girl programmers

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*sniff* I've been off the forums lately because of a rather nasty cold that's been making it very hard to concentrate on anything. Now that I've been getting a bit better... I almost feel a bit obligated to respond to a few posts in this thread. I wonder why. >_>

(About programming one or more girls) With a great power... It doesn't compile

You might want to brush up on your SAPIENS assembly. You'll see the difficulties of such a task soon enough. ;)

The compiler gets stuck in an infinite loop when it tries to compile Boobs.cpp. No-one knows exactly why.

I actually know why. It's because class Boobs should not be compiled without having inherited the whole family of BodyImage derivatives, not just StraightMaleImageOfFemales. A small but serious bug in the compiler prevents it from realizing it cannot derive everything it needs for the class from the information it has.

There is also a selection bias that the individual has no control over: people are biased against women as programmers.
...and all the comments supporting this point.
Sadly that's true, but fortunately western societies are slowly getting to be more accepting?

at microsoft [...] unicorn and sasquatch.

Oh, so that explains why Microsoft programs have so many bugs! :P

Women played a very prominent role in programming and in fact a lot of early programmers were women and it was considered a woman's job.

Really? I did not know that. Awesomeness. Thanks for sharing! :)

I notice that everyone else seems to bring up the fact that Albatross is a girl much more than she does.

I don't think it should be that big of a deal, that's why I don't bring it up much. Okay, so I have boobs. So?

-Albatross
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Albatross wrote:
Okay, so I have boobs. So?


I'm willing to bet some of the guys here do as well.
So Albatross is a girl, hmm... at least there's one in this forum. I wonder if there are more. But hey, now I know someone who is a girl/programmer. I wished there were more.
Spoonlicker announced herself to be a teenage girl. That's as reliable as any other evidence around here :)
I'm not sure spoonlicker is the type of "regular" being discussed here, though.

In my field of work, where programming isn't the main focus but definitely a major part, it's a nearly all-male population. Even if you extend to all related departments (my field is a cross-faculty one, so you find similar departments in different faculties, as well as in other universities), I think mine is the only one with a girl. She's one of the best we have, but probably more so because of the time she puts in than being more skilled.
I don't believe that spoons is a girl.

There actually is a difference in gender behaviors, and girls get stupid differently than boys do. What I've seen of him does not support his assertions.
Yeah, I think that was a round about point I was making in one thread that was deleted. Main thing that stood out was the fact that most people don't stress over their gender. I think I've only mentioned I was a guy once (well twice counting this time) when I posted my first post about my background. I've accumulated 307 posts and only pointed it out twice. Albatross 3421 and has mentioned it maybe twice (counting the above post). Everyone here has never pointed out that they are a male or female since I've joined which also goes to show it isn't a valid point to bring up when asking for help.
Well, we did sometimes get people who'd state that they were girls when asking for help, probably to get some increased sympathy out of us. I won't jump to conclusions about to what degree they were telling the truth, but still, we did get such people.

-Albatross
Am I missing something here? What does gender have to do with anything?
Am I missing something here? What does gender have to do with anything?

We are talking about the fact that, whether people want to admit it or not, gender has a big significance in programming. Too many still think women can't be good programmers. I remember one guy in my team for DeVry in my mid-term project was glad we were all guys because he thought a girl wouldn't pull her weight or be able to code worth anything. I know I reported him for his attitude, but don't know if the rest of the team did, and doubt anything came of it though.
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So, you're saying he's sexist? That still doesn't explain what gender has to do with it. It's just like people still taking offense to mention of race. The kids at my school have turned everything into a joke. "Is it because I'm black?" is a common 'joke' in response to any action, even if neither party is 'black'. It's mostly trolling, but some people take race seriously (no idea why) which only makes the trolls stronger.
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LB wrote
Am I missing something here? What does gender have to do with anything?


Well as far as I'm concerned, I started this post because I hadn't encountered a SINGLE good girl/programmer in my life until recently. And I'm pretty sure that there aren't many girl/programmers in my country. So I was just curious as to whether or not this is the case in other countries/places.

