The Ugly Underbelly of Coder Culture 715
snydeq writes "Today's developers are overwhelmingly young and male, and they're barring the door from a more diverse workforce, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister. 'Software development isn't just failing to attract women. It's actively pushing them away. ... Put all the pieces together, and you're left with an impression of developers that's markedly different from the geeks and nerds they're made out to be in popular culture. On the contrary, developers harbor the same attitudes and engage in the same behaviors you see whenever a subculture is overwhelmingly dominated by young males. They've even coined a clever name for programmers who think and behave like fraternity pledges: brogrammers,' McAllister writes. 'Developers like to think of their culture as a meritocracy, where the very best developers naturally rise to the top. But as long as the industry tends to exclude more than half of the potential workforce, that's nothing but pure arrogance.'"
insert picture of exasperated 50's guy (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... (Score:4, Funny)
There ^^^ (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, there it is.
Re:What a load of drivel!!! (Score:5, Funny)
It's almost like young people are lacking in experience due to not having been around long enough to have gotten it yet.
No (Score:5, Funny)
That looks more like an overbelly.
Re:Have you ever been to a Ruby conference? (Score:3, Funny)
I agree with almost everything you said, with the exception of:
Ruby is basically Perl, but 20 years late and with a much inferior foundation.
I'm not a Ruby coder, I've never done anything serious with it. But to say that anything is inferior to Perl seems wrong. Even JavaScript with its type inconsistencies feels less of a patchwork than Perl. I hope I'll never have to work with Perl again in my life.
Re:Where? (Score:5, Funny)
I like having women at work. Especially young/attractive ones.
And women like having young/attractive men around. Which is why they steer clear of fields populated by all you neck-beard developer types.