybe by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The key to get more women into tech is start introducing programming in elementary school and hook them on coding before they get sidetracked with stupid tween shit.

      Nope. As someone who coaches a programming/robotics program at an elementary school for 4th, 5th and 6th graders, I can say that it is very difficult to get girls interested even in elementary school. The few that participate are mostly there because their parents forced them.

      I have tried hard to get more girls to sign up. I recruited a techno-mom to be an assistant coach and role model. We let them form an all-girl team (which they prefer). We tried cooperation oriented programming tasks, rather than competitions. We tried other girl-oriented stuff like 3D-printing dollhouse furniture. None of that made a difference. Half of them quit when there was a time conflict with the school play rehearsals. Zero boys have dropped out.

      I feel very frustrated. If anyone has any ideas on how to get girls interested in tech, I would love to hear about it.

    13. Re: Maybe by Prien715 · · Score: 1

      We dont see articles on how to get more men into nursing, teaching or rhythmic Gymnastics.

      Do you know any teachers? It's the most common public employee profession and I can tell you that districts across the country are always looking for more MALE preK-4th grade teachers simply because it makes everyone's job easier. Not every student -- or their parents for that matter -- respond the same way to men as they do women (can you guess which gender spends more time in detention?) and having more males in the job definitely helps.

      The idea that workers should somewhat represent the population they serve is not a new one -- nor a particularly bad one unless implemented as a "hard and fast" rule without understanding the underlying causes of discrepancy.

      --
      -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
    14. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If anyone has any ideas on how to get girls interested in tech, I would love to hear about it.

      Get Justin Bieber to teach a PHP class?

    15. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it's just not as good

      That is just not my experience as a leader of a team of 40 software developers, 30% of whom are female. Until she left, there was a woman who generated the most code rejections - but it was because she was writing about 3x the amount of code as her peers and often the momentum caused her to slip up. And my current top developer, very few rejections and much higher productivity than almost everyone else is another female.

    16. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Stop assuming that girls being interested in tech looks the same as boys being interested in tech. People can be interested and still feel like they want to try other things. Did you try to recruit them for another tech activity when the play was over? Or were you assuming that "interested in tech" means "not interested in other things" and "always puts tech first", and therefore that since they put the play first when it had a deadline, they weren't interested in tech? And what about the social milieu? Was there a popular kid on the team who preferred the cameraderie of storytelling and the thrill of performing and found the joy of solivng a challenging problem was less fun because other people were just as good at it?

    17. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone on this thread and the WSJ is wrong. They are assuming everyone's gender. So it's impossible to know the rate of rejection. And since gender can vary from day to day it's a big Heisenberg problem. You can know the reject rate but not their genders or you can know their genders but not their reject rates.

    18. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A randomizing tumbler for submissions will determine whether or not your hypothesis holds, and is certain to be their next step. What excuse you make when it is obvious that the code samples are just as good, that is really the only thing we don't know at this point.

    19. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Maybe it's just not as good

      Back when having women in orchestras was rare, there was a similar belief as to why they weren't given jobs after auditioning. "Maybe they're just not as good as their male counterparts." or, "Women probably just don't have the strength to (blow a trumpet, hold a cello, play percussion)". You would hear, "It takes a lot of stamina and commitment to be a great musician, and women just don't have it."

      That was the prevalent belief in the professional music world until orchestras started holding blind auditions. Now women make up more than 50% of professional orchestras.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    20. Re: Maybe by stdarg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A few years ago my nieces were really interested in this: http://web.stanford.edu/class/...

      We did the image exercises. I started off doing most of the typing with their input, then they did some on their own. The cool thing with this library is you can go way off on a tangent. We made stripes of across some of the images for instance.

      For what it's worth, my wife participated in an outreach program through her work to expose kids to programming. They sent a team to a school and each employee took a group of kids and did a different project. I suggested this one, which my wife customized a bit. It was by far the most popular project with the kids (I think they were 6th and 7th graders). Graphics are cool, especially the green-screen exercises.

    21. Re: Maybe by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's very hard because even at that age the bias is well established in their minds. But don't expect instant results either, just keep working at it and let the younger girls see the results (like that doll house) so that their expectations are redefined.

      That's what happened with women's soccer in the UK, and it took a decade but it is quite well established now.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    22. Re: Maybe by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      >Why is a society's priority to get more women into tech?

      Girls tell us they are interested but face barriers that boys don't. Some of us want to help them.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    23. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TFA is just another social justice fallacy.

    24. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How's that gender studies degree treating you?

    25. Re: Maybe by Lordpidey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And yet we push them away just as hard, by assuming that any man who wants to work with children for a living is a horrible pedophile.

      --
      Some people encrypt by using rot-13 twice. I prefer the more secure method of using rot-1 a total of twenty six times.
    26. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, gender studies degree holders tell you girls are interested. Every attempt to push women into STEM fails miserably because on average, girls/women aren't as interested. Any girl who tells you she's facing barriers boys don't has bought the bullshit from feminism 101. There have been countless attempts at it, even excluding boys. It doesn't change.

    27. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Shittiest argument in the known world. If you intend to make a counterargument you too need evidence to assert your position it's that fucking simple, as you too are making a claim. This isn't a court of law, it's a peruvian cat training comment section. Furthermore the fact that the article explicitly states that there is a definitive correlation between the higher rejection rates and the immediate ranking in the hierarchy draws closer to the conclusion that the data is being misinterpreted and that junior employees are committing janky code. Delve even deeper into gender statistics and find that women with STEM degrees are in high demand with marginal supply, factor in diversity arbitrary diversity quotas. Now you've incentivized businesses to hire under-qualified people to handle products that are reviewed by peers; suddenly you have the outcome shown above.

      So let's draw some conclusions: you hire people based on an arbitrary demand from the social strata in order to statistically balance your workforce and in doing so you create an amalgam of acceptable racism and sexism. In doing so you hire out all the people in the pool and you have to seek alternatives. These under-qualified alternatives fail to produce acceptable code and the senior employees reject it. The under-qualified people fail to promote, and are largely disinterested, overwhelmed, unwilling to learn or any of the many other reasons for continued failure, so they either quit, or continue to fail. Suddenly a statistically valid anomaly appears and men are to blame, rather than the incredibly sexist ideology that drives diversity quotas.

    28. Re:Maybe by poity · · Score: 5, Funny

      A: This code works, let's add it to the proj...
      B: WAIT WAIT WAIT, did you check the genitals?
      A: Not yet
      B: *disapproving look*
      A: Okay, give me a minute *runs off*
      [10 minutes later]
      A: *pant pant* ... It's... *pant* a vagina
      B: *right click, delete*

      --
      your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
    29. Re:Maybe by niftydude · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's just not as good...

      This is the most obvious and likely correct reason: in order to get a 17% female tech workforce, facebook must be scouring the earth to find females to hire in the name of gender diversity, because universities just don't graduate a high proportion of female CS majors. And that is because female's aren't choosing careers in that area.

      When you are hiring people just because of their gender, this means that people who are manifestly inadequate to the task at hand will get their code rejected more often.

      I'm willing to bet money that if the data is broken down, the top female developers will get their code through at the same rates as the top male developers (which incidentally would prove no gender bias). But the female stats get skewed as an aggregate because the "long tail" group of developers with lots of code rejections have many poorly skilled female developers whereas men with similarly poor skills would never get hired at facebook in the first place.

      --
      You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
    30. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > always looking for more MALE preK-4th grade

      No, we are not. We're currently working on a plan to get rid of every make K-5 teacher in the district. The local teachers union supports that. I work in IT for our district, and I might lose my job since we're also trying to fire all of the males that work in administration.

    31. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm guessing boys spend more time in detention. Looks like even at preK-4th they resist women as an authority. I'm sure it's being learned by preK to do that though right?

    32. Re: Maybe by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Troll

      Let's take the red pill and assume every word coming from their mouths is a lie.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    33. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My god...how does a post that:

      1) Assumes that to be a professional in IT you have to begin in high school
      2) Assumes that because he didn't see females doing IT as his high school that translates to all high schools
      3) Assumes that those who chose not to do IT in high school didn't because of 'hormonal' reasons (god, could you be more of a douche)
      4) Makes an a$$hat comparison to a maternity ward

      How, in a modern western society, does a post like this get marked up 'informative'

      ?

    34. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How convenient. We can just dismiss concerns of bias now by offering an alternate hypotheis, and no need for proof.

    35. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe they were hired because they were cute. Maybe several members of the interview team wanted a chance to date the candidate and that would be more likely to happen if she were around the office.

    36. Re: Maybe by VAXcat · · Score: 2

      Man, I wish I had some upvotes. YOu're hitting the nail on the head.

      --
      There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
    37. Re:Maybe by Imrik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So maybe instead of going public about how Facebook is biased against women they should instead get them to start doing blind submissions, and only go public about it if they refuse or the data holds true.

    38. Re: maybe by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Fear of a warrior princess?

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    39. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes. Yes we can!

    40. Re: Maybe by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      In other words, you are frustrated because you can't force girls to like what you like? Authoritarian much?

    41. Re: Maybe by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      Add more medical related science and things related to animals. Forests, clean water, animal habitat. Good food, good farming.
      For the role models try medical doctors, veterinarians, lawyers who help animals and biologists. How a charity online does things that help animals.
      The problem is hollywood and authors have projected what "programming tasks" are. Someone gets give a task and its done by an expert.
      The result is then useful for the real task. The "programming task" is of no interest as smart people can be found to do that as needed.
      The fun of dollhouse furniture is that its is antique or buying a nice brand.

      The "play rehearsals" is a real area that had computer interest in the past. Entire US education game empires got made on software that allowed a "play" to be created and scripted within a computer setting. When done it would be acted out using the supplied computer settings.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    42. Re:Maybe by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      Have you ever programmed in a professional environment? Have you never used source control? The name is attached because that's important metadata for any changes to the code.

    43. Re: Maybe by WCLPeter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I feel very frustrated. If anyone has any ideas on how to get girls interested in tech, I would love to hear about it.

      I'm can't help you, but I'm just as frustrated.

      My 12 years old niece loves, loves, Kerbal Space Program and plays it constantly. I introduced it to her when it first came out in 2015, when she was 10, and she's been having fun launching rockets, failing, redesigning, and trying again - she loves it. But she is absolutely terrified of her friends finding out, so much so that she'll play dumb about the game whenever her friends are around and a family member happens to mention it. I can't stress enough how scared she is for her friends to find out she likes a game about rocket science.

      When I ask her why she says, pretty plainly, "Girls aren't supposed to be smart, no one likes smart girls - please don't tell anyone I like this game, I don't want people thinking I'm smart because then I won't have any friends!" She's 12! She's deliberately going out of her way to hinder herself and limit her choices in life because society has browbeat into her that she's not supposed to be smart or take an interest in science. The Ontario Science Centre is one of her favourite places to go, she begs me to take her whenever I can - and she totally gets the science, especially the Astronomy section, and could even be a scientist someday if she really wanted to - but she never tells her friends that she loves going there lest they think she's "smart" and shun her.

      I've been trying to convince her otherwise, but it just doesn't work - peer pressure when you're a child is a horrific thing, it really messes you up - she's been telling me that girls aren't supposed to be smart for years now - and I think as adults many of us forget just how important social acceptance is to kids - how important it was to us when we were kids - and how that shapes one's perceptions far into the future.

    44. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WOMEN OUT OF TECH NOW! Incompetent. Invidious. Illogical. Capricious. Violent. Slow. Unreliable. Gossipy. Unimaginative.
      NOT USEFUL. NOT NEEDED. NOT WANTED.

        The world needs more caring, nurturing wives and mothers - fewer money-grubbing corporate tools.

    45. Re: Maybe by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

      How convenient. We can just dismiss concerns of bias now by offering an alternate hypotheis, and no need for proof.

      No we can establish the original hypothesis hasn't been shown to be established with any reasonable certainly by simply pointing out a plausible alternate hypothesis that the original claims didn't explore.

      It's normal in good science papers to run through all the alternatives and provide data to refute them, or point out that that some alteranitive hypothesis might be true.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    46. Re: Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1, Insightful

      >Why is a society's priority to get more women into tech?

      Girls tell us they are interested but face barriers that boys don't. Some of us want to help them.

      No, they don't. OTOH, lots of politically motivated girls are saying that *OTHER* girls are interested.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    47. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All we know is that code is being rejected at a higher rate for women than men, and we don't know the fucking reason is sexism.

      That is the conclusion you have already jumped too, because reasons... and muh feelings...

    48. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's all society's fault, and by society you mean the patriarch white neo-nazi sexist rapist transphobic misogynistic virgin toxic masculinity evil males, or just all-white-males for short right?

    49. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's just not as good

      Back when having women in orchestras was rare, there was a similar belief as to why they weren't given jobs after auditioning. "Maybe they're just not as good as their male counterparts." or, "Women probably just don't have the strength to (blow a trumpet, hold a cello, play percussion)". You would hear, "It takes a lot of stamina and commitment to be a great musician, and women just don't have it."

      That was the prevalent belief in the professional music world until orchestras started holding blind auditions. Now women make up more than 50% of professional orchestras.

      Occams razor applies. Rather than invent an elaborate reason for why the code is getting rejected, the simplest explanation encompassing all facts is that the code is crap.

      Maybe... just *maybe*... the simpler "diversity hires didn't work out too well" explains the situation better than "patriarchy conspiracy theory"

      Remember that each "diversity hire" replaced someone who would have been hired solely on merit. It's not unreasonable to expect this outcome, and yes it was even predicted multiple times, on /. whenever the diversity stories came up.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    50. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      WTF are you talking about, silverspoon broham? In the real contemporary world, men face a genuinely hostile & toxic workplace environment. Stop parroting the capitalist running dog lackey narrative that's pushed so hard by the semi-official media, and open your eyes to see the world that's right in front of you.

    51. Re: Maybe by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Token employees do token work, meow meow meow meow meow.

      Explains perfectly why companies with more reputable hiring practices don't have the problem.

    52. Re: Maybe by ckatko · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >I feel very frustrated. If anyone has any ideas on how to get girls interested in tech, I would love to hear about it.

      Ever consider that most girls don't enjoy being forced to think in linear, sequential, logical terms? Most girls don't want to drive fast motorcycles either. Most girls don't want to fight in bare knuckle boxing fights. We sure love forgetting biology and hell... girls and woman's own desires about what they want. If a girl picks nursing (or "play rehearsals") over IT, is she a "failure" or merely choosing the most rewarding job for her brain? Have you considered the only girls that enter coding are ones trying to please an authority figure (you, their parents, or some other societal pressure), and when that fails to continually reward them they go do what they actually want?

      The true fact of the matter is, IT is a very financially successful field and that we want whats best for our girls (not equality, but the BEST) is the only reason we're trying to shoehorn them into IT. If we truly wanted "equality" of jobs, we'd be trying just as hard to force them to be plumbers, custodians, and other "bottom of the social ladder" jobs. But those jobs don't have social value, and we want our girls to be as valuable as possible.

      We act like the world has magically gone "progressive" but all we're doing is the same thing we've been doing since pre-history, but calling it progressive. We're trying to make our girls the most valuable they can be, whether through corsets and exotic clothing to show the virtue of their virginity and social value, or simply getting them high paying jobs in IT and buying "princess" a nice car in highschool, the intent behind it is the same. And it's pretty damn obvious the same need doesn't exist for our boys.

      So we either need to conclude that woman are incapable of driving themselves to become successful and NEED to be forced and pushed into being successful. Or, we're just a bunch of assholes pressuring girls into doing things they don't enjoy, just so they can alleviate our low view of them for being too "cliche" and enjoying feminine jobs.

      It's alarming that these threads always end up like this. Denying women their agency, and/or treating them like morons. Nobody ever cares what women want, all they care about is, "there's not enough of them in this field."

    53. Re: Maybe by WCLPeter · · Score: 2

      We dont see articles on how to get more men into nursing, teaching or rhythmic Gymnastics.

      Slashdot is a tech site, so its not surprising we don't see many articles about diversity in these fields here. But if you look around and broaden your horizons, you'll find that there is a push to have a more equal workplace in those areas as well.

      My neighbour when I younger was a male nurse, yes - a male nurse. He talked often about all the effort which was being taken to get more men into the profession, but in the end - just like the female programmers who often leave their programming jobs - he left the profession of nursing, a job he absolutely loved doing, because the culture at large wouldn't accept him as a nurse. Patients used to think he was a doctor, then get upset when they found out he was a nurse - and then would outright refuse his care, instead asking for a "real nurse". He constantly got mistook for an orderly or the cleaning staff, and patient's families would often report him to security for "messing" with a patient's medications / IVs.

      After years of this, he eventually got tired of constantly having to defend himself at work that he quit. Since he was a fully trained nurse he was able to get an administration job in the medical field, but he was never really happy with it. He often wished he could have stayed working as a nurse, but the constant harassment on the job from people who just couldn't accept a male nurse wasn't worth it.

      Now I'm not so sure about teachers or gymnasts, but I'm betting if you go digging around the internet you'll find sites which a focus on those fields lamenting the lack of diversity within them.

      Slashdot is a science and technology site, so it makes sense for us to talk about the lack of diversity within technology and science here. But if you think other professions aren't having this discussion in regard to the diversity within their specific fields, well you could't be more wrong.

      People choose what interests them and social biases play a part in what interests them but unless someone is actually getting harmed by the choice why should Society spend resources balancing the trend?

      Unfortunately the larger "social bias" doesn't currently accept a man as a nurse. These ingrained "social biases", which say that men can't be nurses, have brought great harm to our larger society by preventing him from doing something he loved; caring for the sick. Our "biases" have caused harm by preventing a nurse from providing care to those in need and spending resources to fix these biases wherever they lie is a laudable goal.

    54. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Or they're leaving pretty quickly, once they've got what they wanted out of it, causing a "junior bias".

      Retention of young female lawyers is a major problem in London's City law firms - where I work - they get fed up after a few years and find something else. Quite why this is so is a topic of serious investigation: these people are expensive to recruit and train and something is pissing them off.

      I note that you are drawing conclusions before the junior bias question is answered...?

    55. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alas, you can only have 5 upvotes.

    56. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why the hell are people trying to force, coerce and manipulate others into doing what they don't want to do??

      Fucker!

    57. Re: maybe by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Ugga ugga wugga?! Wugga ugga?! Ugga ugga ugga ugga UGGA!!!

    58. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a friend who has a very smart grade school daughter who is in to programming and is very good at it. She never mentioned anything about her daughter feeling she had to hide her talents. My grade school son would never shun someone for being smart.

    59. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This!

      The term geek or nerd in media is not a positive image, it's Screech from Saved by the Bell, or Steve Urkel, or any kid in school getting picked on.

      There are no positive geek/nerd role models in our media-centric culture that boys and/or girls can relate to.

    60. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was going to write a post saying how this wouldn't work in professional environments since you need to keep track of who committed, but I think this might be a good idea.
      Not just because of sexism, but also because of laziness. I notice myself that if I'm reviewing code from someone I know I will be less thorough when reviewing.
      Of course it's entirely possible that hiding the committer would just make me less thorough for every submission.
      You could, in most cases, hide the committer details during the review process, and only have them show once the commit is in the repository.

    61. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've let that mindset exist for years? You know you can help her shape her worldview and you in fact do with every interaction you have with her. Maybe it's time to let her know that her friends are little pieces of shit and can fuck right off. Be responsible man. I had a world view like that as a kid because I didn't want to be singled out or be a "teachers pet" etc. I eventually realized, sadly, that most people are just kind of garbage and moved on. I'm still friends with many but they don't get to influence me.

    62. Re: Maybe by Kartu · · Score: 1

      I think there is a problem going both ways.
      There is a HUGE bunch of people seeking gender biases, and mind you, only vs certain gender.
      There is a HUGE number of articles that results from those effort, and I honestly stopped taking any of them seriously a while ago (pardon my bias).

      Now, to the question: how on earth does one determine gender of the author of the code?
      And what should we do, if it was actually unknown and code gets rejected because of, you know, some other (you name them) reasons?

    63. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the most obvious and likely correct reason: in order to get a 17% female tech workforce, facebook must be scouring the earth to find females to hire

      Except the national average for female university graduates from Computer Science degrees is 19.2%. In California it is 26%.

    64. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should probably explain to her that if she's afraid of these people not liking her for something like that, they are already not her friends.

    65. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When your internally developed code review system has an option to automatically escalate reviews based on the "phase of the moon", is it any surprise when someone claims gender bias is inherent in the system?

    66. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What about grrrl gamer and GirlBoss and GirlGeek? Maybe Trump can c u m on them?

      I love articles about gender issues and racism, it's why I originally started coming here 15 years ago. Well done Slashdot!

      How can you have been here for 15 years and still sound like a 15 year old?

    67. Re:Maybe by msauve · · Score: 1

      And yet, you're unable to articulate a single reason.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    68. Re: Maybe by Kartu · · Score: 1

      Is it that different from being afraid to look like a nerd for boys?

    69. Re: Maybe by TheConway · · Score: 1

      Why should they be interested? I don't like football, never have, and it hasn't affected my life in any way. Regardless of how much the idea seems to be getting pushed, NOT all job are going to be computer programmers. My grandad always said, we'll always need ditch diggers. It stands to reason that we'll need everyone in between there and Head of state. You've given girls equal opportunity. That's a good thing. Equality shouldn't mean forcing a particular group to do something they don't want to do becuase numbers.

    70. Re:Maybe by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 1

      Oh dear, the baseless condescension is stifling.

      If this were the case, then the myriad studies where gendered names ("steve", "lisa", "mary", "ron", etc.) were used versus anonymous commits would be baseless.

      Here, for your reading pleasure: https://www.usnews.com/news/bl...

    71. Re:Maybe by KramberryKoncerto · · Score: 1

      I did a quick search and it turns out trumpet players in top orchestras are overwhelmingly male. Same for double bass. Female percussionists are still very rare. That's some nice lying through statistics you've done there. Now before you talk about a systemic male bias - the search also showed violinists in top orchestras are overwhelmingly female.