So, I could start a thread titled "black programmers" with the claim "I started this post because I hadn't encountered a SINGLE good black/programmer in mt life"? What about "tall programmers" or "blue-eyed programmers"? Does it make sense?

Maybe there are not many women programmers that you know of. There are not many yellow-eyed programmers that I know of either. What does it matter?
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New thread: Programmers with impeccable grooming :(
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Albatross wrote:
I actually know why. It's because class Boobs should not be compiled without having inherited the whole family of BodyImage derivatives, not just StraightMaleImageOfFemales. A small but serious bug in the compiler prevents it from realizing it cannot derive everything it needs for the class from the information it has.

Good comeback.

Albatross wrote:
...and all the comments supporting this point.
Sadly that's true, but fortunately western societies are slowly getting to be more accepting?

It does seem like it. But again, I do think that a lot of girls simply aren't interested in computing rather than being unable or being discouraged by stigma. That's something I don't see as a problem - my personal opinion is that there are things that males are better at and things that females are better at, and they should be allowed to play to their strengths or improve their weaknesses as they wish. It's not something that needs public outcry. If it did turn out that as many women as men were interested in sciences, computing and maths, but they didn't pursue them due to discouragement or for fear of stigma , then that would be something that would need to be dealt with. At the moment, I don't think that's the case.

xander337 wrote:
I'm willing to bet some of the guys here do as well.

LOL.

@L B,
Nothing, really, it's just interesting to some people (and a bit too interesting to some*), I guess.

* although not in this thread, so far.

L B wrote:
Maybe there are not many women programmers that you know of. There are not many yellow-eyed programmers that I know of either. What does it matter?

I think that's a little unfair; I don't think OP meant any offence.
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OK, then. I am interested to know if any of you know about any good yellow-eyed programmers? It's just interesting to me.
@ L B: It's just an odd observation, I remember noticing the same thing when I got into computers too. I can tell you that based on what I know, this trend is going to start going away soon.

Just think about why you got into programming, it was either to cause trouble or to make video games and maybe a small number of us took an early interest in some kind of control systems. If we took a survey I predict that the majority of people would say they got into programming for one reason or another because of video games, either modding or writing. When we were kids these were marketed toward boys, girls did play them, but they were in a minority. Also the skills that make you a good programmer are developed at an early age from hobby's that are geared toward boys, these are things like Erector sets, Kinects Sets, Lego blocks, models etc. I would bet my right arm that any girl who is good at programming, and didn't have something like one of the hobby's I listed above while they were growing up, is outstanding at everything from jigsaw puzzles to puzzle boxes. If you don't develop these logic skills at an early age, then it will be like ice skating up hill trying to learn how to program in college.
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LB wrote:
So, I could start a thread titled "black programmers" with the claim "I started this post because I hadn't encountered a SINGLE good black/programmer in mt life"? What about "tall programmers" or "blue-eyed programmers"? Does it make sense?

Maybe there are not many women programmers that you know of. There are not many yellow-eyed programmers that I know of either. What does it matter?


Now now,, you don't have to be so mean you know. And perhaps it doesn't matter, but perhaps it does. If girls are really lagging behind in programming then we ought to do something. Plus, I would very much like to know what is the reason behind it. Is it due to our society, which undoubtedly is still a little patriarchal. Or is due to some other god-knows-what reason (like evolution or something)
So this reinforces my hypothesis. Our society is still coming out of that horrible time when we didn't consider women as equal. Thanks for the confirmation Computergeek :)
Would it not be more sexist to say you're not allowed to talk about women as programmers, thus treating them as a special case?

If equality is to be achieved, then the same rules have to apply to both genders. If it's okay to talk about how many male programmers there are, then it's okay to talk about how many female programmers there are (or aren't, as the case may be).

And yes, if you really are interested, go make a thread about how many programmers with yellow eyes there are. We wouldn't want to ostracise those programmers afflicted by jaundice by treating them differently, would we?
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