      I won't outright say females can't do well with trumpets, double basses and drums; apparently there are some very good ones, and some of the imbalance might still be driven by stereotypes, there are exactly very good physical reasons that it's more likely a male can play or take interest in some instruments better than a female, and maybe vice versa.

      Maybe females double bassists shouldn't be outnumbered by male at 1:20, but I wouldn't be surprised that minus all sexism the "ideal ratio" is not going to be 1:1 - it could be 3:7 for all I care about, and some people would be calling that sexism.

    72. Re:maybe by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 1

      Actually, it no one knows that the coder is female, then the acceptance rate is higher. GitHub was the first to study this phenomena, and further research is bearing this out.

    73. Re:Maybe by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      "Facebook Rejects Female Engineers' Code More Often Than Male Counterparts, Analysis Finds"

      Maybe it's just not as good, unless every female programmer signs it with "Coded by a Female Programmer!" That, and the little hearts above every lower-case "i".

      I'm a male engineer who works with mostly male engineers and I can tell you that the reason is more likely to be because male engineers are more domineering. They're also a lot more irrational, opinionated and douchey. Heck I'll even admit I used to be like that until I stopped fighting some sort of code religious war about converting everyone over to my one style to rule them all when ever other person thinking like me had precisely the same idea. That dynamic leads to constant conflict, diminishes collaboration and ultimately doesn't do anything to deliver valuable software to the business.

      I think the reason why geeks tend to fight this sort of social war in their circle is because the find out for the first time in some cases that they actually have a chance to "win" (really an illusion). Many of them were bullied in other social circles. It's all crap. Top to bottom. It takes awhile to realize it though.

      I can't tell you the number of times I've seen the tabs vs. spaces religious war played out never with a positive outcome. There are a lot of engineers like Richard Hendricks in the world that would make tabs vs. spaces a deal breaker for sleeping with a hot girl.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    74. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Graphics are cool, especially the green-screen exercises.

      Oh, chroma-keying, aka. super-imposing the weatherman onto the weather map? For a moment there I thought green screen terminals, and couldn't figure out how that was graphics related (ascii art?)

    75. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes and no. It's different in that being in the right social circles is more important to girls (on average), so you'll find a lot more boys that simply accept it rather than trying to avoid it.

      Another difference is that for boys the social part is centered around sports, and most geeks can't play any sport worth a damn anyway, so pretending to not be a geek will not help them in being part of the right group.

    76. Re: Maybe by niftydude · · Score: 1

      Right now it is, but that wasn't the case 20-30 years ago, and the m/f ratio doesn't reset instantly to current values. The imbalance is still in the workforce as all those men are still around.

      --
      You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
    77. Re:Maybe by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Oh dear, the baseless condescension is stifling.

      Oh give me a break. The FIRST word in my post was "maybe"; I never said that female programmers are inherently worse than male programmers. Point your self-righteous outrage and hair-trigger sensitivity towards something useful next time.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    78. Re:Maybe by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I'm a male engineer who works with mostly male engineers and I can tell you that the reason is more likely to be because male engineers are more domineering.

      That might be part of it, which is why the first word in my post was "maybe". I suspect that a statistical analysis of gender-blind commits would help clear a lot of this debate up.

      -

      There are a lot of engineers like Richard Hendricks in the world that would make tabs vs. spaces a deal breaker for sleeping with a hot girl.

      I don't know about you, but "tabs vs. spaces" was never one of my criteria when deciding whether or not to sleep with a hot girl.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    79. Re:Maybe by Tsingi · · Score: 1

      This is sexist coding. Half the code in any program MUST be written by a woman. Male written code will bring about a patriarchal singularity.
      No one wants that.

    80. Re: Maybe by stealth_finger · · Score: 2

      >Why is a society's priority to get more women into tech?

      Girls tell us they are interested but face barriers that boys don't. Some of us want to help them.

      Why is no one bothered there aren't more women working in the sewers or on the bins or any other job that is mostly male but isn't glamorous or sexy? It's always just get more women in stem.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    81. Re: Maybe by Kartu · · Score: 1

      Except many "diversity issues" that are raised in numerous articles, are often not issues at all.
      The whole "diversity" concept (in this context "we need 50/50 split in fields where females are underrepresented" is questionable, to say the least, what makes us think that there are no inherent gender differences, that make people prefer one or another profession?

      Why doesn't the force that forces females to be underrepresented in math, not work with biology, where they have become majority?
      Why does share of girls, given that they do better than boys on average in math, suddenly drop to under a third, if you only check for those with 700 points or higher?

      Where are all the female hackers, you know, the self educated locked in the basement nerds who spend days and nights messing with computers?

      I've seen articles on slashdot

    82. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's simple - too few/too expensive programmers. when Stalin was training women to be tractor drivers (citing equality as a reason), he was training half of the population (noncombatant to this time) to join the army as tank drivers - similar skillset for ww2 equipment...

    83. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's simple.

      If you hire only the best of the best of the best men, but you have to reach 50% female hires, and there aren't nearly as many women in the field as men, then you're not going to be hiring the best of the best of the best women, you're going to be hiring any warm body that has a vagina.

      That isn't to say that women can't be the best of the best of the best. However; if you're lowering your standards to meet a quota, you're going to get something more like a cross-section of the general population.

    84. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah. Let's just assume everything you say is fucking stupid, though.

    85. Re:Maybe by bluegutang · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wait, did you just discriminate against women without vaginas? You bigot!

    86. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the fuck?

      How about.. I dunno.. I need to talk to the person who wrote this code?

      You're a total fucking moron.

    87. Re: maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually (*pushes up glasses*) you are a faggot.

    88. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

      I did a quick search and it turns out trumpet players in top orchestras are overwhelmingly male

      Why don't you post a link to this "research"?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    89. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Rather than invent an elaborate reason for why the code is getting rejected, the simplest explanation encompassing all facts is that the code is crap.

      Until there were blind auditions, Occam's Razor would have said, "Women are worse musicians than men".

      Simple explanations are simple, until they turn out to be wrong. Maybe instead of a simple explanation a simple test should be applied: make the code submissions blind.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    90. Re: Maybe by Headw1nd · · Score: 1

      The problem is that historically, society has been a game for boys to win and girls to lose. A boy who doesn't distinguish himself and takes no chances will have no status, but a girl who stands out is more likely to be shunned than one who does not. So in this way your niece is not wrong. The only way around this is she has to find a way that her intelligence brings her status, either through example of a popular, smart woman, or admiration of a popular, smart man.

      On the bright side, 12 is still young, and she has a while to go before she needs to be fully in gear for college.

    91. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I was shocked by your post. So much that I just IM'd it to my sister who who is a teacher. She said, and I quote, "I have never heard one of my girls say anything so ridiculous." [her emphasis] She is sending me feedback from a couple of her colleagues now, all of which is similar to her reaction. She wants to know what part of the country this is and what type of school your daughter goes to. Now she wants to know the average education level of adults in the school district. And now the average income level of the district. If you don't mind, it might be easier to just tell her what district this is and she can research the demographics herself.

    92. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Rather than invent an elaborate reason for why the code is getting rejected, the simplest explanation encompassing all facts is that the code is crap.

      Until there were blind auditions, Occam's Razor would have said, "Women are worse musicians than men".

      The phrase "Women/men are worse/better at $MENTAL_ACTIVITY" is not automatically wrong, you know. You appear to believe that any phrase that says "Women are worse at $MENTAL_ACTIVITY" is automatically wrong.

      Simple explanations are simple, until they turn out to be wrong. Maybe instead of a simple explanation a simple test should be applied: make the code submissions blind.

      I agree, but they haven't done the blind test yet. Until they do, I'll stick with the simplest explanation that accounts for all the evidence - i.e. the 'rejected' code is crap. You seem to believe the alternative that needs elaborate and/or not-yet-existent evidence.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    93. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. I work in tech and thought once I burn out in it go become a science teacher would be nice. But I probably won't ever for fear of what might happen to me. Look at the recent thing with the 15 year old girl and the teacher. Now, I don't condone what he did in any way, but everybody seems to refuse to admit she had anything to do with it. No, she was brainwashed and manipulated, it wasn't her at all.

      I mean, christ, what happens if I were to teach high school physics and one student decides she likes me, I refuse to get involved with her in any way and she gets pissed and claims I slept with her? I've basically got no legal recourse to protect myself. I'll be found guilty in the court of public opinion and never be able to work again from the mere accusation.

    94. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "One person consistently submits terrible code. There's no comments, they constantly use GOTO statements, and every variable they use is a global."

      "If only we knew who kept on submitting that code. Sadly, there's not one single reason to track that."

    95. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention, not every single person who goes to college for a thing will actually do that thing.

      And with no disrespect, women often go to college but end up as stay-at-home moms. There's nothing wrong with that choice for them, but it means that numbers of graduates only puts an upper cap on the number of women, it isn't a reasonable predictor of supply by itself.

    96. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Don't assume that women being interested in tech means actually engaging with tech!"

      Ok, then don't complain when women who aren't engaged don't succeed.

      History is written by those who show up.

    97. Re: Maybe by xession · · Score: 1

      Peer pressure can be a large obstacle for parents to overcome. However, in my own observations, most parents these days are anything but active parents, constantly distracted by their phones or their other self interested bullshit, leaving little time to actually spend with their children. Teaching children that it is ok to be smart, even if they're a girl, starts at a young age with encouraging the child to be self capable, while remaining active in their lives such as playing with them, talking to them when they want to talk, helping them when they want help, and overall acting as a guide in their life.

      I work in a museum type setting and every day, tons of parents will bring their children in and for all intents and purposes, flatly ignore their child. I've seen parents come in and leave their 3 and 4 year old children in strollers while they walked through reading content to themselves, never saying a word to their children, while the kid looks outward, eyes glazed, hating every moment of that day. Other parents will come in to our childrens section and just sit down and bury themselves into their phone while their kid runs off to do whatever wherever, "who cares anymore?" This is independence through neglect. I always find myself wanting to ask why they hell they had children if they didn't really want to spend time with them. For clarity I'm coming at this from being a parent myself.

      Nothing about being a parent is easy. However, if you choose to try and make it easy on yourself by just ignoring your kids, being an unhelpful twat in guiding them in life, don't be shocked when they turn out to be incapable of doing a whole lot of things.

      Now, all that said, I have no basis for calling your sibling or their spouse negligent parents. Again, peer pressure in school is a very legitimate obstacle. But I will say someone needs to be in that girls life instilling confidence every possible chance. She's going to have a tough road ahead when she finally has to face life in blunt force otherwise.

    98. Re: Maybe by fche · · Score: 1

      I look forward to the day when one doesn't need to post such comments anonymously.

    99. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This applies to boys as well. That's why there's a such thing as "nerds." Don't anyone pretend this is directed only at girls.

    100. Re:Maybe by Rastl · · Score: 1

      "Facebook Rejects Female Engineers' Code More Often Than Male Counterparts, Analysis Finds" Maybe it's just not as good, unless every female programmer signs it with "Coded by a Female Programmer!" That, and the little hearts above every lower-case "i".

      The problem was that it didn't pass internal peer review in an environment where the vast majority of peers were of the opposite gender. So of course they knew who was submitting the code. A possible reason was that their code was subject to more rigorous review than the other genders' code.

      So your argument holds no water. It also is a slap in the face to those of us who are female and code as it was meant to be. I wonder how well your code would hold up to a rigorous peer review.

    101. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, did you just discriminate against women without vaginas? You bigot!

      It's not academic. Women without vaginas outnumber women with vaginas in programming companies, yet we still talk about the "mother's room" as a women's issue. somehow the infighting has not touched that yet, thank god.

    102. Re: Maybe by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      > they either quit, or continue to fail. Or get promoted to management

    103. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Girls aren't supposed to be smart, no one likes smart girls

      third-wave feminism is giving all girls who stay in college a bad name.

      Instead of fighting the stereotype directly ("people don't hate smart girls," or "people hate dumb girls"), maybe you can embrace the stereotype, and describe a specific kind of smart girl that everyone really does hate for good reason. If you get specific enough, the new ugly personality will have an opposite who is also smart.

      The "ban the word bossy" campaign has the same problem. It seems like a good way to push through a problem you have as a female leader, but it's short-sighted because it's "princess wants" social change, not a realistic evolution. Young girls deciding how they want to be within their vicious catty middle school peer groups will think you protest too much and that you really are bossy. The lingering message is, "don't ever get into the position that other woman is in, begging people to stop hating her."

    104. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember being 12.

      Nobody likes a smart kid. Boy or girl.

    105. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We act like the world has magically gone "progressive" but all we're doing is the same thing we've been doing since pre-history, but calling it progressive. We're trying to make our girls the most valuable they can be, whether through corsets and exotic clothing to show the virtue of their virginity and social value, or simply getting them high paying jobs in IT and buying "princess" a nice car in highschool, the intent behind it is the same. And it's pretty damn obvious the same need doesn't exist for our boys.

      This really resonates with me.

      The level of encouragement girls get feels really over the top.

      Nobody ever encouraged me to do whatever I want. Instead I was viciously mocked at home as "gay" for any theatrical outburst. I was expected to develop an employable talent that could support a family, or spend my life destitute and single, and these expectations didn't apply to my sisters.

      Ever consider that most girls don't enjoy being forced to think in linear, sequential, logical terms? Most girls don't want to drive fast motorcycles either. Most girls don't want to fight in bare knuckle boxing fights. We sure love forgetting biology and

      yeah, but this seems too much like stuff Hitler said about the Jews and the master race. It sounds plausible, but science isn't a just-so story. Investigations into this have been mixed, IIRC: they do discover brain differences between genders, but only in certain age ranges. And I think the intelligence required to program is often overstated, and that enjoyment and capacity can be separate. I've more hope for investigation into social pressures and whether it's fun or not.

      Maybe nobody likes to program, and the boys are under more social pressure to do it.

      Maybe nobody likes to program very much, but the girls have a lot of options for supplimental activities that the boys don't feel are available to them (ie. they are funnelled into major sports only while girls can do band, ballet, drama, "girl" sports like field hockey, etc. The major sports are competitive, and you are viciously mocked for doing poorly. Therefore boys have fewer alternatives and are stuck with "space club" or "programming club" or whatever.).

      Maybe all people who are candidates for programming club, girls and boys, are low status, but low status girls are more aware of their status so they hide at home depressed while boys blunder on. Maybe the relevant difference is in how genders respond to depression, not their aptitude.

      In my experience people do like to program. In my experience, people saying "teach me" or joining clubs or whingeing about how difficult things are or they can't get started are never going to do well because programming is very easy to teach yourself and very easy to get started. There's no need to gather tools, and learning materials are more easily presented on the Internet than in person. Any place you have a "programming club" is going to be a magnet for mediocre or unenthusiastic programmers. A hypothesis that fits my anecdotes better: maybe liking to program in groups in a high school setting requires liking to program alone because there just isn't enough time, or the forced group setting doesn't allow passion to develop, and girls don't like doing anything alone.

    106. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [Now women make up more than 50% of professional orchestras.]

      More than 50%? So is your argument that women are better at orchestras? Or do women make up a greater percentage of people pursuing orchestra positions, and thus more of them end up on the top?

      Either way, I don't think you're making the point you think you are...

    107. Re:Maybe by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Until there were blind auditions, Occam's Razor would have said, "Women are worse musicians than men".

      Non sequitur. There was no affirmative action for female musicians making it possible for a female player to be hired over a better male player. If anything, the bias was against female musicians, making it likely that a female musician would be far better than most men, or she wouldn't have been hired at all.

    108. Re: Maybe by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      I recently organized a workshop of algorithmic art for 12-16 year old students. The school was having lots of workshops on multidisciplinary topics for a few days, and I was merely visiting to give mine, so I'm not sure how the students were selected, but they seemed like a regular bunch of kids with a roughly 50-50 gender ratio. Not exactly all geeky/techy guys, though of course there were a couple of those too.

      I observed similar 50-50 ratios in those that finished the minimum of tasks (i.e. almost all of them), and those that really got into it and did a lot of extra work. One particular girl remarked that she used to hate computers, but she was "converted" during the workshop. She did have a visual artistic background, though. It's pretty much one of my grand aims, to show young students that math and computing are not just for engineers etc. but for almost anything you can imagine.

      For the workshop, I used my custom set of Python and Gnuplot scripts on Linux, and basically told the students to play around with them. There wasn't enough time to teach programming from scratch anyway, but I also didn't want to use anything too ready-made (if there ever was any for this kind of thing). Basically a simplified version of how I myself learn and work.

      The aim was to make linear IFS art, something like these. The math was also a bit off-curriculum, but the basics were easy to understand and I also provided some helper functions.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    109. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps we can't simply be told this. Perhaps every one of us *must* figure this out for themselves. Thus the reason every one of us always has to figure this out on our own.

    110. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Or do women make up a greater percentage of people pursuing orchestra positions, and thus more of them end up on the top?

      There are more women than men in the world, so yeah, I guess you could say that.

      The point I made was that before blind auditions, women made up a tiny fraction of professional orchestra players. Now, they represent the cohort more in line with their representation in the population as a whole.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    111. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. Girls *must* occupy 50% percent of all positions that men occupy otherwise we're oppressing them.

    112. Re: Maybe by phorm · · Score: 1

      IT may be financially viable compared to many other fields, but around here those working in the oil fields or other related jobs can make significantly more than any of my IT colleagues (assuming you don't blow it on substances etc during leave)
      I don't see a push for them to take on those types of jobs...

      The funny part is that it's unattractive to many because it's considered "dirty" labour, but realistically a few good years in the patch - while sometimes physically demanding depending on the actual position - will be better on your health than many IT positions. If I were to have a redo on life I'd probably have gone to the rigs first, put some time in, and come out with a paid-for house and education before moving industries to something a bit easier on my back. I know people who've done this very successfully, and the biggest qualification is that they stayed away from "temptations" that cost lots of money (drugs, alcohol, partying, and the opposite sex) on their off-time.

    113. Re:Maybe by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Do we even know if the code is rejected/accepted by a human?

      Interesting. Perhaps I should run some stats on static analysis tools like Coverity to determine if there are correlations between (defects*severity)/(LoC*complexity) and external factors like gender and age.

      Without having looked at the actual figures, only reports, I would say that there is at least an age correlation, where older developers tend to commit more low severity defects, but fewer high severity defects than younger coders. Bad habits die hard, I guess?
      For gender, the only bias I have observed is that women both tend to avoid and tend to be not assigned to lower level languages when given a choice, but both chooses and are more often assigned to higher level and managed languages. I'd love to see a woman pick up a ticket for a low-level device driver in C, but haven't seen it happen yet. It could be a fluke, and that this is more common other places than where I have worked.

    114. Re:Maybe by bluelip · · Score: 1

      It appears the philosophy of "promote those who can't to management" is in play.

      "The company's workforce is just 33 percent female, with women holding just 17 percent of technical roles and 27 percent of leadership positions."

      --

      Yep, I never spell check.
      More incorrect spellings can be found he
    115. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a guy and this sounds similar to me growing up... I regret putting more effort into making friends and trying to be cool than doing what I enjoyed.

      Maybe you can help her understand she is not "a girl" - in this instance - but a human.
      There are like-minded people out in the world she can meet when she's older.
      Also, if we were all the same, think of how boring that would be.

      Maybe stuff like that would've worked on me?

    116. Re:Maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      You raise an interesting question there. How much code is accepted, by gender.

      I'll bet it's a different percentage to the rejection rates..

    117. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one likes smart boys either. Do you have any idea how much pressure I got from getting high grades and making my classmates look like shit? A bunch. So much that eventually I decided to just do mediocre at school and things went much better from there. Less work, less peer pressure. University was much better fortunately. Children are just animals. School is only good because not everyone can get home schooled, TBH.

    118. Re:Maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Are you a programmer?

      Most programmers, software engineers, developers would respond to this by going, "yeah, lets test the code"

      You don't want to retain shit code, so blind reviews are an easy way to see if your current processes are good or bad, and whether shit code is being accepted from some submitters or good code being rejected from others.

      It's a trivial, simple and obvious thing to do, to the extent that going "Occams razor" demonstrates an utter lack of ownership of the collective set of code.

      I think I just answered my own question. No, you're not a professional software developer.

    119. Re:Maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, I don't see how the two are related.

      Also, do you have evidence concerning code quality and moon phase? Do Facebook? It would surprise me if there was a link, but only a little.

    120. Re:maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Wasn't that the research that showed that men get an even higher boost in acceptance rate when anonymised than women do?

    121. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they discriminated FOR them.

    122. Re:Maybe by TangoMargarine · · Score: 2

      You don't need to know that during a code review, though.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    123. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh, is he still a thing?

    124. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      If anything, the bias was against female musicians, making it likely that a female musician would be far better than most men, or she wouldn't have been hired at all.

      Correct, which brings us to the point of this article.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    125. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's true that people really, really don't like smart children and being smart is anathema to social acceptance. Most people on slashdot are likely to have firsthand experience.

      But the wording of this story strikes familiar...And then everyone on the bus clapped.

    126. Re: Maybe by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      Fortunately, I really can't relate. I don't really understand what parts of society are supposedly "browbeating" gender roles these days. The kids that my kids hang out with are pretty flexible in their hobbies and interests (including a boy/girl pair of twins). Maybe that has something to do with it. Who knows?

      I have a 6 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. Guess who is into Lego, programming, chemistry kits, lizards, and scouting? Wrong! It's both of them. Guess who is into sewing, stuffed animals, music, art, and cooking? Wrong again! It's still both of them. Unfortunately neither of them have really shown an interest in stained glass or pipe organs, but there's still time.

      Don't get me wrong, I don't think traditional gender roles are totally outdated and pointless (as much as my inner SJW would like to believe). There are definitely some things that most girls are better at than most boys and vice-versa, but they aren't as set in stone as people would like to make it. Also, those differences don't need to play an oversized role.

      There are some differences in my kids' preferences that fall along more traditional pink/blue lines, Disney princesses vs football is the most pronounced, but these little things don't define them. The more important difference, as they see it, is in their preferred extra-curricular activities: fencing and dance. Ironically, their road to these interests were actually paved by members of the opposite sex, in both cases. Additionally, both of these activities are well populated by both sexes.

    127. Re: Maybe by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of Fract-o-rama back in the day. I wonder if they are still around. The website is still up.

    128. Re: Maybe by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      Interesting, whenever it's a boy who's the victims, the commentators give a knowing wink. As if all 15 year old boys just want to be molested by their hot teacher. Fuck that. If a news anchor pulled that shit when a girl got raped there'd be hell to pay.

    129. Re: Maybe by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      My brother was one such male pushed out of the teaching profession. They couched it some mumbo jumbo about parents' expectations and whatnot. But it was pretty clear that they were really saying, "you're fired because PENIS!" I must be the only SJW who is also an MRA. Silly me, thinking that I should defend the rights of all.

      I don't even think it happens on purpose. At my son's school there are two male teachers. The coach and the special ed teacher. That is it. The teachers are all nice non-sexist people. I'm sure they would be fine with more male teachers. But seriously, would you want to take a job where you were the only person of a different gender in the entire workplace?

      I was originally planning on majoring in education when I graduated high school, but teachers just don't get paid enough. I knew my wife was going to want to stay at home once we had two kids, and I had the ability to do something that paid much better (engineering). It's possible that this type of decision is the root cause of the current imbalance, but it's hard to know for sure.

    130. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Girls aren't supposed to be smart, no one likes smart girls - please don't tell anyone I like this game, I don't want people thinking I'm smart because then I won't have any friends!

      Liking KSP doesn't mean she's smart any more than being autistic makes you a genius. It's just a game and she's addicted to it like any teenage boy might be addicted to CS:GO. That doesn't make the boy a navy SEAL nor does it imply that he'll grow up to be one some day nor does it even imply that he might be good with so much as an airsoft rifle.

      And the fact that you didn't set her straight on this leads me to believe that she learned this kind of stupid and sloppy thinking from you and her parents.

      You're doing more damage to the girl than her peers are because at least if she fit in with her peers she could enjoy a healthy social life. With your dumbed down cargo cult thinking she'll never make it in STEM.

      she's been telling me that girls aren't supposed to be smart for years now

      That's because she wants to be seen as brilliant and misunderstood and oh-so-vulnerable. She's a tweenage girl. She is desperate for attention. She can grow out of it sooner if you start treating her like an adult and stop swallowing her bullshit. Would you put up with it if a thirty year old woman said shit like that?

    131. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But she is absolutely terrified of her friends finding out, so much so that she'll play dumb about the game whenever her friends are around and a family member happens to mention it. I can't stress enough how scared she is for her friends to find out she likes a game about rocket science.

      When I ask her why she says, pretty plainly, "Girls aren't supposed to be smart, no one likes smart girls - please don't tell anyone I like this game, I don't want people thinking I'm smart because then I won't have any friends!" She's 12!

      This, 10000 times. Any social intervention to "fix" gender imbalance has to do one of three things:

      1) Make children not have the "wrong" opinions, and not express them to each other.
      2) Make children not care what other children think about them.

      #1 is clearly impossible. Parents will not stand for the punishment we would need to inflict on the 99% of children who are jerks at some point from age 0-18.

      #2 requires us to remove social skills from children. I don't see any way to do this that is not horribly unethical.

    132. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I literally dropped out of the teaching program when a male teacher at my former elementary school was accused of molesting a child. Everyone knew the kid and her mother were complete sociopaths who lied whenever and wherever necessary to get what they wanted. For those of you over 40, think of Nellie Olson. This teacher had decades of experience at the same school with zero issues. One complaint from a fucking lunatic and the DA presses charges, the guy loses his job and can never teach again even though he was acquitted. Charges for the girl or her mother? Of course not.

      I noped the fuck right out of the teaching program.

      If you want a society where one accusation is enough to destroy everything someone spent their life building, then you suffer the consequences. Fuck you and your "we need more male teachers." You live with the shitty system you built and you'd better like it.

    133. Re: maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Saint Fnordius you just got SERVED!

    134. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We dont see articles on how to get more men into nursing, teaching or rhythmic Gymnastics.

      Do you know any teachers? It's the most common public employee profession and I can tell you that districts across the country are always looking for more MALE preK-4th grade teachers simply because it makes everyone's job easier.

      I am a man in my 30s. I considered it in my early 20s. I volunteered in a second-grade classroom with some friends doing it for an education degree. Here is what I found:

      School administrators (five women and one man) did seem to be eager to have male teachers.

      Teachers in the classrooms had reactions ranging from ambivalent suspicion (he must be here to impress a girlfriend) to outright hostility (they had the look that says "are you a pedophile?")

      I was shocked by the hostility between teachers. About half of the classroom teachers I met took me aside and said something nasty about some other teacher within one week of meeting them. This was usually phrased as a warning that I should not trust the person they were bad-mouthing. This was the deciding factor in me staying far away from teaching. An environment where politics and back-stabbing is common, and even being accused of bad behavior can get you fired, is not a place I am willing to spend my time.

    135. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      here is what you don't do: Decide, as coach, that girls want to 3D print dollhouse furniture. Did you ask them what they would like to design and fabricate? Just saying because not all girls like playing with dolls or dollhouses.

    136. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "She's deliberately going out of her way to hinder herself and limit her choices in life because society has browbeat into her that she's not supposed to be smart or take an interest in science."

      Actually it is the culture in the US that makes that assertion, and it turns up on cue at about age 11 or 12. Keep encouraging her. She is already waaay ahead or her peers and will continue to be once the junior high school drama blows over in a few years.

    137. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh right, it has to be increased scrutiny or just mean old bias, not for once may we consider in the USSA that it might just be the code is sub par.

    138. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. Wrong.

      This is a rumor. Mentially ill people see many things that are not there.

      And when you think you are discriminated against, you act differently and it causes your dreams of discrimination to come true. But its not. It is really as simple as some bitch with an attitude problem, acting like a child, and when you are mean and unprofessional to others, it can be reciprocal. You reap what you sow. And you have been sowing distain.

      Now, you mentally ill feminsts are going to make people afraid to reject buggy or nonoptimized code for the sake of diversity.

      You feminist are really providing reason after reason why it's not worth hiring women -- even though you do the same work for 60% of the pay and study after hours to increase your skill set and lol. Yeah. All that is not true.

      DONT HIRE WOMEN. IT IS NOT WORTH IT.

    139. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when female teachers molest its ok. Qualifying gender just sets the divide. Your kind must want it.

      Maybe try working better so your code can pass a review you mentally ill loser.

    140. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Women are cowards. They lie. They cheat. They play the victims when they are the aggressors.

      Women are cowards.

    141. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She can get hired as a complainer. Or maybe just be unemployed. Or maybe hire a nice lesbian to take care of her.

        People that study absolutely worthless degrees should not be taken seriously. Yes it is worthless. It does not contribute to society

    142. Re:Maybe by ZenShadow · · Score: 1

      Y'know... I'd think that would be pretty important when you're about to insert tab A into space B...

      --
      -- sigs cause cancer.
    143. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are you two even focusing on that question when FB identified that the 'code quality' (or lack thereof) was NOT a 'gender based' issue but rather a 'rank' issue. Eg. 'lower ranked people produce lower quality code'...now stop & think about that for a second. Is it REALLY that shocking? If you take gender out of this conclusion entirely (so you don't bias yourself with thoughts of the 'patriarchy' or 'diversity') the conclusion further leads to the following statement about why this would be so:

      1) Lower ranked people are naturally less skilled then higher ranked people. If they are 'as skilled' or better than higher ranked people they'd be at the higher ranks! Wow, what a bizarre thought right?
      2) Lower ranked people are not getting the training needed to perform better.

      As a company you can do nothing about the former on an individual person basis other than cycle those lower skilled/ability people out of your company OR simply accept that their quality is 'good enough'. E.g. their quality may be less but it may be 'good enough' for the business your in. Which becomes a simple 'cost/benefit' calculation. Of course you could also raise the quality of your hiring practices/HR people to select better people that start at lower ranks, achieve better quality & move up the ranks. Again 'cost/benefit' but now the quality issue is on HR...maybe 'hiring for diversity' shouldn't be a relevant aspect of hiring...after all what does 'gender' or 'race' have to do with quality right? Remember we're supposed to believe that these qualities have no difference in respect to ability so using them as factors in hiring is in fact counter productive (not to mention likely discrimination in & of itself).

      IF the issue is the latter, e.g. a company feels confident their hiring practices always get the best people & its not the person's fault for the quality they produce then that implies its the companies fault in not properly training their people...ipso-facto do better training.

      Of course FB in their efforts to virtue-signal and avoid the wrath of SJW's their conclusion is 'we may not be promoting women to higher ranks properly'...WHAT? The rank correlation here says NOTHING about whether you've promoted women properly, actually that's wrong, it says the OPPOSITE...e.g. they HAVE been promoting properly & what you get left with at lower ranks is 'lower skilled or trained people'..that is a totally expected outcome that has 0 to do with gender...but of course if your hiring practices involve 'diversity selection' then you end up with lower skilled people of a particular 'preferred diversity class' at that rank e.g. you get MORE lesser skilled women (as a 'diversity class') in that rank by %...there is 0 surprise in any of these conclusions.

      But of course this is ALL nonsense right? In a world where every individual is assumed to be as skilled/talented as everyone else there is NO way this could possibly be related to 'diversity hiring' selecting less skilled individuals to meet a quota that has nothing to do with their skill right?

      I actually love that companies like FB reach such non-nonsensical conclusions, eventually they'll promote these less skilled individuals to positions that they are entirely unsuited for leading to poorer quality, poorer products, and hopefully consumers switching to better quality products & services made by companies that value ability/talent over 'diversity' & the 'market' will have done its job.

      Of course, this isn't something that happens overnight so I doubt I'll live long enough to see this happen. Or the other potential outcome is that consumers as a group will simply accept inferior products & services in the name of 'diversity' and those of us who don't will not have access to better products & services so we all end up having to use 'crap'.

    144. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Finally! The one smart person here.

    145. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you ever cared about the 'gender' of someone when reviewing their code? Do you even spend any time 'guessing' at the gender of someone from their name? (hint, its not really as obvious as you think) or more likely do you recognize that you've seen a name before, have some 'inherent bias' towards that person due to other interactions etc. where 'inherent bias' might be 'good or 'bad' and an interaction may be simply based on a chat over a coffee entirely unrelated to the job but leading to a perspective/bias about that person...which may not be 'fair' but it is how people think.

      In fact in an automated code repository system you wouldn't likely care 1 iota about the name of the coder at all, it's a meta-data tag only important to the automation of the system and MAYBE the manager of people to allow them to run reports to find people who are doing poor quality work or need training or in the worst of needs to find that asshole who put a backdoor in some piece of code & can that apeshit's ass!

      The fact is that someone doing code review & responsible for 'acceptance/rejection' wouldn't even need to know the name of the coder submitting the code as it's all automated. You do the review, accept/reject with a comment as to why & let the system deal with sending the comment to the appropriate person/people.

      Now I'm not naive, there are systems where coders names aren't hidden from reviewers but the impact goes back to my original statement, the effect on a reviewer being something like 'O, this person again, they're really good so I should be able to blast through this really quickly' or of course the opposite "O, crap, not this person again, they submit shit so I'll have to make sure to go over this with a fine-toothed comb'...Now, you could argue this shouldn't be the case at all, that the job of a reviewer is to treat all code they review with the same care...if you actually believe that's how humans work then you're being naive!. As well its quite possible that if your any type of reasonably objective and conscientious person that you'll allow moving people in your internal bit-bucket groups from one group to the other. Of course if you have an internal 'bit-bucket' that amounts to 'O, a woman's name, women by & large are poor coders so I'm going to have to go over this with a fine-toothed comb' than you really ARE an ass & should be shit canned from your job as your not doing your company any service. I would argue however that such a person is in the minority, that coders & reviewers care more about the code then the gender of the people coding it, and again they might put 'individuals' in a bucket of 'good or bad' but not as a group.

    146. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now I'm not so sure about teachers or gymnasts, but I'm betting if you go digging around the internet you'll find sites which a focus on those fields lamenting the lack of diversity within them.

      I am sure that you can find someone who cares about men becoming nurses on the internet. You can find someone who believes anything if you look at a large enough group of humans. The more interesting question is: How many people consider getting people of some gender into what class of jobs, and how much power do they have to make it happen?

      A better experiment than "find someone on the internet who thinks X" would be: Look at a mainstream newspaper. How many articles in the past year point out that there are too few women in high-paying jobs? Too few women in low paying jobs? Too few men in any job?

      I happen to read the Washington Post regularly, and from that I can say that the articles complaining that there are too few women in high-paying jobs far exceeds complaints for women in low paying jobs, or men in any job. I think occam's razor applies here: The people complaining are advocates for women. They see men making money, and want women to make that money.

    147. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm...while that is a SEEMINGLY relevant example perhaps the take-away is in fact that 'women & men are different & one group is better at some things than others'...after all IF orchestras are doing 'blind auditions' and the result is that women are now >50% of orchestras that's a data point for saying 'women make better musicians than men'...it doesn't mean you have to change your audition practices, nor does it say anything about coding or FB in particular. Someone might use this to do further investigation, maybe men are the ones that don't 'care' as much any more (e.g. put in the commitment), maybe men's fingers are too big by-and-large for certain instruments (which reminds me of a line from the movie Crazy People...'Sony, because Caucasians are just too damn tall'...actually a stupid funny movie...but today would likely never get released because lines like this would be considered 'racist' & SJW's would be all over the movie company).

      Now, where is there ANY evidence in the summary that the results were not 'blind auditions'...in fact FB specifically identified the issue as being a 'rank' issue NOT a 'gender' issue...you mean that 'lower ranked people do less quality work than higher ranked people' WOW what a bizarre entirely non-sensible result...NOT. Lower ranked people should 'as a group' be expected to have less quality in their work than higher ranked people otherwise they'd be promoted & be in the higher ranks (there can obviously be individuals in a lower ranked group that perform as well as the higher ranked group as a whole..those are the ones you promote to higher ranks thus leading to a greater or more obvious disparity between 'higher & 'lower' ranks in terms of their quality). How any of this is not 'self-evident' on its face and says absolutely 0 about gender I have no idea...but of course we live in a world where 'equality' means 'everyone obviously has the same talent & ability & thus the only reason 1 group doesn't get promoted is "patriarchy"'. This is of course why there are no female players in the NFL, NBA, NHL etc. as females are clearly as good in these sports as men & its only the patriarchy holding them back. O, you mean there ARE differences between the genders...just wait though, soon enough 'reality' will change & these sports will be forced to hire women because you know 'diversity theory' not 'actual ability' tells us this difference doesn't really exist & its only the patriarchy that is causing this 'reality' to exist.

    148. Re:Maybe by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      and the little hearts above every lower-case "i".

      I never thought I'd find a valid use for unicode!

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    149. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HOLY CRAP! The 'evidence' is RIGHT THERE IN THE SUBMISSION.. FB's internal audit discovered RANK not GENDER was a better determination of rejection rates...e.g LOWER RANKED PEOPLE GET THEIR SUBMISSIONS REJECTED MORE!

      Now, without invoking YOUR unsubstantiated gender bias perspective what is the LOGICAL take away? Heres' mine:

      1) Lower ranks of people are less skilled as a group than higher ranks. This is in fact the ONLY logical outcome, individuals in a lower ranked group with sufficient skill to be promoted will get promoted, thus leaving the ranks of the lower rank, leaving the lower rank with less skilled people & thus making the disparity more obvious.

      Note btw that 'lower quality' does NOT mean 'without worth'. Every company has a 'cost/benefit' ratio in their quality processes with layers of rank intended to achieve a 'objective rank of end quality', e.g. processes designed to achieve a good absolute outcome at the end while recognizing that this 'good quality' is not necessarily guaranteed right from the beginning & that the 'better skilled people' oversee the work of 'less skilled people', it happens in every business & every walk of life.

      Now, IF a company feels it necessary to look in to this further & layer 'gender' on this. IF you investigate your lower ranks & discover that you have an 'over representation of females than the population of graduating coders would say we should have' than you can make ANOTHER conclusion though you'd want to dive further in to the data to validate (or invalidate) the conclusion..the conclusion being 'We tend to hire shit female programmers more often than we hire shit male programmers'...FB can take 1 of 2 actions:

      1) Stop using gender as a basis to hire, relying only on 'ability'.
          Note by the way, while this may raise the overall quality of the 'lower ranks' they will still ultimately have poorer quality than higher ranks because of the logical expectation that happens when promoting 'good people' to higher ranks.
      2) IF they insist on using gender as a hiring factor, hire better female programmers.
          Just as above though. While this may raise the overall quality of the lower ranks, in the end you'll still APPEAR to have a gender bias in code quality due to the over representation of females in the work force compared to the pool of programmers in th world at large. While this may also mean that eventually you'll have more female's at higher ranks because with enough female programmers hired some of them will be good enough to rise to the higher ranks you'll STILL have over representation at the lower ranks where you EXPECT poorer quality work (as a group, not as individuals).

      Either you did not read the summary or your gender/sexist bias against men got the better of you such that you can't possibly think logically e.g. your world view & your personal self worth would come crumbling down around your ears for you to admit that FB's "gender issue" is that they are hiring poorer quality programmers because of their focus on 'gender diversity' rather than ability.

    150. Re:Maybe by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      So T was merely vetting code, not "being a star".

    151. Re: Maybe by TooManyNames · · Score: 1

      How is this considered insightful? The only way to accurately gauge interest is via engagement. You know... actually interacting with subject matter in a way that can enable growth, and makes any interest evident to other people -- who are ultimately the people who count (sorry solipsists).

      Also...

      Did you try to recruit them for another tech activity when the play was over?

      Stop. Just stop.

      Part of learning anything of any use is that, actually, the world doesn't revolve around your desires, and not everything is going to work according to your whims. If plays and coding are mutually exclusive given the scheduling available, sorry, you need to prioritize one or the other. Incidentally, it sounds like that's exactly what the girls did; they just prioritized something that you and you in particular take issue with.

      --
      "Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
    152. Re:Maybe by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      So your argument holds no water.

      Except I didn't make an argument, I suggested a possible reason with a wee bit of humor thrown in, which of course you were completely oblivious to. So really, chill out and stop taking everything as a personal insult. Or not, I really don't care.

      -

      It also is a slap in the face to those of us who are female

      Only if you're a humorless bitch with HUGE chip on her shoulder.

      -

      I wonder how well your code would hold up to a rigorous peer review.

      Oh I'm sure everyone would marvel at my incredibly clever code and most if not all of them would print it out and frame it. Why, I'm such a good programmer that one time I ran out of ones, so I wrote the rest of program using nothing but zeros. Even Jesus complimented me on my code, he was like "DAY-UM boy, that sure be some mighty fine fuckin' code y'all done got there!" My code even averted World War 3 back in 2012, but did YOU thank me? Noooooooooo.

      In conclusion, no I will not date you, regardless of your unbridled lust for me.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    153. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excuse me? Please quit being so damn sexist. Stop assuming that 'boys being interested in tech' means that is ALL they are interested in. Please quit promoting the 'geek is a loner in a basement' mentality. For crying out loud, men are as diverse creatures as women, the difference is that our interests are diverse in different directions that MAY be similarly related to 'tech' or more broadly 'STEM', e.g. hard sciences, engineering, 'tech' (programming) etc though sports is also generally considered a 'highly male oriented activity'.

      Do you seriously think that 'men in tech' don't have competing interests but that we're totally capable of choosing which ones we like most & prioritize some over others? Why would you expect girls to not be able to do that too & if it turns out they continuously prioritize drama, music, soft sciences or 'social gatherings' over tech interests why would you expect that this guy go out of his way to further try to interest them and wasting his time to go track them down in lieu of spending his time & efforts with those who value what he's selling/teaching!

      And wtf, he attempted to provide 'girl only teams' (rather sexist on part of females but hey, lets not make a big deal about it because you know were men, we accept there are differences such that girls like hanging out with each other without us sticking our noses...now only if they'd offer us the same courtesy) and 'collaborative' not 'competitive' projects...you know, an environment intended to foster 'story telling, sharing of thoughts or even maybe that dirty word ...feelings...instead of just getting something done'...OR maybe you're seriously suggesting he should try to go further & turn 'programming' in to 'performance art'...YEAH, I'm pretty sure that while that might be fun as a '1 off' thing, that there aren't many companies that are going to hire people who treat programming as a performance art activity and won't programming unless they have an audience to perform in front of...

      I know this goes against your world-view & thus your self image, but no matter how you try to get the world to cater to 'the way women are' they will NEVER like 'tech' to the same extent as men...even in so much as you recognize that 'women are different than men' so there MAY be a need to try to get them interested in tech using different techniques you refuse to accept that this FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE extends to the fact woman simply will not be as interested in the subject over all and thus no matter what amount of cow-towing to their differences we do they'll just not care. Why not then just accept that we'll 'win' some of them over and that's awesome and they'll be as 'good' or 'bad' at it as any man may have the chance to be and leave it at that. There is absolutely no need to try to force '50-50' parity in this any more than we are trying to force a '50-50' parity in nursing which is to say...we aren't & we make absolutely 0 effort to get men interesting in nursing by customizing learning activities for men to push them towards nursing.

    154. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said. But common sense is not appreciated when it goes against narrative... Remember breast feeding is not natural.

    155. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      You appear to believe that any phrase that says "Women are worse at $MENTAL_ACTIVITY" is automatically wrong.

      That is correct. My personal experience as the husband of a math professor at Rice University and the father of a young woman who is defending her PhD in mathematics next week, and who represent five generations of women with doctorate degrees in math, physics or biology, has been a compelling experience in the idea that women are somehow mentally inferior to men in any field whatsoever.

      Unless of course, you believe there is some special property of writing code that presents a challenge greater (or different) than that of math, physics or biology.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    156. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on what they're using. I know of a few that do anonymized CR and we have an in-house solution that has anonymized CR and feedback.

    157. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      You appear to believe that any phrase that says "Women are worse at $MENTAL_ACTIVITY" is automatically wrong.

      That is correct. My personal experience as the husband of a math professor at Rice University and the father of a young woman who is defending her PhD in mathematics next week, and who represent five generations of women with doctorate degrees in math, physics or biology, has been a compelling experience in the idea that women are somehow mentally inferior to men in any field whatsoever.

      That's pretty similar to my own experience with female relatives; see below.

      Unless of course, you believe there is some special property of writing code that presents a challenge greater (or different) than that of math, physics or biology.

      Serious question, do you think that there is some special property of chess that presents a challenge greater than that of math, physics, biology, etc?

      It's a purely mental activity which is dominated by males - sure, there's top female chess players, but the activity is dominated by males. Only 7 of the top 500 players are female.

      Do you think there is some special property of Veterinary Science that presents a challenge greater than that of math, physics or biology? That's an activity dominated by females. In fact (percentage wise), there are fewer males in veterinary science than there females in software development.

      Anytime the subject of female coders come up, almost no one other than ACs insist females are inferior. My experience of women: 1st wife lawyer, 2nd wife specialist surgeon, 3rd wife practising accountant. One sister holding two PhDs, the other holding one PhD.

      You keep insisting that I am making the claim that females are inferior. I am not. I never did. It is easier for you to claim that someone is bigoted because that requires no work on your part. Responding to any actual argument requires intellectual effort. i.e. hard work.

      Go on then - call me misogynist again. You've worn the word out anyway.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    158. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Are you a programmer?

      Most programmers, software engineers, developers would respond to this by going, "yeah, lets test the code"

      You don't want to retain shit code, so blind reviews are an easy way to see if your current processes are good or bad, and whether shit code is being accepted from some submitters or good code being rejected from others.

      It's a trivial, simple and obvious thing to do, to the extent that going "Occams razor" demonstrates an utter lack of ownership of the collective set of code.

      I think I just answered my own question. No, you're not a professional software developer.

      Of course I'm a professional software developer - for instance, I know the difference between code reviews and testing, and yet I am replying to someone who has conflated the two.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    159. Re:Maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Conflated them by suggesting a simple teat of your code review process?

      What are you frightened of here?

    160. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Conflated them by suggesting a simple teat of your code review process?

      What are you frightened of here?

      You didn't suggest testing the process, you said:

      Most programmers, software engineers, developers would respond to this by going, "yeah, lets test the code"

      Code that is rejected during a code review might very well compile, execute and run just fine anyway. It's pointless testing code that has been rejected from a code review.

      Of course, I already knew that because, unlike someone who doesn't know that fact, I am a professional developer.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    161. Re:Maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Not terribly professional if you can't differentiate testing the code against testing its functionality and outputs.

      Also fucking hopeless if you can't translate "test the code" in a code review context to mean reviewing the code and not the person that wrote it. Do you have a babysitter translating all the user requirements for you, because it sounds like you need one.

      If you want to claim to be a professional developer, show some professionalism.

    162. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      Not terribly professional if you can't differentiate testing the code against testing its functionality and outputs.

      Also fucking hopeless if you can't translate "test the code" in a code review context to mean reviewing the code and not the person that wrote it. Do you have a babysitter translating all the user requirements for you, because it sounds like you need one.

      If you want to claim to be a professional developer, show some professionalism.

      If you want to be considered a professional, well, anything, you need to clearly communicate what you mean. Saying "I said something else but we all know what I meant" is a cop-out non-professionals use. Saying "Yeah, lets test the code" is about as unambiguous as it gets - it means "Test the fucking code".

      If you wanted to say "Test the process" then you should have said so.

      In any case, why the hell aren't they testing the process? You assume that if the process was tested it would result in data that supports your position. If that were the case, then they should bloody well go ahead and test the process for bias so we wouldn't have people like you saying "If they tested the process for bias then they'd find bias."

      I see no reason to make up reasons for why they didn't test their process, then assume that the tests would show a particular result, and use that future result to prove something today. That's why I called Occams razor - there are too many things to assume to support the position that there is bias. You and they think that their process has bias? So go ahead and test it for bias. The simplest explanation for code being rejected during a code review is that the code is crap. Any other conclusion needs to be supported by data. If that data does not exist, assuming that it will both exist in the future AND support your position is stupid.

      BTW: You're using an assumed result from a future test to support a position today. Very good professionalism there... Well Done!

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    163. Re:Maybe by Cederic · · Score: 1

      I said 'test the code' as the way to test the fucking process.

      Now fuck off and stop sharing your ignorance.

    164. Re:Maybe by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      I said 'test the code' as the way to test the fucking process.

      Now fuck off and stop sharing your ignorance.

      Maybe. Maybe you just don't know the difference.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    165. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Serious question, do you think that there is some special property of chess that presents a challenge greater than that of math, physics, biology, etc?

      No.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    166. Re: Maybe by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I remember reading that girls are showing biases the day they're born. The bias is highly correlated with the amount of maternal testosterone during fetal development. Of course boys tend to have higher testosterone levels. If you look at just testosterone levels, men and women have the same interests. Maybe we need to remove the testosterone bias to level the field?

    167. Re:Maybe by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Thing is, we have several processes for software quality. Testing is one of them, and code review is another. They are different activities, serve different purposes, and so we have different terms for them. If someone said "test the code" I would take it to mean something considerably different from "review the code". You're using precise terms loosely enough to appear that you don't know what you're talking about.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    168. Re:Maybe by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Alternatively, the women that are determined to get into software careers are going to be more determined and more talented and more passionate, and therefore will be better at it. I've seen that effect elsewhere.

      My experience is that there are fewer female developers than male, typically, but that the female ones are at least as good as the male ones. That's my anecdotal evidence, and I'm sticking to it.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    169. Re: Maybe by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I believe TFS says that Facebook is looking further into this, suggesting that they think the evidence is valid but inconclusive. They may be able to conduct an experiment by running code by other people with randomized male and female names on the reviews.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    170. Re: Maybe by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I was peripherally involved in the extracurricular math at my son's middle school, and the math people contained a lot of boys and a lot of girls, boys in the majority but not overwhelmingly so.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    171. Re: Maybe by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Human society is incredibly complex, and it's really difficult to figure whether group disparities are social or genetic. What I do know is that there have been different sex ratios in various fields from what we've got now, and so I have absolutely no confidence that we've gotten it right. I have heard a lot of things about social pressures, so I believe they're still strong. I can also go not too far into the past and find people claiming that X group is inherently less good in fields that we now see members of X being very successful in. I can read Slashdot and find people claiming that various groups are inherently less good in various fields. In this discussion, I've seen claims that women aren't overall as suited for STEM jobs but are better at conflict resolution, and I consider them as unfounded as (say) Patton's assertion that black soldiers couldn't think fast enough to be good in mobile warfare.

      What I want is for everybody be able to use their potential to the full, regardless of whatever group they're classified into. I distrust generalizations, because as a general rule I've found them to be inaccurate. When there's a gender disparity, I want to know why.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    172. Re: Maybe by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Why aren't girls as interested? That's something I'd like to know. So far, I've read a whole lot of unsupported claims about the difference, but nothing of substance.

      I know that some girls get discouraged early because of social factors. I don't know how many.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    173. Re:Maybe by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      My wife climbs 100+' trees near Rice university with a chainsaw, removes their limbs, belays them down, and ultimately removes the entire tree leaving the home and yard unperturbed with the exception of a flush ground stump. She is also a black belt and carries a hand gun wherever she goes.

      Therefore, every woman should have the physical capabilities to climb trees with a chainsaw and become a black belt, right?

      Making general gender statements is a fools game. Every other example is an exception. Using your own anecdotes only reveals your ingrained biases. It doesn't provide any "data."

      People are people. Gender is just plumbing. I would attribute the differences in coding acceptance rates to a number of localized phenomena generated both by the company and the chosen female employees that work there. Using this cultured microcosm to make some sort of generalized assumptions about gender in the society at large is irresponsible and stupid. There are too many unknown variables to be responsible for the conclusions reached.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    174. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AC needs a brain marrow transplant to fix his dire stupidity.

    175. Re:Maybe by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      People are people. Gender is just plumbing.

      That was my point.

      I didn't present my anecdote to provide any "data". It's just an explanation of my worldview when it comes to the "coding requires a penis" crowd.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    176. Re: Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gifted aspies don't give into peer pressure.

    177. Re: Maybe by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      Stop. Just stop.

      Part of learning anything of any use is that, actually, the world doesn't revolve around your desires, and not everything is going to work according to your whims. If plays and coding are mutually exclusive given the scheduling available, sorry, you need to prioritize one or the other. Incidentally, it sounds like that's exactly what the girls did; they just prioritized something that you and you in particular take issue with.

      Isn't that the problem with getting women to work in STEM to begin with? The world does revolve around women, to some degree. They can study whatever they want in school, work a little bit if they like, then marry up and start a family. They determine when courtship, dating, marriage, and procreation starts. It all works according to their whims.

      Why the ever living fuck would women put themselves in a position to work incredibly long hours doing intensely grueling mental work that requires precision and meticulousness on a level unparalleled in human endeavors when they have so many other options? Why would they forgo the robust and varied options of guaranteed ease and flexible schedule that almost every other field offers them?

      Its not like they have to leverage their mental assets into fungible ones in order to attract a mate.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    178. Re: Maybe by vlad30 · · Score: 1

      she gets pissed and claims I slept with her? I've basically got no legal recourse to protect myself. I'll be found guilty in the court of public opinion and never be able to work again from the mere accusation.

      This is already happening and worse it now happens for teachers being accused for the victims compensation with little or zero evidence by grown ups who found a way to get back at that any teacher they hated and collect a hand out as well. And when is the last time you saw a school official say "No we don't believe the students story"

      --
      Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
    179. Re: Maybe by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      It sounds like she is completely oblivious to what is going on right in front of her. She is so blind to it she assumes it is localized to one place, somewhere far away.

      Pretty sad that the people we choose to educate our kids are so completely disconnected from them.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    180. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait...what the actual fuck?

      "The VM represents a binary representation of gender, implying that in order to be a woman you must have a vagina" ...wat...

    181. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the "coding requires a penis" crowd.

      In other words, you're beating up on a straw-MRA like a straw-MRA would beat up a straw-feminist. It's straws all the way down.

      I don't think your "fight fire by being a bigger a-hole" act is helping much. If anything, it's what helped Trump win.

    182. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      unless every female programmer signs it with "Coded by a Female Programmer!"

      Exactly how does a code reviewer know the sex of the code submitter, which would be a prerequisite to any claim of bias? I'd guess the only way would be a real name was attached to the submission. But why should that be the case? Why not anonymize submissions?

      Uh, reality check? I can tell a whole lot of authors I am working with just by looking at the code unless we are talking about boilerplate with prescribed coding/formatting standards. And usually once I recognize the author I also know their gender.

    183. Re:Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the submissions were anonymous and this pattern still shook out women wouldn't be able to cry "discrimination". We can't have that. They would lose their power.

  2. maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    maybe they just don't code as well as their male counterparts?

  3. Gender bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Could it be -- possibly -- that maybe these particular engineers are shitty coders?

    Maybe they were hired for their looks not their leet coding skills. Not like that would EVER happen.

    1. Re:Gender bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Maybe they were hired for their looks not their leet coding skills. Not like that would EVER happen.

      This. Exactly this. Posting as AC for obvious reasons. I've worked in the Bay Area for over 12 years for different companies, and I've seen it many times. Mediocre female engineers (software, electrical or network) get hired based on diversity quotas and in many cases their looks as well. Managers find out after about a year or so that their hires weren't such a good fit to the team as they hoped, and they end up promoting the mediocre engineers to poor managers. Now the good engineers report to the mediocre ones and get frustrated, and eventually leave the company. And of course, the /. feminazi crew will downmod this, but the truth has to be said.

      I also need to add that I have seen many, many good female engineers. It's just that the ones that get hired based on their looks or for other reasons than their engineering qualities are usually not a good fit for the company. The good ones are often very much appreciated, and I've seen many occasions where they are paid the most of the entire team. But you never hear that on /. or CNN of course.

    2. Re:Gender bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Theory:
      The good female engineers are usually not good looking. Why? Because good looking girls can get what they want out of life without working hard to excel at engineering. Without the need they lack the drive. Without the drive they don't excel.

      The harsh reality is that ugly girls are usually better at getting things done than pretty girls... because ugly girls have no choice.

      Everyone knows this and has known this for a very very very long time.


      The reason we're getting such a fire storm about getting grrrls into STEM now is that materialism is the new zeitgeist. According to this worldview if you're not producing something then you're worthless and you get no respect at all. Well it turns out that pretty girls like to be respected. But since they suck at doing anything other than sucking they came up with modern feminism to bully society into giving them respect and money that they haven't earned.

      It's complicated, of course, because people are complex. There's plenty of ugly girls that want to be sexually valuable. There's plenty of pretty girls that want to be financially valuable. They're unhappy and want what they don't have and thus turn to feminism. That's why feminists are so divided on the issue of sex positivity/negativity. Mature women who have any sense don't care about any of this because they've got their own lives that they're living.

      Among males the general consensus seems to be that respect and money are earned and trying to just demand it almost always is met with denigration, disrespect, and shunning. MGTOW embraces the suck and praises competence, discipline, and self-reliance which are traditional masculine virtues. MRAs decided that they would try to whine their way into getting what they want just like the feminists. Guess what kind of person subscribes to these two philosophies: arrogant macho tough guys and whiny fat losers respectively. Mature men who have some wisdom aren't concerned with such bullshit: they've got their own lives that they're living (probably in a healthy relationship with one of the girls that's not interested in the feminism/sjw bullshit).


      Anyone, male or female, significantly involved in any of this bullshit should not be hired because their goals are not the same as getting work done and completing the project on time and under budget. Don't hire trouble makers or losers.

      If you're looking for a life partner then, again, you need to cull from your consideration anyone who's significantly into this social justice or battle of the sexes bullshit. You need to look for someone who's interested in being a partner. Someone who's interested in performing their role on your team. The traditional provider + home maker combo seems to have proven quite successful in the past. Other combinations may do well, but hey it's your life and happiness.

  4. Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by minogully · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Facebook started hiring lots of women just for the sake of having more women in the workforce (to meet some gender diversity quota) rather than based on the individual's skills, then it's likely that the average talent of the women in Facebook would be lower than their male counterparts. Taking this further, it seems likely to me that these women would also have their code rejected more often.

    1. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Cipheron · · Score: 2

      That could be a result of trying to rush things. You can't rush diversity, opportunity to learn needs to be built into every level of the education system. Trying to shoehorn some quotas on at the output end of the pipeline isn't going to end well. It needs small and consistent help all the way through so the graduates you want are actually ready to hit the ground running.

    2. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And of course, correlation does not equal causation.

      I expect that your assessment is spot on though given my own anecdotal experience working in Silicon Valley. I work for a much smaller company, and one SJW literally said that we should lower our standards to hire more women, by looking at other qualities they may bring that we don't consider for male candidates (presumably the ability to have a vagina and breasts). Fortunately we did not do that and we have some top women from our industry, but they're also less than 10% of our engineering staff as a result.

    3. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by El+Cubano · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It also equally likely that their diversity efforts have resulted in a lower overall experience level for their female engineers. Tech has always had a smaller proportion of women than the general population. If they all of a sudden said "let's hire lots of female engineers," and there are not as many experienced female engineers to poach from other tech companies, then you have to hire newbies and other less experienced folks and train them up.

      Have you ever worked with a new or inexperienced engineer or programmer? They tend to write lots of crap code because they lack experience.

      Of course, we don't know for sure because the word "experience" appears neither in the WSJ's article nor in The Verge's article. Gee that seems like the sort of basic thing that a study like this would consider.

    4. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by hey! · · Score: 2

      Or it could be a non-representative sample. Or the difference in rates might not be statistically significant. Or the sample used might be too heterogeneous in terms of content or subject to precisely compare rates. Or women could submit code more frequently and have the same acceptance rate. Or things might look different if you control for submission size.

      It's nearly impossible to tell what's going on with a single aggregate figure like this without access to the underlying data, if not the code in question. Anyone can construct any scenario they want because there is not enough information to draw any conclusions.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re: Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a fair point that having female colleagues can boost morale, up to some point. Somebody told me their team hired a girl that knew nothing, and just by sitting there she boosted the productivity of the other team members. It's very unfair but just rational for the company. In the case of Facebook, with their talent pool they can at least afford competent engineering talent that can actually accomplish something, even though on average they're not as good.

    6. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      Of course, we don't know for sure because the word "experience" appears neither in the WSJ's article nor in The Verge's article. Gee that seems like the sort of basic thing that a study like this would consider.

      depends on what dataset you're trying to use to put forward the statistical result that supports your narrative.

      Lies, damned lies, and statistics (and all that jazz). Hell, if it really is an experience thing (likely given the article *does* mention that the rejections seem to align with rank of the coder, and women are at lower rank on average there) then by omitting that in your model means you don't even have to get outlandish with your p values. :p

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    7. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Shados · · Score: 2

      Yup. My current employer, while pushing hard for diversity, is doing pretty good at pushing to improve the company to attract said diversity, instead of just widening the net and bringing whatever they catch.

      We have a pretty high ratio of female engineers (and even better ratio at the lead/director/vp level) for the kind of company we are. Not 50/50, but higher than the Google and Facebook of the world.

      Pretty much all of the female engineers I've interacted with, including our junior ones, were top notch. High quality code, super hard workers, cares about the craft. Good stuff.

      On the other hand, my previous employer had put a diversity activist in charge of hiring female engineers. Not only did we only have a handful, while half of them were really good, the other half were hired through shitty coding bootcamps, or were self "taught" (as in, they had read a book on coding and that was about it). Terrible. We had to lay off a couple within a few months, some were burning a crazy amount of hours in training (a lot more than a junior engineer should). In the end, we ended up with 2 in a team of 100+ Not cool.

    8. Re: Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Japanese call this role "office lady". Very good for morale, productivity, and the happiness of both sexes. But super anti-feminazi.

    9. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yep, this could easily be "junior bias". Retention of young female lawyers is a major problem in London's City law firms - where I work - they get fed up after a few years and find something else. Quite why this is so is a topic of serious investigation: these people are expensive to recruit and train and something is pissing them off.

      Not unexpectedly, if taken across the board, the remaining women are less experienced than the men! I too am amazed that this got reported before biases like this were controlled.

    10. Re:Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      then it's likely that the average talent of the women in Facebook would be lower than their male counterparts.

      I don't think so. More likely is that Facebook *recently* started hiring lots of women, and did so including merit. The result would be a larger portion of junior programmers who are women than men which would likely result in the quality of code being lower not due to skill, but due to experience.

    11. Re: Hiring not by merit, but by Gender by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Also entirely pointless. There are great architects, business analysts, designers, developers, testers, technical writers and other non-managerial people out there of all genders. If you're only hiring men across all those roles then it's not the candidate pool that's the problem.

  5. More by Orgasmatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even worse, the women who weren't quota hires will never be sure if they earned their spot with their vagina or not.

    --
    See that "Preview" button?
    1. Re:More by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

      Even worse, the women who weren't quota hires will never be sure if they earned their spot with their vagina or not.

      Well, at least some neck-beard got laid.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:More by losfromla · · Score: 1

      Doubtful, unless these girls are nerds and clearly they aren't since they aren't very good at the programming. So, they hired some cool, hot chicks who date cool guy,s not nerds thus no neck-beard got laid as a result of the bad hire.

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    3. Re:More by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even worse, the women who weren't quota hires will never be sure if they earned their spot with their vagina or not.

      Well, at least some neck-beard got laid.

      [citation needed]

    4. Re:More by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      I fail to see how this is flamebait. Crude perhaps, but not flamebait.

      It is a legitimate point. If you've made the decision to preferentially hire based on [trait], then that entire class of employee now is subject to the self doubt of "was I only hired because I had [trait] or am I good enough that I was hired because I am better than average?"

      self doubt can be quite harmful.

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    5. Re:More by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      Crude perhaps, but not flamebait

      I think a few people interpreted it as a sex-for-job comment. Which is odd, because that doesn't usually leave much doubt in either direction.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    6. Re:More by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. European Commission & parlament tries to push an agenda which would mandate certain percentage of women on the boards of big companies.
      It meets biggest opposition among women already on those positions, generally saying something in a sense: I would not be able to wok in an environment where my coleagues could say - or even think without saying: "Oh, shut up. You are sitting here only because of your gender anyway...".

    7. Re:More by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a secret: a large proportion of them don't care if the only reason they got hired is because they have a vagina.

      They have a job. They won. And a more qualified person was not hired just because they were male. Feminism won.

      They win; everyone else loses. THEY DON'T CARE.

  6. FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    completely ignore the possibility that the numbers suggest women are worse at the job... similar to stats about how much people can lift... just because women average less doesn't mean an average woman lifts less than the average man. those are alternative facts.

    you're all idiots.

  7. Perhaps men are just better programmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I won't deny that some women make great programmers, there is a point where we have to admit drastic differences between the way brains of men and women work. I could talk ad nauseam about this but it has all been said before on this site, many times. The rush for gender equality is producing situations like this. Which is to say, ushering women in - nearly by force - into positions men are better cognitively equipped for.

  8. depends. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only things I care about:
    1) is the code readable
    2) does the code work?
    3) does the code conform to whatever internal guidelines are in place for such code

    Gender, gender identity, sexual preferences, how much money you have in your bank account, what you wear, how you smell, who you vote for? All of that's irrelevant. As it should be.

    If female engineer's code is rejected at a higher rate than their peers, then they should have clear reasons why that code was rejected and if it's problematic, should be holding sessions with those engineers failing to conform to standards to bring them up to, uh, code. Not everything's a witch hunt.

    1. Re:depends. by losfromla · · Score: 2

      Except that because we're humans, it doesn't work that way. However, I would think that the bias would go in the other direction if there is one. That is, some male nerd (horny by definition) would be more likely to look more favorably than justified on a female's code because there is always the hope of a liaison at some point in the future.

      --
      Only I can judge you.
  9. Cognitive Dissonance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Trying to balance the fact that their vagina doesn't/shouldn't matter while simultaneously trying to control the world with it.

  10. Happens in writing too by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem for many authors, not just coders, is that both women and men rank them more harshly.

    No matter how you slice it.

    I used to experiment with this by swapping names on code submissions with female colleagues and watching code suddenly be treated differently.

    The cutting critiques were the worst parts.

    Is it fair?

    No.

    Does it happen?

    Yes.

    My advice is find some token replacement method for code submissions so that evaluators can't extrapolate gender.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Happens in writing too by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      Or, remove any reference to who the person doing the coding was in the first place. You could easily do this in any number of ways. The easiest would be to submit the code to be reviewed, and be handed a secure token so that it can be traced back once the review process is complete. From there, the programmer can get the code back to fix/update or be revealed once code is approved.

      This way Code Snippet has a reference number and that is all the reviewers see.

      But I know that programmers often collaborate and share ideas and get help solving issues all the time, so if the reviewers are other coders, it because easier to know who the authors are, by style.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:Happens in writing too by ghoul · · Score: 0

      Men are hardcoded to try and impress women. Mansplaning is not condecsension , its rather a guy trying to pretend to be smarter than he really is in order to impress a woman. Its rather pathetic.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    3. Re:Happens in writing too by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Style is always a problem. As is team knowledge of team members IRL handles.

      There are methods to get around this, including randomizing team creation/selection, but they're not very organic in practice.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    4. Re:Happens in writing too by smelch · · Score: 2

      Thanks for mansplaining that to me.

      --
      If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
    5. Re:Happens in writing too by ghoul · · Score: 1

      How do you know I am a man? Check your bias

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    6. Re:Happens in writing too by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      Mansplaining? Maybe it is more prevalent against women but I can guarantee that some guys (girls too) fresh out of school will do that to anyone who can hear it.
      I usually blame it on inexperience, at school, you are taught to work in a vacuum and the real world isn't. Some people never seem to learn though.

    7. Re:Happens in writing too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're just mad you're a shitty coder and get called out on it.

    8. Re:Happens in writing too by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Quite to the contrary, the ill-advised and biased neologism "mansplaining " means condescension, treating the woman as an ignoramus.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    9. Re:Happens in writing too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My advice is find some token replacement method for code submissions so that evaluators can't extrapolate gender.

      Then people will whine that reviewers were able to discern the author's gender by coding style or some such. They have to be victims. It is their stock and trade. Without victim status they have nothing because they don't have merit.

    10. Re:Happens in writing too by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I don't want to randomize team selection. We've got some highly effective teams, each with deep subject knowledge, and they all work together well. I've been in semi-random teams here, and I much prefer the current system.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    11. Re:Happens in writing too by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I've seen enough male-to-female mansplaining going on to think it a useful neologism. It's a specific form of condescension, and is often found by itself without other forms.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    12. Re:Happens in writing too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [Citation Needed]

    13. Re:Happens in writing too by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      If mansplaining actually exists, which you seem to think it does, it is not gender specific. Since it is merely a mode of talking it can therefore be done by anyone.

      Like you for instance, whatever you identify as.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
  11. Can't jump to conclusions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need more data to determine if there really is a bias.
    For instance... How much experience do these female programmers have? If the percentage of women working in technical positions at facebook has increased over the last few years, then a large portion of them are recent hires. That means that unless facebook's employee base has an unusually high churn rate, then their female programmers likely have less industry experience than their male counterparts, and they definitely have less experience with facebook's code base and programming standards. One cannot expect less experienced programmers to have an equal percentage of positive code reviews.

  12. Fuck off, whiny bitches. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Women code exactly as much as they want to. If men code more, that's not our fucking problem. Now get off my lawn!

  13. Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bias and discrimination exist.

    What also exists is people who do shitty work.

    Unfortunately, in the world of the feminist SJW, only white males are capable of doing shitty work. In the alternate universe of the feminist SJW, women and minorities are incapable of doing shitty work, and to claim any differently makes you a racist, sexist misogynist pig .

    1. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're making the common mistake of conflating real Feminists with the man-hating, power-seeking, vengeance-driven SJW ersatz, who don't want equality, they want supremacy. Real Feminists just want to be treated fairly.

    2. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does the Easter Bunny want, because they're both imaginary.

    3. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by I'm+just+joshin · · Score: 1

      Eek. Good thing I can change my gender at will - it's my superpower. I'm GenderFluidXe!!!!!1Eleven

      Now if they threatened to change my sex, that might hurt.

    4. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, the lovely No True Scotsman. There's no such thing as a real feminist. There are too many different ideologies that use the feminist label to say what a real feminist is. Are TERFs real feminists? Are SWERFs real feminists? If someone says they're a feminist but doesn't believe in the wage gap (because it's a myth), who is to say they're not a feminist? If they're not, why not? Because they don't fit your particular version of feminism?

    5. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Ah, no true Scotswoman.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    6. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're making the common mistake of conflating real Feminists with the man-hating, power-seeking, vengeance-driven SJW ersatz, who don't want equality, they want supremacy. Real Feminists just want to be treated fairly.

      That's the only right kind of feminist is the first type these days. Otherwise you're excommunicated, and viciously attacked by them as a women hater. The same garbage that you see in subs like /r/feminism is the same type of stuff that's pushed in schools from Canada and the US to Australia. Everything is men's fault, it's all the fault of the patriarchy, society is ruled by the patriarchy, etc, etc, etc. If you refuse to believe that you're a misogynist/sexist/etc. It's this same type of bullshit that's given birth to MRA's, Men's Rights Movements, MGTOW, and so on. There's an absolute fear of standing up to them as well, because they'll bring out the "you're a rapist, you commit sexual assault, etc" garbage and will attempt to ruin a persons life to boot. And if you refuse to fall in line with that? Or if you refuse to follow the 3/4 women will be raped/sexually assaulted/etc? Well you're a rape apologist now.

      Ask those 2nd wave feminists who've been saying the 3rd/4th wave bullshit is literal bullshit for decades now. Take someone like Camille Paglia or C.H. Sommers, they're "not real feminists" according to the modern orthodoxy. Or ask those women who say they're not feminists, and are viciously attacked by those batshit insane feminists, the media, and so on. The current brand of feminism can fall into one of two categories depending on your view. It's either a religion, or a cult.

      Hell take all those feminists who say "well if men want help on their own issues, they should make their own movement." And so they did...you guess what happens? They're attacked, their meetings are disrupted, and so on. Ask yourself why those same feminists who say "it's about equality" attack men who've been raped by women. Try to get men's shelters shut down. Try to block successfully in many cases to get rape laws changed so they're gender neutral. Ask yourself why feminists have their panties in such a twist over the documentary "The Red Pill" by Cassie Jaye. That they go as far as to attack her in the media and lie. Lie and threaten theaters who were showing it, force them to not show it. Say it's all rape apology, sexism, and so on. Disrupt private events from showing it. Ask yourself why feminists fight so hard against getting male suicide labeled an epidemic. It is. 80% in some countries are men, but the help they're able to get is close to non-existent in some cases. 83% of suicides in my own backyard are from men in the 16-40 range. There's two programs that exist to help men, there are 73 programs for women.

      Then ask yourself, why so few people actually call themselves feminists. And why so many people see what the GP said, is believed by so many.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    7. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "There's two programs that exist to help men, there are 73 programs for women."

      The limiting factor in the long-term survival of a society and culture is fertility. Women define baseline fertility. A society can tolerate a good 80% loss of males and still grow at exactly the same rate. With the downsizing and automation of military operations you don't even need them for cannon fodder anymore. Automation in general makes their labor pretty useless and you can use women for knowledge workers in all other cases.

      If you were offered 10 female slaves or 10 male slaves what would you choose in the modern world? Everyone ask yourself that question. Uncle Sam already answered.

    8. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, little snowflake. SJWs and transexuals are real. And they are coming to give you gender reassignment surgery.

      My boss is a transexual and she's a great engineer. I am not afraid.

    9. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like in the NBA.

    10. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So a man's life is worth less than a woman's?

    11. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're saying that men are only valuable for their reproductive capabilities, and if those aren't needed then you literally don't care if they die? That's not sexist at all.

    12. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Real Feminists just want to be treated fairly.

      As a Real Feminist, I want others to be treated fairly.

      For better and for worse.
      Everyone should get the same opportunities, face the same expectations, and the same reactions when not living up to them. No rejecting because of gender, no unequal pay for equal work, and no special concessions for gender role choices you make (including childcare).
      Whether you have zero, one, or more penises should be irrelevant.

    13. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, little snowflake. SJWs and transexuals are real. And they are coming to give you gender reassignment surgery.

      My boss is a transexual and she's a great engineer. I am not afraid.

      If your boss was born with a dick, your boss is not a she. Your boss might like to play dress up, participate in cosmetic surgery and hormone therapy, but there is no amount of make up that's going to cover those Y chromosomes.

    14. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The issue is simple. The summary indicates ONLY 33% their programmers are female. But less than 5% of programmers are female (mostly due to disinterest not any sort of industry bias). This means in order to have an equitable workforce at most 5% of the programmers in a given organization would be female. It is normal for there to be variation from individual company to another, a small company might have 100% female programmers, but in an organization the size of FB going from 5% to 33% is a massive deviation that could only be explained by something biased TOWARD females.

      Assuming the assertion that females and males would be equally talented and qualified at programming only 5% of the top 1% of programmers will be female. If an organization like FB targets the top 1% (or higher) of programming talent there statistically are going to be few if any female programmers who are actually talented and qualified enough to raise substantially in the ranks. Again, that has nothing to do with any sort of gender bias and again given that programming is an unpopular career choice for females it is a big assumption that the most talented females aren't choosing other fields while the most talented males are choosing this well paid and popular among males field.

      It sounds like there is indeed a gender bias at Facebook, they are strongly biased against males. Any bias in favor of females is in reality a bias against males just as a bias in favor of males is a bias against females.

    15. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You aren't wrong. Just look up the "definition" of feminism sometime. Explain to me again how promoting the interests of only one gender is the belief the genders should be equal?

    16. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Jfetjunky · · Score: 0

      Feminism is great.

      The problem is the bad ones have made it about revenge and "evening up the score", instead of making it about true equality. They have done to feminism what fanatics have done to climate change. There is still some good work being done by good people for a good cause. But jackholes got involved and let their misplaced resentment fuel a highly emotional and radical image, and here we are. On the precipice of having raving loons de-legitimize a worthy and valuable cause.

      And as long as we are using data like this to try to drive some sort of flimsy "equality metrics", all you can hope to get is forcing equal outcome but not necessarily equal treatment.

    17. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      Are chromosomes really what we want to base pronouns off of? There's evidence that the brains of transgender people more closely resemble brains of the gender they identify with rather than what their chromosomes would say. And while they won't completely be able to transition biologically, they can do enough so that the differences are unlikely to come up in everyday life. Frankly, while it's not something I really understand or experience, it also doesn't hurt me in any way. Gender dysphoria sounds awful, and the best way we have to treat it at the moment is hormones and surgery.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    18. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if I can sue my landlord because he doesn't have 16 bathrooms in this apartment and I really need them for all my genders

    19. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The answer is really simple. Stop debating with them, and physically discipline them.

    20. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by I'm+just+joshin · · Score: 1

      Yes, in almost all cases we do. If someone puts forth the effort to physically change their appearance to overcome the sex spec of their chromosomes, then the causal identification of someone - the point of pronouns - would match how the person identifies.

      Gender dysphoia is horrid, one of my employees suffered from it - though they were mentally ill & ended up committing "suicide by cop". (We did entertain their delusions, as no one cared how they identified, so long as they didn't harm anyone else.)

      The real issue that can't be talked about without someone being labeled a hater is that trans folk suffer from extremely high rates of mental illness, and need help. And given the lack of dramatic change in the suicide rate between pre & post-op trans folk, changing around their physical organs are not the solution.

      It is unreasonable for society to cater to the delusions of the mentally ill. Be they trans, Trump, or Clinton.

    21. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      No, normally we go by easily observable physical characteristics. If I see someone with a beard, I'll probably say "he" without first looking at a karyotype.

      Yeah, trans people do have a lot of mental illness; I was under the impression that suicide rates do drop after surgery and hormones, but not to the level of the general populace. If you have seen something that says they don't change, I'd be interested in seeing it.

      It's unreasonable for society to expend a lot of effort cater to delusions. But changing the pronouns you use for a person is such a low level of effort (assuming they are asking for real pronouns, not "bunself" or whatever BS the kids on Tumblr are using these days) that I think it's a reasonable request that you at least try.

      --
      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    22. Re:Maybe here's the real problem by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      That's like saying socialism is great. But there's never been a true version of socialism. You know what the difference between a MRA and a feminist is? The first is trying to better the lives of men by looking at the issues, and trying to fix it. The latter is complaining about sexist air conditioning and getting buddy-buddy up with ideologies like Islam that promote that women are worth less then men.

      Feminism itself has gone so far off the rails that you'll now hear adherents say "egalitarianism is a MRA construct." Enjoy that cult.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    23. Re: Maybe here's the real problem by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      The limiting factor in the long-term survival of a society and culture is fertility.

      All you've done is prove a MRA's point. There is sexism, and it's in favor of women.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  14. Maybe there is no 'diversity' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe 'diversity' isn't even a real thing. Maybe it's just wishful thinking that gets imposed on a race of primates with toys that evolve a million times faster than their monkey brains do. Same goes for ageism and racism.

    I think it's time to face the truth about the human race: We're just a goddamned bunch of animals, playing a game where we pretend to be this mythical thing called 'civilized'. As soon as the game doesn't suit someone, they don't want to play anymore, and then you find out how much we're all just dumb animals.

    Seriously, look at the shit that goes on in the world! I don't mean just the 3rd-world shitholes where assholes like ISIS are running around, blowing shit up, cutting off people's heads, and kidnapping women and girls to use as sex slaves and baby machines, I mean right here in the good 'ol USA, and every other so-called 'first world country' on the planet: we STILL treat people like utter shit, we're just slightly more polite about it, and I don't mean just treating women like shit, either, I mean EVERYONE treating EVERYONE ELSE like shit in some way or another.

    Don't even try to feed me some bullshit line about 'competition' or somesuch crap. We supposedly have a 'civilization' (which is bullshit, we are most certainly NOT CIVILIZED), we're supposedly 'evolved' (but we're NOT, we're still just dumb panicky animals), but yet we act like animals so much of the time that it's just a JOKE.

    Come back in about another 1000 years. If we haven't managed to blow ourselves up, or kill each other off because 'God said the unbelievers must be cast out' or somesuch bullshit, MAYBE, just MAYBE we'll be less animal and more actual civilized beings. Until then? Fuck off with your bullshit about being 'civilized'.

  15. PMD by hsthompson69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    https://pmd.github.io/

    Use an automated code review to baseline. Compilers care nothing about genitalia.

    1. Re:PMD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, maybe *your* compiler. ...

    2. Re:PMD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Compilers care nothing about genitalia.

      I think the compilers would complain if they weren't defined.

    3. Re:PMD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Phabricator is a code review tool that originated out of facebook, and part of the code submission workflow is automated static analysis and unit tests run before the code even makes it to review. I don't know if they use a lot of Java, so PMD would not be of a lot of use to them, but their workflow does involve similar tools for other languages already.

      But such automated "review" is not a substitute for human review. It supplements it, and takes a load off the human reviewers, as they know the code is already free of certain classes of error and can focus on design issues that automated tools cannot pick up on.

    4. Re:PMD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would compilers care if it was done by a genexer or geny?
      What does Geographical location of a boot have to do with generational paradigms?

  16. Wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait...are we sure this is "Facebook Rejects Female Engineers' Code More Often" OR is it "Facebook rejected code often comes from female coders"?

  17. As a programmer with decades of experience by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can say confidently that everyone is terrible.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:As a programmer with decades of experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      It's true - few people today under 40 can code well, or even understand what the compiler is doing. I have seen many try to fake this knowledge and they get exposed quickly. Then I educate them and train them until they understand why it's important.

    2. Re:As a programmer with decades of experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know for a fact that I am the worst programmer I know.. Except for you....

    3. Re:As a programmer with decades of experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Programming is a perfect, if often maddening, example of the creative problem-solving technique. The question, boiled down to its very essentials, is always this: how can I make this (expletive inserted or deleted as you wish) machine do what I want it to?

      There are other, lesser, considerations, of course. The system will invariably impose all manner of restrictions: the memory space isn’t big enough, the language is limited, input-output devices won’t do what you would like them to. These become challenges, albeit frustrating ones.

      Most of the restrictions, however, are in your own mind. It is very difficult to resist the trap of continuing to look for a solution in the wrong place. If an approach to a particular problem yields no results, the usual response is to work even harder on that same approach. This unfortunate fact seems to be true in all human endeavors, from child-raising to international relations. You, as programmer, must know about when something should be expected to pay off, and, if the time passes and there is no payoff, you must stop doing whatever you’re doing and try something else. You must look around at this point, try to see what you’re really doing, and do something else.

      Often the problem is not where you think it is. You might stare at a formula or a loop for hours, wondering what’s wrong with it, when the problem is a duplicate variable or a problem with initialization much earlier in the program. It’s not easy to change directions. You will be convinced that you’re on the right track, that you’ve just about got it, that only a little more effort will solve the problem.

      Forget it. It’s the will-o-the-wisp.

      Now then, if you have made the necessary change in direction, you may find later that the program still doesn’t work because you have some vestiges left of your old way of thinking. Somewhere buried in the program is a critical juncture which depends on the old way. It will be much easier to find if you know it’s there It is often useful to stop completely and do absolutely no work on the project for a few days.

      Now, it is important that you have stopped not out of laziness but to give your subconscious mind a chance to work. What usually happens is that the solution comes to you at some totally unexpected moment, usually while you are relaxed and not thinking of the problem at all. The butterfly lights on your shoulder when you stop chasing it.

      There is also a tendency in this game to go for the needlessly complex solution. Computers can do such elaborate and complex calculations and handle such intricate routines in so short a time that one is tempted to keep adding details until finally there is no possible way to understand what has been done. It is too easy to overlook some critical detail if the path through the program is too difficult. It is something like sending a small child to the store for a loaf of bread. Your chances of success are greater if the route to the store is fairly short, passes no playgrounds or amusement arcades, and if you give the child the exact amount of money, than if you send the child on a five-mile jaunt through city streets with ten dollars in his pocket. The great ideas are all simple ones.

      How can you keep from falling into this trap?

      Awareness is part of the answer. Tell yourself that the danger is out there, and constantly ask yourself if there should be a simpler, easier way to do it. You might enjoy looking at all those lines of wonderfully obtuse, arcane code, loaded with complex algorithms and advanced programming features, all nestled among countless pairs of parentheses (these are especially good if four or five right-hand parentheses all come together at the end), but is it all really necessary?

      The artist is ruthless: the most valuable piece of equipment in any art studio is the trashcan. Never mind that you spent hours working up some elaborate procedure. Never mind that it has become your baby, that you feel lik

  18. Feminist bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I work in an engineering office.

    I would place female engineers' personality types into one of three categories:

    A. Angry feminist/SJW type. While these types of women may be very capable/competent - they tend to be extremely combative and turn anything and everything into a gender issue. More likely to cite "statistics" such as the OP's article and insist on hiring quotas.
    B. "Fell into it" type. Somewhat/less capable. Generally very likeable and easy to work with, tend to fall more on the attractive side of looks. They "fell into" the business and aren't the geeky type at all. Leave at 5PM on the dot, they do "just enough" to get the job done. Because they have a social life & indeed would make a better project manager than coder. Probably wrote the code that OP mentioned.
    C. Quiet/conservative type. Tend to be the smartest & most capable. Very easy to work with. Unfortunately I would place less than 5% of female engineers in this category.

    1. Re:Feminist bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I would place you in the category of a reactionary who seems to be biased against outspoken and/or opinionated women; I would not be surprised if you, or someone likes you, tends to find more fault with the work of those women whose social category you disapprove of.

    2. Re:Feminist bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I would place you in the category of a reactionary

      I love the term "reactionary": it identifies the speaker as a communist/socialist. Go to hell.

      who seems to be biased against outspoken and/or opinionated women

      You bet. Just like I'm biased against outspoken and/or opinionated Christians, homosexuals, atheists, vergetarians, NRA members, etc. in the workplace. Leave your personal shit at the door.

    3. Re: Feminist bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You first asshole.

    4. Re:Feminist bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      outspoken and/or opinionated women

      Oh cry me a river, cuckboi. The ends don't justify the means. This excuse is used far too often to dismiss some women's frankly abrasive and off-putting personalities as acceptable. Shut your flapping vadge and do your fucking job. Same goes for their equally useless male counterparts. I expect to work in a professional environment and this behaviour is insufferable whether it's coming from a man or woman; it makes no difference.

      If all female engineers fell into OP's group C they would rule the engineering world.

    5. Re:Feminist bias? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      B.1. Has the perfect breast size. Not too large to get in the way. Not too small not to jiggle when jostled.

    6. Re:Feminist bias? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      My personal experience is limited, but I've found that my female colleagues to be much like my male ones. When I was working with very good people, the women were as good as the men. When I was working in dysfunctional shops, the women there were still as good as the men there, but it was a much lower bar. I haven't seen one of your As in decades.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  19. Its because of the diversity efforts by ghoul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Facebook has a manadate to hire more Female Engineers. As far fewer Female Engineers graduate than other Engineers one way to get the Quantity desired is to lower the Quality. Once you are letting in lesser Quality Engineers and then vetting their checkins at the existing standards its expected that more of the checkins will be rejected.
    I just hope code review standards are not lowered in order to avoid emotional trauma.
    What's next? 50% of surgeries have to be done by female surgeons?
    The President needs to be Female 50% of the time?
    50% of combat casualties need to be female?

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
    1. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      This is incorrect. Far fewer graduate from Stanford. But lots graduate from the UW.

      Fun Fact: most NATO countries allowed women in combat over 30 years ago. They actually do make better combat fighter pilots, according to objective measures.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by vux984 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I just hope code review standards are not lowered in order to avoid emotional trauma

      On the other hand, I'm sure you'd agree that raising the standards for men until the reject rate is equal for both genders will result in even better code quality overall right? See... we can frame it either way.

      The more important issue is whether the review standards are currently being applied equally or not. They should be.

      It -might- be that the pool of women isn't as good at coding as the pool of men... especially if they have been 'stuffing' the ranks with diversity hires. In which case the best solution is additional training for the people who need it of either gender; and culling those that can't be trained.. of either gender.

      Or it might be that the people doing code reviews are being harder on code submitted by women for any number of reasons.

      Or it might be both. It doesn't have to be just one or something else... maybe there's a woman doing code reviews who feels threatened by the other women so she's extra tough on them and rejects everything they commit... who knows?

    3. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by ghoul · · Score: 2

      On the fighter pilots I read that during WW2 the Russians put a lot of women into Cockpits and Artillery regiments. The reasons were that Nazi troops were using rape as a weapon so they did not want to put women on the frontline on the ground where they could be captured and raped(pilots were not expected to survive being shot down so less chance of getting raped). Apparently many women are OK risking their lives but not risking getting raped for their country. Once they started doing that they realized women can fit into much smaller cockpits so they could design planes with smaller cockpits which increased the effectiveness of fighters. Ever since then there has been a maximum height for pilots. Men or women above that height cant become fighter pilots as they cant fit into the cockpit safely.

      But my point was that men and women are different and they both have their strengths and weaknesses and its stupid to mandate they have exactly the same outcomes in all fields. Some fields will always be dominated by women and some by men. Rather than trying to force women into fields where men have a natural advantage focus should be on raising wages in fields where women dominate. Thats where the real discrimination is - fields like nursing which are considered "Women's work" have lower wages.
      The other part is that fields dominated by men have traditionally had worse work life balance than other fields as its considered that a man has a wife at home taking care of the kids. They have also been more higher paying with the assumption that a man needs to support a non working wife. IT is a prime example with its uncompensated overtime and its on call culture. This can be fixed by increasing work life balance while reducing salaries. You will see a much better mix as men with SAHM wives will leave the field while others who have working spouses will join as they can manage a family better. This may need job pairing where there are 2 people for each position and they each work 8 hours a day (with a 2 hr overlap to sync up) thus providing 14 hours of coverage without a need for on call or uncompensated overtime.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    4. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Now factor out the failure rate of retaining lower quality programmers to maintain gender numbers ie people who would normally be let go and then you get more code check in failures. Think more bad male coders fired and no bad female coders fired to maintain gender numbers and code rejection numbers blow out big over time. Not that bad coders were retained long term, just likely that bad coders where given much much longer trial periods based upon a gender bias.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > On the other hand, I'm sure you'd agree that raising the standards for men until the reject rate is equal for both genders will result in even better code quality overall right? See... we can frame it either way.

      Wouldn't that result in even fewer submissions from women getting through? This seems like even as a framing experiment this would fail to address the original issue.

    6. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0, Troll

      It's the opposite. The average and mediocre female engineers drop out so you end up with only the cream of the crop. Male engineers are more likely to stick with it even if they suck, so on average are much less talented. They tend to boast more at interviews too so it's harder to weed out the weak ones.

      See how this works?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are promoting intervention in a free economy in order to meet your social goals. That makes inefficiency more likely, and thus reduces the financial wellbeing of society overall. That's in addition to the injustice of not paying people based on merit.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    8. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nursing is a low paying job? You must live in a shit country. The average nurse makes $33/hr here in Canada. The only other job I can think of here where I could make that is where I'm risking my life in the oil patch, in a mine. Or have 20+ years experience in IT, or am in a specialized field.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    9. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's next? 50% of surgeries have to be done by female surgeons?

      In my country (Norway), there are already more female doctors than male doctors. Not sure if the same holds for surgeons tho, or if it's mostly general practictioners.

    10. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The President needs to be Female 50% of the time?

      That one doesn't sound like a bad idea at the moment.
      OTOH hand I wouldn't mind replacing the current president with a potato.

    11. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      It's the opposite. The average and mediocre female engineers drop out

      Seriously? Why would they drop out when diversity quotas ensure that there is a high demand for them? The rest of your conclusions depend on this fallacious premise.

      so you end up with only the cream of the crop. Male engineers are more likely to stick with it even if they suck, so on average are much less talented. They tend to boast more at interviews too so it's harder to weed out the weak ones.

      See how this works?

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    12. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Designing smaller cockpits has been typical for USSR even before WW2. Same goes for Soviet tanks - hence small people were usually preferred as both pilots and tank crews.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    13. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I'm sorry Tracie but to meet our quota we need to send you out into ISIS territory to be shot to death."

      "But I'm a medic!"

      "Good point, give us your first-aid kit to ensure your death."

      "Nyoro~n... ;.;"

    14. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That was my point. It's a plausible sounding theory that isn't actually backed up by the facts, like the others being put forward here.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    15. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not if you raise it only for men. However, the result will be that any time a manager needs a quick'n'dirty hack that turns out to be unmaintainable, unfixable and contain database-destroying faults, he will go to a female developer and get it pushed through.

      Managers learn quickly how to game the systems.

    16. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      That was my point. It's a plausible sounding theory that isn't actually backed up by the facts, like the others being put forward here.

      In what world is the theory "Competent people in a high-demand demographic drop out of the workforce" plausible-sounding? They're in high demand, after all.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    17. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 1

      "But my point was that men and women are different and they both have their strengths and weaknesses"

      Quite possibly, but we don't really know what those are. Men do seem to be stronger than women, and women do seem to live for longer, but that's about it. Beyond that we are stuck in a loop, whereby we can't judge any 'natural' differences because of the societal differences already in place. We might think "men are on average better at science-y maths stuff" but there's no evidence for that assertion that doesn't just as well support the assertion "women are discouraged by society from learning about or practicing science-y maths stuff".

      25 years ago, people would have said that women, in general, are unsuited to medicine because it requires too much hard science. And yet most doctors in Russia are women, and most newly qualified doctors in the UK are women.

      Most of the qualities we care about are not observable.

      --
      ----- .sig: file not found
    18. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      Fun Fact: most NATO countries allowed women in combat over 30 years ago. They actually do make better combat fighter pilots, according to objective measures.

      Allowing $group to do $job is very different from mandating a percentage of $group do $job.

    19. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also need to be 50% trans
      Also 50% white at the same time being 50% black and 50% hispanic...
      ...50% Christian and 50% Jewish and 50%...

    20. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Make it impossible for the reviewer to know whose code is being reviewed until after it's accepted/rejected.

    21. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol that's hilarious, you base the "shit-status" of a country on nursing wages, and then you brag about how elite 60k a year is in your own country. Kettle much?

    22. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Nursing" is too broad a category. There is a huge gap between what an LPN makes and what a Nurse Practitioner or even a certified Nurse Anesthetist makes.

    23. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you are making the argument that men and women perform differently at different tasks?

    24. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Nursing is a low paying job? You must live in a shit country. The average nurse makes $33/hr here in Canada.

      And you don't consider that low paid? Canada must be in bad shape, then.

      For comparison, the median monthly income in Norway in 2016 was NOK 44200, which based on number of working days and working hours equals NOK 281.75/hr. With today's exchange rate, that's $44.75/hr Canadian.

    25. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by arth1 · · Score: 1

      And yet most doctors in Russia are women

      That is misleading because of what is considered a doctor in the two countries. Russia has a female/infant doctor type that lacks a counterpart in the US, and the closest would be a mix between midwife and nurse specializing in children, pregnancies and contraceptives. The eduction is far less than what an American OB/GYN requires. These are almost always female, and a very common type of doctor in Russia, which skews the numbers considerably.

    26. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by thebullshitpatrol · · Score: 1

      >In which case the best solution is additional training for the people who need it of either gender; and culling those that can't be trained.. of either gender.

      ah, so I understand. the answer is still giving women opportunities that men wouldn't get.

      thanks for clearing it up.

    27. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by thebullshitpatrol · · Score: 1

      find me any other world where you hire people who are grossly unqualified and figure it out later.

      there's a difference between training someone for a specific job and literally taking someone back to school.

    28. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by arth1 · · Score: 1

      So you are making the argument that men and women perform differently at different tasks?

      Everyone perform differently on different tasks. You're supposed to. That's why they're different tasks.
      If you meant the same tasks, sure there are performance differences that statistically correlate to a whole bunch of factors, of which birth gender is but one factor.

      The discrimination is when applying the perceived or real statistical correlation to determine pay or benefits, without basing it on the individual's actual performance, which can vary greatly from the statistical average. Doing so is like paying a pro basketball player less because he's two inches shorter than the average player, without first seeing whether the height really is a problem. Statistically, it is, but it's not applicable for an individual.

    29. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by arth1 · · Score: 1

      OTOH hand I wouldn't mind replacing the current president with a potato.

      Cheeto, potato, it's all too starchy.
      Where's the meat?

    30. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "On the other hand, I'm sure you'd agree that raising the standards for men until the reject rate is equal for both genders will result in even better code quality overall right? See... we can frame it either way." um... no. that's a false equivalency.

      presently, there is one standard for acceptable code. In order to have a standard strict enough to fail a higher percentage of male coders work, you would intrinsically make it harder for everyone.

      are you a female facebook programmer?

    31. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure which country they are from, but nursing is a high-paying job in the U.S. too.

    32. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1
      44200 / 281.76 = 156.87

      Norway is even better than I thought if people work less than 160 hours a year.

    33. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      Nevermind. Just say that you meant monthly income.

    34. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, I'm sure you'd agree that raising the standards for men until the reject rate is equal for both genders will result in even better code quality overall right? See... we can frame it either way.

      The obvious answer here is to anonymize the code review such that you don't know whose code you're reviewing.

      Suppose you may still be able to tell from coding style and comments, but then you're just being a twat yourself, and there's only so much we can do about that.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    35. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by vux984 · · Score: 1

      "ah, so I understand. the answer is still giving women opportunities that men wouldn't get."

      This is how they fix the problem they have now.

      I agree with you that they never should have gotten themselves into this situation in the first place.

      "find me any other world where you hire people who are grossly unqualified and figure it out later."

      Tthe rejection rate for women is 35% higher, not 35%.

      So, for example, if 50 in 1000 commits by a male is rejected, the reject rate for women is 67 in 1000. That's a 35% higher reject rate, but it hardly suggests the women are 'grossly unqualified".

      If you RTFA (I know I know...who does that) they talked about a number of issues...and one of the big ones they looked at specifically in a follow up study, was related to turnover and seniority. And that's a really insightful observation -- because if the turnover for female employees is higher, then you'd expect the reject rate to be higher, simply because there would be more 'newer' women; and fewer 'senior' women. And you would expect code submitted by new employees to be rejected more often; as they acclimatize to the coding conventions and standards and fit in better over time.

      That in itself raises questions -- why is turnover higher? why aren't women promoting as fast as males? It might pan out that since the push to bring more women in was relatively recent, its going to take time for them to filter up in seniority. But if they aren't filtering up as fast as new male recruits it could be a culture issue in the office that is holding them back or leading them to seek employment elsewhere.

    36. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by arth1 · · Score: 1

      44200 / 281.76 = 156.87

      Norway is even better than I thought if people work less than 160 hours a year.

      44200 per month * 12 = 530400 per year
      In Norway, there are 251 working days per year, so 530400 / 251 = 2113.15 per day
      In Norway, the work day is 7.5 working hours, so 2113.15 / 7.5 = 281.75

      That's assuming paid vacation, of course. If vacation is unpaid, the number becomes rather higher.

    37. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Just say that you meant monthly income.

      I believe I did. Let's look:
      "For comparison, the median monthly income in Norway in 2016 was NOK 44200"

    38. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by vux984 · · Score: 1

      "The obvious answer here is to anonymize the code review such that you don't know whose code you're reviewing."

      Interestingly it sounds like that wouldn't have solved anything. Women would still have been rejected at higher rates, but wouldn't have explained why, and concluding that its because they were incompetent would have missed the mark.

      TFA indicates that a followup study FB did suggests that its actually mostly a rank / seniority issue. The women as a group are collectively more junior than the men; and you would expect junior people to have higher rejects as they haven't assimilated and acclimatized to the corportate "style" and "coding standards" yet; the way a veteran would have.

      Unfortunately, TFA also suggests that turnover is higher in women and they aren't promoting as fast, which is effectively keeping them more "junior"; so the issue isn't likely going to solve itself as women become more established with the company.... because women aren't becoming more established at the company.

      For example, it could be a bro-culture driving them out, or not. It could be something else entirely...

    39. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the other hand, I'm sure you'd agree that raising the standards for men until the reject rate is equal for both genders will result in even better code quality overall right? See... we can frame it either way.

      The gp was not referring to lowering standards only for females, but for everyone. If you raise standards for everyone, what makes you think that females will eventually surpass males? The evidence points to the opposite.

      Anyway, at some point, code is correct, easy to read, and efficient. Standards can't be raised higher forever. This is not the pole vault.

      And, finally, looking at the quality of Facebook's product, I would say that their code review standards are already far far too low.

    40. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) Code quality is an 'objective measure' independent of gender...CODE has no 'gender' so why even attempt to frame this as something that should be applied differently to men vs women? Wow, what a sexist shit you are.

      Though given the rest of your comment it's clear you didn't even bother to read the summary. FB did a second review & found the rejection rate was related purely to 'rank'...and that makes a WHOLE lot of sense. If you're good at what you do you will rise in the ranks, if you're not you won't, and of course there's the 'newness' factor at lower ranks where you could argue this reflects the need for better training across the board.

      But rather than simply come out & say 'the lower ranks @ FB are shitty coders & we need to do a better job of hiring or training them' FB is now simply trying to argue that this may be a sign that they don't promote women enough? EXCUSE ME? Someone's code doesn't get better just because you gave them a higher position. The fact that code from lower ranks gets rejected more often isn't a reflection that it's about someone's title or rank in and of itself, it's a reflection that 'the lower in the totem you are the chances are that you are worse at something than someone above you OR at best that you're still fairly new to the company & haven't had a review to move you up the ranks due to the quality of your work'.

      When the most common sense explanation isn't even offered as the 'true explanation' of the results, e.g. that FB's hiring practices for diversity may simply be scraping up lower quality coders OR that they need to do a better job of training the lower ranks (regardless of gender) in favor or a batshit crazy feminist explanation that ignores reality than the world has truly gone crazy.

      This is especially galling coming from the side in this argument that holds themselves up as the 'believer in truth, reality, science & objectivity'...except of course when it comes to gender, race, cultural differences etc. Then 'reality' and 'truth' go out the window and it is taken as a matter of 'religious furor' that there can't possibly be any differences caused by 'externalities' other than 'racism', 'sexism' or other 'isms' because 'patriarchy'. While there is still some effect due to 'isms' the fact is that even in 'social capitalist' countries, basic competition does not allow for massive holding back of individuals based on anything other than their talent/abilities.

      In fact if all these people who think they are being discriminated against spent their time and energy on creating products & services & thus companies to compete in the market clearly they are SO talented that they'd win in the market place easily, make massive amounts of money and at the same time shame those awful sexist & racist as a side benefit. But in reality, the fact that they waste so much time trying to PROVE discrimination as the sole reason for their lack of success they are actually demonstrating that it's their talent (or lack thereof) holding them back. But of course in our 'new reality' where everyone gets a trophy, everyone is 'equal', everyone has the same ability to be a 'rock star' or superstar it can't possibly be that there are actual differences in people's abilities.

      Which brings this all around to a saying by my favorite 20th century philosopher (Dirty Harry)...'A man has just gots to know his limitations." (fill in 'gender appropriate' noun for 'man/his' as you see fit, this is the actual quote & I refuse to bastardize it for your feelings).

    41. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by vux984 · · Score: 1

      1) Code quality is an 'objective measure' independent of gender...CODE has no 'gender' so why even attempt to frame this as something that should be applied differently to men vs women?

      I didn't frame it that way. That's the way it was already framed by the post I was responding to. I just re-framed to make it a net positive for code quality instead of a net negative to make a point. Thanks for missing it. Completely.

      Though given the rest of your comment it's clear you didn't even bother to read the summary.

      Actually, if you look at my follow up posts, I am WAY ahead of you, by now I've read not only the summary, but also TFA, and some of the related reporting.

      FB did a second review & found the rejection rate was related purely to 'rank'...and that makes a WHOLE lot of sense.

      Yes. 'seniority' is important. "rank" is mostly a reflection of seniority given that you 'rise in the ranks' over time.

      If you're good at what you do you will rise in the ranks, if you're not you won't, and of course there's the 'newness' factor at lower ranks where you could argue this reflects the need for better training across the board.

      You got through the summary, but stopped reading to soon. You jumped to the conclusion that "if you are good at what you do you will rise" and that's perhaps how it should be but that's not supported by the evidence at facebook. In fact, turnover for females is higher, and they aren't rising through the ranks as fast; and there is no evidence to support its *not* because they aren't good at what they do. It sounds like relative to males at the same 'rank' / 'seniority' the women are pretty much on par in terms of code quality... So that suggests there may be some other issue that is leading to them being left behind in terms of advancement and quitting in higher numbers.

      What is that issue? It could be lots of things, and is anything but a solved question.

      This is especially galling coming from the side in this argument that holds themselves up as the 'believer in truth, reality, science & objectivity'.

      Now the rest your bloviating just sounds ridiculous.

    42. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by vux984 · · Score: 1

      The gp was not referring to lowering standards only for females, but for everyone.

      How sure are you about that? Because they talked aobut lowering the standards to avoid feelings getting hurt... but lowering the standards for everyone wouldn't help, the mens rejection rate would fall and the women would never equalize.

      The only reasonable interpretation to equalize them would be to lower the standards just for women, in the same way it has happened in occupations like firefighting where lower standards for women do exist in some places and are highly controversial.

      If you raise standards for everyone, what makes you think that females will eventually surpass males?

      I don't think that. I never said I thought that. Your making stuff up now.

      Anyway, at some point, code is correct, easy to read, and efficient. Standards can't be raised higher forever. This is not the pole vault.

      Sure but proving code is correct is impossible in the general case, "easy to read" is a fairly subjective assessment, and "efficient" is sometimes at odds with "easy to read" and choosing the exact right balance is subjective and arbitrary.

      So the standards, no matter what they are, leave lots of room for subjectivity.

      "And, finally, looking at the quality of Facebook's product, I would say that their code review standards are already far far too low."

      True, but I'm for more concerned about their ethics than their code quality.

    43. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by vux984 · · Score: 1

      um... no. that's a false equivalency.

      um... no. you failed at reading comprehension.

      The GGP said "I hope they don't lower the coding standards for women, lowering overall coding quality, just so their feelings aren't hurt by the unequal rejection rate".

      Apparently he fell this is bad because: net lower quality code.

      The GP (me) said "They could raise the standards for just men, increasing the coding quality, and equalizing the gender rejection rate that way."

      The gender rejection inequality is solved, and code quality over all is better too.

      Don't misunderstand me though I don't support that idea, I was just making the point that we can re-frame the solution where we have different standards for genders AND result in a net positive to code quality. Its still obviously an idiotic idea though.

    44. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      The GGP said "I hope they don't lower the coding standards for women, lowering overall coding quality, just so their feelings aren't hurt by the unequal rejection rate".

      Except that they really didn't say that:

      "As far fewer Female Engineers graduate than other Engineers one way to get the Quantity desired is to lower the Quality. Once you are letting in lesser Quality Engineers and then vetting their checkins at the existing standards its expected that more of the checkins will be rejected. I just hope code review standards are not lowered in order to avoid emotional trauma."

      That they're saying that there will be lower quality overall because the average ability of the employees has gone down. Thus a possible interpretation of the 'lower code review standards comment' is that doing it for everyone would help make this issue less prominent - if women still get rejected more, but it only happens once a year rather than once a month, that's far fewer hurt feelings and accusations of sexism.

      The GP (me) said "They could raise the standards for just men, increasing the coding quality, and equalizing the gender rejection rate that way."

      Right - which makes little sense in response to a post suggesting that standards would change in general, and that code reviews would be gentler in general - you tried to 'flip' a sex-neutral statement into one with the sexes reversed. Since you were replying to things that the GPP didn't say it's your own fault when people don't understand what you wanted/inferred/misread the GPP as saying.

      The gender rejection inequality is solved, and code quality over all is better too.

      No - having different standards based on sex only trades in an unequal rejection rate (apparent sexism) for unequal standards (explicit, officially-sanctioned sexism [in written company guidelines?]). There's still inequality, and now it's clearly due to deliberate actions and not something outside the company's control.

    45. Re:Its because of the diversity efforts by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      And you don't consider that low paid? Canada must be in bad shape, then.

      No. At $33/hr you're going to be doing incredibly well for yourself. The poverty level in Canada is around $30k/year. Min wage varies between $7-14/hr. Most people outside of the big cities(Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary) and so on make under $40k/year. In my backyard the average wage is $42k/year. The average Canadian wage is $52k/year.

      You know what the difference between Canada and Norway is? Taxes and cheap energy. Something that the left wing is trying very hard to destroy with regulation and new taxes. The average wage monthly for a nurse is $5280CAD before taxes. That's $63k/year which is what? 20% more then the national average.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  20. Re:FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by losfromla · · Score: 1

    Actually, if statistically women average less at lifting (they do), it exactly means that the average woman lifts less than the average man. That is a true fact (there only used to be true facts before the big fat oompa loompa took the office).

    It's a good thing you posted as AC.

    --
    Only I can judge you.
  21. Bias, eh? by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can you even accept the possibility that gender bias could even partially be responsible for what is being observed?

    I have zero problem accepting that possibility.

    However, I find it absurd that some people have trouble accepting the possibility that inasmuch as women do approach things differently than males do in the general case, that this might very well affect the solutions they come up with, again, in the general case.

    The first sign that political correctness has gone too far is when you see adherents ignoring facts right in front of their nose.

    For all I know, the women's solutions are better because of this, and the stats brought to light here are because men can't see that - because the thinking isn't the same.

    But to assume that the sexes produce identical results when presented with identical problems... that actually seems more suspect to me than any claim of inherent equality.

    Best tech support person ever worked for me - over thirty years - was female. By far. Because she, naturally I believe, brought compassion to the phone and she knew what she was doing right down to the last nut and bolt.

    Equality of opportunity is a wonderful idea, and I'm all for it. And for reaping the results of the best outcome.

    But presuming equality of capability because tits vs. danglies... that's just stupid. No one should do that. And you know what that is? It's bias.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Bias, eh? by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      The first sign that political correctness has gone too far is when you see adherents ignoring facts right in front of their nose.

      You realize the term political correctness is from a 1957 speech by Mao

      The phrase came into more widespread use in American leftist circles in the 1960s and 1970s – most likely as an ironic borrowing from Mao, who delivered a famous speech in 1957 that was translated into English with the title “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”.

      Aka how to handle reality contradicting communism. So that first sign was there from the first use. It has always been about getting people to deny the evidence before them.

    2. Re:Bias, eh? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For all I know, the women's solutions are better because of this, and the stats brought to light here are because men can't see that - because the thinking isn't the same.

      Real life example of this happening: Female police officers.

      For many years the most important criteria for evaluating a police officer was "number of arrests". Women just didn't measure up, and performed poorly.

      Then "community policing" was adopted, and people realized that "making arrests" was actually a dumb way to measure police performance. Far more important was preventing the crimes from happening in the first place, and defusing potentially violent situations rather than escalating them. By these measures, women are, on average, better police officers than men.

    3. Re: Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People have known for a long time that pure numbers is a shit way to measure performance. But the police also know that when they want a budget increase, the general population is more willing to grant one when they have hard numbers to show.

    4. Re:Bias, eh? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      the possibility that inasmuch as women do approach things differently than males do

      It would be interesting to study the patterns of the differences. There could indeed be a "style mismatch" between the way females tend to code versus males. Everyone has their personal preferences and as a reviewer, if a specimen doesn't match close enough to their preferences, they are more likely to reject it.

      Anyhow, the devil's in the details, and we don't have those. Factors to be checked include things like duration at the company, education level, age, total coding experience, familiarity between the inspector and inspectee (including does inspector know the gender), reason(s) for the rejection, etc.

    5. Re:Bias, eh? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For many years the most important criteria for evaluating a police officer was "number of arrests"

      [citation needed]

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    6. Re:Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For many years the most important criteria for evaluating a police officer was "number of arrests"

      [citation needed]

      Not really.

    7. Re:Bias, eh? by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      [citation needed]

      This is pretty well known for anyone who's been in training, or knows someone who was a cop prior to say 1980. Used to be performance was weighted based on the number of arrests/investigations/etc. Community Oriented Policing(COP) changed all that in say 1982-84ish when a lot of police forces went to police services. Policing in the US is still holds a military structure, and works in a pyramid type fashion, the guy at the top is the most important and the way a police force works and solves problems is dictated through the chain of command. Nearly all policing in the west(inc. Japan) however now works on an inverse pyramid. Meaning the guy at the bottom has wide leeway to determine the right way to deal with a problem and "how" that problem should be solved. COP changed the way policing was done from that metric to "how" a problem was solved based on what the individual did to solve it. There are still some parts of policing that are weighted on tickets/arrests/etc. Traffic police in many places performance is weighted on tickets for example, but even that's falling to the wayside.

      The US in and of itself is still probably ~10-15 years out from the shift to a full-on COP style of policing. It's a better system by far and is much more like the early days(1880-1950) of policing where you have people who work the same areas day-in and day out, know the people, live in the same area, hiring is based on people who live there, etc. The 1950-1980ish era pushed the "roving police" idea, where the idea of driving around and never talking with people was a great(really terrible) idea.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    8. Re:Bias, eh? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      No, it is complete nonsense because if you read Kano or anything you'd know that for any trait the average difference between individuals is larger than the average difference between demographic subgroups. This is true for all primates on all traits. Even something like human breast size, the average difference between individuals is larger than the average difference between subgroups. So if I know there are two humans, one male and one female, randomly selected, the dominant signal for predicting the breast size is individual variation and so even if one of the genders is more likely to be larger, that doesn't matter; with only two individuals, individual variation is the dominant signal and it might very well be a male slashdot reader and a female instagram addict and his are bigger by 5x.

      Any sort of substantive analysis that relies on predicting capabilities by demographic subgroup is ignorant and destined to under-perform. And it has nothing to do with anything or anybody being identical to everybody else. It has to do with people being more variable, not less.

    9. Re: Bias, eh? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      In my experience when the police want a budget increase they have to go to the voters for a funding bond, and the success or failure with the voters has basically nothing at all to do with arrest rates or police performance and everything to do with public trust of the institution's ability to manage the money.

    10. Re:Bias, eh? by SlashDread · · Score: 1

      "But presuming equality of capability because tits vs. danglies... that's just stupid. "

      presuming un-equality of capability because tits vs danglies is equally stupid.

      Why do people think, that men and woman must perform different in -every task-? There is no science to back that up. If anything, statistically it seems likely that men will take slightly more risks in general. Its probable that is due to higher testosterone.

    11. Re:Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Measuring police officers by number of arrests is like measuring fire fighters by number of fires and doctors by number of deaths.

    12. Re:Bias, eh? by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      For many years the most important criteria for evaluating a police officer was "number of arrests". Women just didn't measure up, and performed poorly.

      Perhaps the women realized that the "number of arrests" a police officer makes isn't necessarily directly correlated with reducing crime? If I think I need to increase my "number of arrests" that means I'm going to be looking for an opportunity to arrest someone not for an opportunity to reduce crime.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    13. Re: Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mao did nothing wrong.

    14. Re: Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are fucking insane.

      We can predict relative crime rates using only a map of racial composition of a city.

      This isn't some racist delusional fantasy... It's been done for 70+ years to make billions of dollars in the housing industry.

      You are completely and demonstrably WRONG.

    15. Re: Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agree, in fact when it comes to numbers from police one of my favorite is speeding tickets. In my view, writing a lot of speeding tickets means your methods are failing. Successful methods would mean you try to write speeding tickets, but can't find anyone speeding.

      The problem with this of course being that it's hard to tell if not writing a lot of speeding tickets is because you're trying to but can't find anybody doing it, or if you're just lazy. But one thing is for certain, as I said, lots of tickets being written means methods for keeping people from speeding are failing.

    16. Re:Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You realize the term political correctness is from a 1957 speech by Mao

      Ah yes, the old "so and so said it, so it must be that every human that utters it henceforth shares so and so's values and political beliefs" argument. That never gets old. Can you please do it some more?

    17. Re:Bias, eh? by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

      While I see many advantages with beat cops, the roving cop also has one big one. A beat cop can more easily be put on the take, and ignore or even help the local gang in its exploits. The roving cop will not be there tomorrow so paying him off just means the guy tomorrow may not be corruptible so you may get caught. I'd expect a mixture to be optimal, but that would cost more.

    18. Re:Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Throwing out a [citation needed] for anything casually discovered by a straightforward google search is Trolling. -1

    19. Re:Bias, eh? by JASegler · · Score: 1

      I know personally in my 23 years of development everywhere I have worked women have been a rather small percentage of the developer workforce.
      But I have not noticed any significant difference in the distribution of quality. I have met really good devs and really bad devs regardless of gender.

      I would want to look at the complexity of the code in question before judging why there were more comments/changes.

      More complex code will generate more comments. There will be more ideas on how to solve the problem. There will be more requests for documenting the tricky portions of the algorithm, etc.

      Since the code is the secret sauce we will never get to see the CRs and comments involved to judge for ourselves why the difference was there.

    20. Re:Bias, eh? by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

      Far more important was preventing the crimes from happening in the first place, and defusing potentially violent situations rather than escalating them. By these measures, women are, on average, better police officers than men.

      I'll concede that this is anecdotal and not data but I've experienced that female officers are worse at deescalation than male officers because they don't have the physicality necessary to step in and break up disputes.

      When two guys get into a heated argument, a male officer can step between them and tell them to cool it. A female officer has to draw a weapon to do that.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    21. Re:Bias, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So uhh... where the citation of your peer reviewed and published research that corroborates your claim? Didn't see it yet, and I know you aren't stupid enough to spout dogshit on internet forums to try and prove your point. You're smarter, better, and more capable than that.

    22. Re:Bias, eh? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Except that really doesn't stop gangs from doing that now. The problem is you want police and communities to work together to solve a problem, if the community doesn't trust the police? That gets you no where. And the people on the street are the first ones to hear if something is happening, see if someone unscrupulous is doing something. That trust factor is key to stopping crimes from happening to more people. Compare countries that use the kiosk system like Japan, to countries that don't. What do you have? Higher clearance rates, higher rates of stopping assaults of all types, lower B&E rates, lower "open" drug dealing in the streets.

      The only way to stop corruption like that is the same way we've done it for 100 years. Vigilance in making sure they're not corrupt. Which is why SIU organizations exist. If you don't think an internal one works well, you can do what we have here in Canada where it's an external one. And the people are a mixture of ex-police constables and members who worked in public life in a variety of jobs and other branches of the law(lawyers/judges/etc).

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    23. Re:Bias, eh? by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Why do people think, that men and woman must perform different in -every task-?

      Because they generally do, that's why. They have far superior ability to look at more than one issue at once as compared to men on average (makes them great fighter pilots, for instance, really good in furballs), makes them really good at keeping track of kids while doing other things, makes them really good at lots of things, actually.

      Because they are physically radically different in their frame and strength. For instance, this makes it tougher on them in furballs because of g forces.

      Because they have different emotional courses and hormone baths, and in addition, a monthly emotional roller-coaster that men don't.

      Because the pressures on them in an intersex environment are (very) different.

      And so on.

      Denying reality is the siren song of the racist and the equality uber alles folk, the misogynist and the feminist. All would be far better off if they'd stop it. The sexes are radically different.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  22. Re:Yes, and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Failing peer review more often not evidence enough eh?

  23. So just like male coders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    with "Angry feminist/SJW" replaced by "frat bros".

  24. External blind reviews by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get a partner company to agree to do blind reviews. A group of your programmers (50/50 men and women) regularly reviews a selection of their submissions (without access to the entire code base) and a their team does the same with their code. This mostly eliminates the problem of internal blind reviews inferring who the developer is based on what they submitted. You then use that to benchmark your internal evaluations and determine if anyone is judging people by different standards. Given the amount of code Facebook and others are submitting to open-source this is doable... just start new developers on the open-sourced projects and have their code reviewed before its committed and tied to the author.

    Static analysis is also useful here. Definitely not a panacea but if someone's acceptance record isn't inline with their static analysis scores (either good or bad) it bears further investigation.

    1. Re:External blind reviews by guruevi · · Score: 1

      That's probably already the case. Most environments, at best, you see a username at the beginning of a change request but unless I have to hunt down the "blame" for a line of code across several different repo technologies (things that went from CVS to Mercurial to Git), it never matters WHO wrote the code.

      And whether jsmith is John or Jane is the least of my worries and doesn't even come into play in large organizations.

      Gender has nothing to do with this, this is just fitting a story to fit the data. Rejections have to do with quality of code and in most companies, quality is directly related to your chances at promotions. If you don't write quality code, you don't get promoted to senior levels, being promoted to a senior programmer doesn't make you a better programmer.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  25. Fundamentally incompatible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hostile environment my ass. Having men and women work together is like having bears work with salmon. See below.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQHcgyl0Y0w

  26. Male programmers to sue Facebook by ghoul · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This study could be used as proof that Facebook is discriminating against male programmers by hiring female programmers with worse coding skills just to meet some "diversity" goals.

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
    1. Re:Male programmers to sue Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This study could be used as proof that Facebook is discriminating against male programmers by hiring female programmers with worse coding skills just to meet some "diversity" goals.

      If this were true, it would also be illegal to pay the females less for worse performance. This is where diversity for diversities sake becomes stupidity for stupidities sake. In a meritocracy, companies should hire the most proficient candidates, regardless of gender or race. Moreover, publicly traded companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to hire based on merit. How long until we see the first shareholder lawsuit citing diversity hiring policies?

    2. Re:Male programmers to sue Facebook by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 2

      Holy fuck, this, so many times over.

      --
      I tend to rant.
  27. Protip, Tits McGee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They "mansplain" (what a fucktarded phrase) to men, too.

  28. First thought: "33%? Seriously?" by anvilmark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have worked in IT for many years and have known some truly stellar female programmers - but I've never worked anywhere with 33% women.
    Based purely on industry statistics they had to bypass more experienced males in order to hire that ratio of females. There are just so many more males in the industry than females.

  29. Re:FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by lgw · · Score: 1

    Well, that's ambiguous English for you. "Average man" in informal speech usually means the mode, not the mean. It is possible with lopsided distributions. Of course, for the actual case at hand, mean median and mode are all higher for men.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  30. Engineer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dek5HtNdIHY

  31. Re:Yes, and by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    . . . the claim was "Maybe it's just not as good." Needs proof as you and parent said.

    A sentence that begins with "maybe" is not a "claim".

  32. That's nott how code review should work by slimjim8094 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Code review isn't supposed to be about rejecting code, it's supposed to be about improving code and providing another set of eyes with a different perspective. In several years doing code reviews for men and women, and having my code reviewed by men and women (for >1000 overall), I can count on maybe two hands the number of changes that I'd count as rejected - either because the change was unneeded and I was misunderstanding, or because it was needed but I wasn't the person to do it because I wasn't experienced enough with the code I was changing. Many changes go through substantial rework, though as you gain experience you can write better code that needs fewer fixes - so if on average females are more junior (which is true across a wide range of industries and largely responsible for the gender pay gap) then they will on average face greater rework - though on an individual basis they will face less and less as they become more experienced just like everyone else.

    But thinking of - or practicing - code review as adversarial or something where changes can be "rejected" (other than for mundane reasons like trying to change another team's code in ways that don't fit their model of how their code works) is an antipattern. The most senior people, people who literally have invented entire disciplines, still have their code reviewed and change it in response to feedback. My tech lead likes to say that "confusion is a signal" - if your code is so brilliant or clever that it leaves a brand new engineer going "wha?" then it means you have to fix it, regardless of how senior you are, since the code should be understandable by the average employee. And when I review code I don't expect to pass down edicts, and probably 10-15% of my comments receive pushback from the author. It has to be a real problem for me to actually refuse to accept a change - maybe that's happened twice for reasons of code quality and not the mundane stuff I mentioned earlier like "I planned to rewrite how that test worked anyway, let's hold off on this hacky fix since I'll fix it properly". I prefer to chat informally with the author (and, and as an author, vice-versa) to come to something mutually agreeable, which lets me understand their concerns and vice-versa - and we both learn something.

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    1. Re:That's nott how code review should work by lgw · · Score: 1

      They're probably calling the normal process of commenting on a CR without giving a ship-it "rejection". As in: women upload more diffs than men before getting a ship-it, which may have little to do with code quality (perceived or real) in any way.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    2. Re:That's nott how code review should work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think by "rejecting" they mean what Facebook's own code review tool calls "Request Changes", where the review comments are raising an issue that needs to be fixed before the code can be accepted into production. Their review system doesn't even have a "Reject" option, you can request changes, then it is up to the original author if they want to "Abandon Revision" rather than updating it to address the comments.

    3. Re:That's nott how code review should work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not disagreeing with you. But I know a female programmer who quit on the spot over a code review. She felt bullied. I personally did not see her code so I couldn't comment.

    4. Re:That's nott how code review should work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't supposed to be about rejecting code? Get in your time machine and tell that to Steve Jobs.

  33. Alternative hypothesis... by LetterRip · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or facebook doesn't get enough qualified women applying and thus hires less qualified women for programming jobs because they don't like the gender imbalance.

    This results in the average quality of female engineers being lower - resulting in both women not rising in the ranks and in lower quality patches.

  34. Now We Have Evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like these stats nerds have proven what we always assumed.. women are not as good at coding as men. That's what I conclude from this. And that's the only rational way of looking at the data. Anything else is a bloody conspiracy nut theory.

  35. Re: Yes, and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No, the claim is gender bias, the comment you responded to merely suggests a possibility that the article didn't bother to consider.

  36. Re:FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by losfromla · · Score: 1

    I was going with a proper definition, being that this site is aimed at non-idiots I figured that proper use of technical terms would be assumed.

    See here for definition:
    http://www.purplemath.com/modu...

    This:
    Mean, median, and mode are three kinds of "averages". There are many "averages" in statistics, but these are, I think, the three most common, and are certainly the three you are most likely to encounter in your pre-statistics courses, if the topic comes up at all.

    The "mean" is the "average" you're used to, where you add up all the numbers and then divide by the number of numbers. The "median" is the "middle" value in the list of numbers. To find the median, your numbers have to be listed in numerical order from smallest to largest, so you may have to rewrite your list before you can find the median. The "mode" is the value that occurs most often. If no number in the list is repeated, then there is no mode for the list.

    --
    Only I can judge you.
  37. Pair Programming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article and study make no sense. Facebook is 100% eXtreme Programming. They even have the Legendary Kent Beck working there as a programming coach. XP mandates 100% Pair Programming. In Pair Programming, there is no internal peer review system. The Pair work together, constantly reviewing each other's code. When the task is done, the Pair checks in their code. No need to wait on peer review.

    Was code rejected higher for only girl/girl pairs compared to boy/boy pairs? What about girl/boy pairs?

    1. Re:Pair Programming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who knows. It comes as a surprise to me that they actually have reviews.

  38. Rejected? Define it, please. by swillden · · Score: 2

    What kind of code review system rejects code?

    The purpose of a peer-review system for code isn't to exclude bad code, it's to fix it so that it's good code before it goes in. Maybe when they say "rejects" they mean "receives comments requesting adjustments"? If that's what they're measuring, then I'm still confused. In my experience, assuming you're doing reasonably-thorough reviews, almost every non-trivial change gets some comments, and has to be updated a bit before it can be merged.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    1. Re:Rejected? Define it, please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My first that was that "rejected" implies that it was an unsolicited feature patch, and the maintainer said "no thanks."

      If it's just "the patch made it through without any changes," then it could be as simple as something like: the men don't like the ego-hit of "dings" on their formal reviews, so they get informal feedback before submitting their code for formal review, while the women don't like the ego hit of "asking men for help," so they don't shop their changes around before the formal review. End result: PHB gets meaningless metrics, and the code still ships.

    2. Re:Rejected? Define it, please. by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. 90% of the changes I review gets some comments on them. I actually use that as a metric - if I can't find anything wrong with the code to comment on, I probably haven't looked at it thoroughly enough and should go through it again.

    3. Re:Rejected? Define it, please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Occasionally code needs to be rejected because it simply doesn't do what it is supposed to do.

      I know, I know, it's hard to believe such miscommunications happen, but they do (even if it is relatively infrequent.)

    4. Re:Rejected? Define it, please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, when a man submits some code and the reviewer says, "this is stupid because it breaks function x - learn how to code and resubmit," the man feels dumb for not testing his code first. A woman submitting the same code and receiving the same comment will feel attacked because she's female and file a complaint with HR about a hostile work environment.

    5. Re:Rejected? Define it, please. by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately already commented in here; otherwise I'd mod you up.

      Any halfway-complex piece of code will almost never be perfect the first time you write it. With programming assignments back in college occasionally I'd run a rough draft of it just to see how it failed and basically fall out of my chair in surprise when it worked the first time.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
  39. Re:FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by lgw · · Score: 1

    I was going with a proper definition, being that this site is aimed at non-idiots I figured that proper use of technical terms would be assumed.

    You must have mis-typed that URL. Sounds like you were going someplace interesting.

    But specifically the term "average man" is confusing, as it's an idiom meaning "most representative" in normal speech.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  40. anonymized reviews by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like they need to anonymize their code reviews so that the contributor gets notified, but the reviewers don't know who's code it is.

  41. In the words of Richard Feynman by MrKaos · · Score: 1

    I know it's not quite coding however it is interesting to apply.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:In the words of Richard Feynman by gweihir · · Score: 1

      It is fully applicable, as this is about a (intended to be scientific) study on coding quality and the assumption was that female coders at Facebook are of the same quality as male ones. It looks very much like they are not. Of course, this may well be due to a selection bias when hiring and not true for coders in general.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:In the words of Richard Feynman by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Thanks for saying so. I'm half expecting to get trolled for pointing out that we still need to think.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    3. Re:In the words of Richard Feynman by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Never by me. Unfortunately, there is a growing faction in the western world that beliefs thinking is optional or even undesirable.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:In the words of Richard Feynman by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      I see what you mean, it seems like people are unconscious. If you're rational, your treated like a freak by people who are shallow, empty and vapid. Like thinking is the very *last* thing that they would want to do.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  42. Re:FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by losfromla · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that was a simplistic site but these are simplistic terms.

    Again, at a nerd-focused site, I took it for granted that "average man" implied the proper definition of "average" as used in statistics. Normal speech here is anything but normal, it is/can/should be more technical. Even for the trivial stuff.

    --
    Only I can judge you.
  43. This "everything is sexist" attitude is tiresome. by Onuma · · Score: 1

    This seemed to suggest that a female engineer's work was more heavily scrutinized...

    ... suggested that the code rejections were due to engineering rank, not gender...

    ... speculate that Parikh's findings mean female engineers might not be rising in the ranks as fast...

    ... or perhaps that female engineers are leaving the company more often before being promoted.

    This author seems to be a moron. I suggest that Facebook hires an independent investigator, if this is truly a thorn in their side worth removing. (It's probably not). I wish "news" outlets such as The Verge would not be so quick to speculate...perhaps they're just pushing their biased point of view with no consideration for anything else?

    The odds are that Facebook's men are working longer hours and taking less time off than their female coworkers. Even in the same position with the same experience and credentials, the person who spent more time on a task is more likely to put out code which will pass review on the first try.

    These are the same, completely explainable and rational reasons we have the gender earnings gap. (Note: I did not say "wage gap")

    --
    What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
  44. how is it that it's not in the realm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    of possibility that the females in question weren't up to snuff?

    the list of possibilities SHOULD INCLUDE THAT... right?

  45. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1, Troll

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  46. Re:This "everything is sexist" attitude is tiresom by Shados · · Score: 2

    The problem is compound by how free speech is quite dead. Say what you just said openly in a workplace of a semi-famous company. You will get fired faster than you can finish your sentence.

    And yeah, it's basically impossible to control for all factors here. It could be a genuine gender difference (after all, people keep trying to drill in our head that things need to be done differently to attract female engineers, so they have to be different somehow), and it's not even necessarily negative either. It could be that men are more likely to just bypass the peer review process altogether. Or that women are more receptive to feedback. It could be that the schooling level is not the same at hire (after all, one of the big tenets of diversity hiring is to hire through different channels, including bootcamps, more, which would lead to different ratios). And it COULD be sexism. But it's simply too hard to figure out like this.

    However, I could just post a "My guts feeling tells me females are getting screwed at company XYZ" and it would be headline news worthy and taken as truth.

    I was recently reading an article that said "Women feel they are being passed up for promotion more often than men". While I'm pretty sure it IS true that they get screwed on promotions, what kind of stupid metric is that? EVERYONE feel they get screwed on promotions, ESPECIALLY people who don't deserve promotions. Wash, rince, repeat with every possible topic.

  47. Simple answer by Archfeld · · Score: 2

    Stop including name, rank, and sex as part of the code or review process. Just review the end product based on efficiency. I worked at a large institution and they hired a far greater % of the female applicants than the males, but still ended up with an environment dominated by younger males. You cant hire those that don't apply.

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:Simple answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You need a very large organization for that though. In most smaller groups you can easily recognize the author by coding style (even if a formal style is used, there are still variation), especially in comments.

  48. See? Women do right better code than men. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This reflects very well on women who code. I'd actually be quite afraid to look at Facebook's garbage codebase.

  49. look at the evidence by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    All the evidence indicates that its actually down to the relative quality of their work, yet here we are somehow still "speculating" that it actually _must_ be gender bias.

  50. Re:FAKE NEWS. female engineers are rejects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not the GP AC, but I think you've misunderstood what he was saying:

    I parsed GP's sentence as: "just because women average less [pay] doesn't mean an average woman [does less work] than the average man."

  51. Exceptions don't make the rule by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Women do not graduate with STEM degrees at the same rate as men. That you can find a single exception while ignoring the national statistics shows your own bias. Conversely, 61% of all medical doctors graduating are female. I could, like you did, point to a single school which graduates more men than women. That would not make the national numbers wrong, it would make me a fool for believing an exception makes it normal.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Exceptions don't make the rule by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually they dominate Biology, if I understand that correctly. Other fields not so much. Biology *IS* STEM right?

  52. Any discrepancy is proof of bias! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook, Google, et al. are 1000% committed to the proposition that people of all sexes, ages, races, and religions have equal abilities and any difference in outcomes is proof of bias. They enthusiastically support laws enforcing diversity in the workplace, laws that are incompatible with running a successful, or even a minimally functional, Silicon Valley software company.

    Did Google ever hand over a list of employees for the Department of Labor to fish for discrimination lawsuits, or are they still being massive hypocrites about it?

    Note to Google: If you hire me, I'll gladly identify as a black female lesbian Hispanic Muslim. I'm trans-sexual, trans-racial, and trans-whatever else you need to make a quota!

  53. Reverse would not be news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somehow this is meant to be important and problematic, but the reverse would likely not be noteworthy. I assume other employers also don't have perfect statistical equality between [various groups of people], and perhaps the other way around, but it would not be shocking enough to be clickbait.

    CAPTCHA: shocked

    1. Re:Reverse would not be news by green1 · · Score: 1

      The reverse most definitely would be news, but would have a very different spin. "Female programmers write better code!" Would be the headline, they'd never attribute it to bias. In fact, the article would likely imply that it was despite bias instead of because of it.

      Facebook discriminates in their hiring practices, and this is the result. We've had it drilled in to us for years that discrimination harms your company, and yet given the choice, all big companies rush to discriminate in their hiring practices to try to meet arbitrary quotas for various groups. The result is no surprise.

      If you want the best employees, stop discriminating. And no, you can't do that by discriminating further. And yes, discriminating against straight white males is still discriminating.

  54. ratemycode.com by Balial · · Score: 1

    As expected, a lot of people here being all "maybe it's something else". I'd love to see an anonymized dataset online for folks to rate publicly, and see how the results fall out.

  55. Everything is sexist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  56. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Asians are dramatically under-represented in football. Also old men are more likely to be rejected as topless dancers than young women in gentleman’s clubs.

    When will we eliminate bias from the workforce.

    1. Re:In other news by green1 · · Score: 1

      If you hire based on race, religion, gender, age, or any other variables unrelated to the quality of the work the applicant can do, you guarantee that you do not get the best employees. This is not a surprise.
      Just because you're discriminating in socially acceptable ways doesn't stop it from being discrimination, and the quality of your employees will reflect that.

    2. Re:In other news by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Discrimination in non-skill-oriented ways when hiring is always bad. In the worst case it will lead to the minorities that get preferred being even lower in competence, because they know early on that they do not need to work as hard. Hence this type of discrimination may well be counterproductive. A case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions (and lack of insight).

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  57. Bingo by Archfeld · · Score: 2

    Women are generally less confrontation and can defuse a situation with out it seeming to become a pissing contest. I can attest to this from personal experience. In a few situations some good 'ol boys just won't accept any authority from a women but that is rare. For many years the best criteria for becoming a police officer was to be big and intimidating, now education and common sense are high on that list. My only objection to hiring women as cops and fire people rests on the fact of being physically able to perform the life saving duties, can you carry the 110 lb. dummy from the burning car or can you physically open the fire hydrant, everything else is a matter of temperament and training.

    Note I was in a previous life, long ago a Sheriff's deputy, and I was partnered with both men and women. Only in the county jail did I see women perform poorer and that wasn't because of what they did, but because of the mental retards that populate our county jails.

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:Bingo by colinwb · · Score: 1

      In 1995 there was a so-so BBC TV series "Backup" > about a British police support unit. It was unusual because one of the leading actors was a British-Chinese woman Colette Koo playing someone studying for a sargeant's exam.

      In one episode she was commanding the backup unit waiting in a van outside a bar observing a confrontation between two opposing groups of people which looked like getting very nasty. The men (or some of them) under her command were all for going in to deal with this, but she decided to wait, and - from memory - some women in the two opposing groups then defused the situation, justifying her decision.

      Although, as I said, the series wasn't exceptional, on a few occasions, as here, it took quite bold storyline decisions, avoiding the cliched route.

    2. Re:Bingo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is fiction and not even an anecdote.

  58. The Verge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What I've come to realise over the last couple of years is that The Verge is a batshit-insane left-leaning outlet. I'm not sure if it's me or them, but I noticed they went right over the edge after Trump won.

    The leftist-SJW agenda they're pushing here is transparently obvious.

  59. Re:First thought: "33%? Seriously?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apparently most commenters and moderators never read past that to the "17% in technical positions". As in any organisation, the female contribution to the workforce is padded out with receptionists, HR, marketing and office admin staff to make it look less unbalanced than it really is.

  60. Pure numbers are the... um... ONLY way to measure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The key is to put numbers towards answering the correct question; humans are very bad at guessing the correct question—as pointed out, "How many arrests has this officer made?" is a bad question.

  61. society is overthinking the gender gap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's next, they are going to complain they can't pee standing up quite as well?

  62. Women treat women worse than men treat women by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 2

    Every time you hear a story like this about men mistreating or under-valuing women in the workplace, ask the same women how the *women* they work with treat them, compared to the men. You may be surprised to learn that women often mistreat women coworkers even worse than men do, in a great many circumstances. This doesn't justify men mistreating women, but it does mean that men mistreating women is far from the whole picture.

    1. Re:Women treat women worse than men treat women by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's like Mitch Hedberg's gag: "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to too." Pointing out that men treat women poorly in the workplace doesn't give us any real information. Are men treating women more poorly than they treat other women? Are people just treating everyone poorly regardless of gender? Are women treating men poorly? Who knows?

      Just remember that people tend to give you as much information as they have to bolster their side of the argument. When an argument is couched in such vague terms you can be guaranteed there's no data to support it. If there were, they'd have been much more precise in their delivery of the information.

  63. Oh no! Females write more bad code then males! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Go study programming!" they said. "A girl can do anything!" they said. Sure, I can. Just not as good as the boys. But I am more pretty.

  64. PMD can't tell if you solve the problem. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PMD and other static code analysis tools can't tell if you actually solved the problem that was assigned to you or if you solution is optimal (though they can catch some none optimal patterns)... they just determine if you followed a set of syntax rules that have been agreed upon. For instance, if your task is to write a function that returns the square root of a number and you actually return the square, PMD will have no problem with that as long as you followed all the set rules.
     
    That doesn't mean SCA tools don't have a place in the code review process, they just really belong as a check on submission. Serious errors prevent check-in, opinionated ones can block or just be warnings depending on how the company/team decides how to handle things.

  65. May be a result from affirmative action by gweihir · · Score: 1

    If Facebook applies lower standards when hiring female engineers in order to get more of them, then this would entirely explain things. It would simply mean that code by female engineers gets rejected more often on average, because at Facebook code from female engineers would on average be lower in quality. This would mean nothing for the quality of female engineers in general, only that they are rarer, which everybody already knew.

    Note: Affirmative action of this type is not a good thing.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  66. What has this to do with gender equality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nowhere does the article mention whether they actually bothered to evaluate random samples in a double-blind by independent engineers for quality. Gender equality does not mean equal results but equal opportunity. Code review is the last thing where you want quotas.

    Of course, this is a non-linear process anyway. There are effects like "I can understand what this code does so I feel qualified to criticize it" which can turn out counterproductive. And hierarchy plays a role as well. In my experience, men are a lot worse at accepting the output of women of roughly equal capacity as being of roughly equal quality to their own: to get at that point, the male needs to be outclassed. In order not to resent it, utterly outclassed. Otherwise primal instincts kick in. Civilized people get their instincts under control without making company aware of it (I mean, we all manage to eat after passing the cash register).

    At any rate: I have a problem with seeing a problem in different acceptance rates for code review unless we have a means to establish that there is a relevant bias independent of the code and only applicable to knowledge of the author's gender.

  67. Control, control, control... by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

    The trouble here is that the study hasn't controlled for the _quality_ of code written, and the knock-on consequences. If, for some reason, the female part of the workforce that facebook has happens to be producing lower quality code compared to the average (and _why_ this is the case then needs to be looked into, not simply put down to gender), then naturally the knock-on effect of that is, assuming rejection of code is fair, both women rising more slowly through software engineering ranks (assuming the ranks are done solely on merit), and also women's code being rejected more. Each of these possibilities leads to more questions, and the trouble is that you have an awkward choice of either publishing a study where significant factors haven't even been identified, let alone controlled for, or else trying to do it properly, and either coming up with something inclusive, non-headline-grabbing, and basically forgettable, or else failing to produce something to publish at all. This is one problem that plagues much of the modern world.

    I do think there is still a significant gender bias against women, but this kind of 'study' does little other than wave the flag for that. When the contribution of variables you haven't controlled for dwarfs the trend your analysis has picked out, and these 'not controlled for' variables are not statistically independent of your experimental variables, then for all practical purposes, whatever 'signal' you have picked up, is basically swamped by noise. Only when the 'can be explained by noise' explanation can be eliminated can you really confidently claim a result.

    So I can believe there is a bias against women, but this sort of study is not going to convince me of anything.

    --
    John_Chalisque
  68. Anecdote from an old workplace: by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    We were hiring a new engineer. A senior manager comes in all excited, my boss and I are sitting next to each other:

    Senior: So tell me about this _____ applicant. Because she ticks most of the right boxes.
    [she was asian and female]
    My Boss: Oh did we mention she was a lesbian?
    Senior: Really? [in a super excited voice]
    Me and by boss dumbfounded: No, and if she were we wouldn't ask. We'll let you know who gets through to the next round on merit.

    She was good, but it wasn't the right job for her unfortunately.

  69. Numbers numbers by zmooc · · Score: 1

    (...) with women holding just 17 percent of technical roles (...)

    That percentage of women is well above what I'm used to encountering. It apparently is on par with the number of female CS students in the US (17%) but the number of female software engineers is much lower (12%). Therefore, they can probably only achieve a 17% female technical workforce if they're hiring less qualified women; there simply aren't enough of them.
    Also, in my experience (which may not be representative), women in CS tend to be promoted to non-technical jobs (managers, sales) more often than their male counterparts or choose to go do something completely different after several years, making the average female software engineer younger (and thus less experienced) than their male counterparts. Given these numbers, a higher percentage of rejected code is exactly what I'd expect.

    The question is not why their code is rejected; the question that really matters is what it is that makes women leave their jobs. If it's just what they want, that's great. If they're somehow scared away, we should look into that.

    --
    0x or or snor perron?!
  70. Re:Yes, and by zifn4b · · Score: 1

    . . . the claim was "Maybe it's just not as good." Needs proof as you and parent said.

    A sentence that begins with "maybe" is not a "claim".

    What about one that starts with "I have faith that..." or "I find your lack of faith in this code disturbing"?

    --
    We'll make great pets
  71. And who can blame them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would also reject any code written entirely in emojis.

  72. Perhaps.... by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

    It could also be Facebook's diversity hiring policies mean that they hire for diversity over skill.

  73. And Bolivians are underrepresented in the NBA!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bolivians make up 0.1% of the inhabitants of Earth but they aren't 0.1% of the NBA! Racist outrage! There can be no other explanation! Don't google "countries with shortest populations" either, because that's also racist! You shouldn't have to be tall to be in the NBA! That's heightist!

  74. Fire Zuckerberg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fire Zuckerberg and put in Carly Fiona or Marissa Meyer they're both superstars!

    While you're at it, get rid of Little Timmy Cook, who is really Hillary's sister. So tired of new watch bands.
    Apple needs Arnold Schwarzeneeger, he's the man.

  75. Keep Searching by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In research, this is called post hoc analysis - looking at the data after the experiment has concluded for patterns that were not specified a priori. It's considered malpractice because the potential for false positives is well known. That doesn't stop a justice warrior, though: "There has to be discrimination in here somewhere, let me find it."

  76. Bra Screen of Death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ok i'll move on now...

  77. Dating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's not focus on income for once, and let's focus on the rest of our lives; The day women start chasing men and showing some initiative and giving what they get in date-land and on the streets is the day men should start gathering the numbers on this and then blaming women for not being fair to men, because I'm still waiting for hell to freeze over. What does my salary matter if there's no-one to share it with?

  78. Re:First thought: "33%? Seriously?" by T.E.D. · · Score: 1

    I have. My first development job 20 years ago was at about that level. The software development group I'm in now, as fate would have it, has 10 members, 3 of which identify female (30%).

  79. Simple Solution by DontTrustWhatIType · · Score: 0

    Blind the code reviews. Done.

    If it's a matter of lower quality, address that, whether it's because you constantly have junior females (they're leaving or you're just ramping up, for example) or not, you remove any bias in the code review. It's not rocket surgery. If you can't blind them all (doubtful in a company the size of FB) then blind some randomly. If the difference goes away (as does happen, see Google studies and Harvard studies on code reviews and acceptance rates when gender is blinded), the problem solved, at least for code. Move on to next problem.

  80. Horse shit! by s.petry · · Score: 1

    We know plenty of differences, but dipshit SJWs refuse to look at science and claim anyone who does must be a racist/misogynist/homophobe/xenophobe. Mens muscles develop quite differently than women, because _TESTOSTERONE_. Women who take _TESTOSTERONE_ (which is naturally produced in high quantities by males) can become stronger than other women, but still not as strong as a man.

    Now I'm going to guess that you are going to head off into 3rd hand bullshit speculation about an abnormality claiming it's the "normal", so don't.

    We also know that the minds of men and women differ, because BIOLOGY. We have had hundreds of thousands of years of evolution where women had to be nurturing and raise kids or the tribe/city/country would die due to invasion by another tribe's _TESTOSTERONE_ filled males. As with ignoring biology I'm sure you will take the SJW path and claim an anomaly in history should be treated as the norm.

    We have the science, and instead of claiming "bigotry" you should actually study it.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Horse shit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have the science, and instead of claiming "bigotry" you should actually study it.

      That'd be a lesson for you, as would be studying the post above:

      "But my point was that men and women are different and they both have their strengths and weaknesses"

      Quite possibly, but we don't really know what those are. Men do seem to be stronger than women, and women do seem to live for longer, but that's about it. Beyond that we are stuck in a loop, whereby we can't judge any 'natural' differences because of the societal differences already in place. We might think "men are on average better at science-y maths stuff" but there's no evidence for that assertion that doesn't just as well support the assertion "women are discouraged by society from learning about or practicing science-y maths stuff".

      25 years ago, people would have said that women, in general, are unsuited to medicine because it requires too much hard science. And yet most doctors in Russia are women, and most newly qualified doctors in the UK are women.

      Most of the qualities we care about are not observable.

      Read it again, see if you can be less irate.

      It may be a challenge, but surely you can attempt it, right?

    2. Re:Horse shit! by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Quite possibly, but we don't really know what those are.

      I'm not irate at all, but I have no desire to attempt to be pleasant with a person who has so little respect for the rest of us that they flat out lie. SJWs chased one famous biologists on the subject off campus and gave the woman that invited him a concussion. Why the fuck should anyone be nice to people who may not promote the violence directly, do so indirectly because science hurts their ideology? Ignorance at this day and age is not an excuse.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  81. Assumed gender bias by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't we already go down this route from the GitHub story? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35559439

    In that instance there weren't enough women to reach a statistically valid conclusion, and in any case it was found that men and women both suffer more rejections when they exposed their gender, while anonymous contributors got fewer overall.

    In nearly all cases we know, such as misogyny on Twitter, stalking on Facebook, etc, women were found to be 50% of the 'abusers'.

    There are lots of possible explanations for this, many listed here. The default position...sexism, is just lazy.

    Currently any time a woman is criticised we hear people shouting 'misogyny'. I require more proof.

  82. Re:Yes, and by thebullshitpatrol · · Score: 1

    so... what you're saying is the burden of proof is on the disputing party? I don't think that's how it works.

    can we all unanimously agree that poor or nonperformant code is the single most common reason why it would be rejected? with that in mind, any time someone says code is rejected, the foremost and most likely reasoning should be that the code is shit.

    if someone comes along and suggest that a new and disparate causal link exists, it is their job to provide evidence, not our job to prove that causal links we all already agree on exist.

  83. 2 cents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can assert anything about anything through statistics and studies-to evaluate the situation you need to have the exact details of the "studies", how they were conducted, and by whom, etc.

    Devise it improperly and its "garbage in garbage out " to quote a meme from around the time GATES expanded out of his garage days. Simply having the folks and their behavior, decisions, process observed/scrutinized by the powers that be and their minions introduces bias -Facebook's head of infrastructure certainly counts.

    It would help to understand how Facebook operates internally while not letting personal bias creep in which is harder than it sounds.

    I suspect having no knowledge of Facebook's inner workings -its a mix of all that was mentioned in the initial post plus a few things not mentioned which a better deigned and implemented review would yield.

  84. Sigh by Sperbels · · Score: 1

    Just women trying to disprove some ancient prejudice about women sucking at math and science. You just continue to fail at trying to reprogram society to turn girls into boy clones. I have no idea if there's fundamentally any difference between us that makes one sex better at technical work than another. But I'm just not interesting in your political crusade to prove your point anymore. It just doesn't matter to me. Please stop trying to blame the whole fucking thing on men. Women utterly dominate the industry of raising children, and they still haven't managed to reprogram girls....I--as a man--am not causing this.

  85. Day 30: Supplies are running low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Programs are dying of div/0 when analysing the gender ratio. The data scientist has gone mad, and had to be thrown over board, lest his hallucinations manifest as bad data deep in the null space.

    Still no sign of woman in the comments. I think, tomorrow, I will kill myself.

  86. Correlation does not equal causation by haibane · · Score: 1

    Correlation does not equal causation https://medium.freecodecamp.co...

  87. And what should be the solution? by allo · · Score: 1

    And now they want a solution, where female code should be accepted despite bugs?
    Hey, every issue found is a good thing. It should be fixed and then the code should be resubmitted.
    It may even mean code of higher quality, when bugs are easier to find. In unreadable code bugs may be hard to spot, while good code makes bugs more obvious. While the programmer itself may have some blindness there (because he wrote the code and reads his idea, not the code when reviewing himself), a peer review works better with readable code. Some people even tend to accept unreadable code to avoid telling, that they do not understand this "work of a genius".

  88. Re: Yes, and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not when there is a horde of SJWs ready to lynch anyone who publishes anything about intellectual performance differences related to sex and ancestry. A recent study showed a strikingly different brain structure for men and women. It just happened to even out when faced with IQ tests which test many different aspects of cognition. The burden is on the SJWs to show that, despite having an entirely different and smaller in volume brain, women are as apt as men in the particular task of programming.

    IMHO the real discrimination in modern society is against men, which are seen as inferior to women. Everything men have evolved to do is criminalized while all mental problems and woman-like behavior are encouraged and protected from any consequence.

  89. Diversity Quotas by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    Facebook pushed to hire more females to make diversity quotas.
    Hires loads of females, which in turn makes the average female wage, position, and skill level drop.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.