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Why are the best developers women ?
The best software developers I have worked with have all been women. There are plenty of good male software engineers but the *really* good ones have been primadonnas with their own agendas or raving self publicists. If you want real diligent, quality, deadline focused work, give it to the ladies.
T.R. Ollsen
Monday, December 22, 2003
I think it is because women are inherently "creators." They are the only ones able to create children, thus they are embued with a creative spirit. By default, female software engineers are hideously ugly, so they will never get laid, and be able to naturally create children. Thus, they focus their creative energies into creating something else: software.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Because most programmers are social retards, someone from the fairer sex can quite effectively control them?
Monday, December 22, 2003
Women in general are more organized, more detail oriented, and are harder workers. Damn, don't tell my wife I admitted that.
anon
Monday, December 22, 2003
I agree - women make much better developers. The best developers I've worked with have been women - and very good looking women as well.
My theory is that it is because they listen to what you are saying before jumping in with their own opinions and they are better at looking at things from different points of view.
Kentasy
Monday, December 22, 2003
My theory is that geeks -- no, men in general -- like to say things like this ("The best [fill in the blank] here are women") to impress chicks.
Mr Obnoxious Man
Monday, December 22, 2003
Women appear to be above average programmers for a couple of reasons.
One -- they are less likely to chase career paths for monetary reasons only. This should cut out a bunch of the 'pretenders' we all know and love that are still hanging on from the boom.
Two -- there is less encouragement for women to enter the maths and sciences areas in general. Women need to have significant giftedness before they are encouraged by teachers and parents to enter a math/computer science field.
I think that these two factors go a long way to explaining the fact that women in comp sci seem to be above average.
Billy Boy
Monday, December 22, 2003
[I think that these two factors go a long way to explaining the fact that women in comp sci seem to be above average. ]
You had women in your comp sci class? Luxury.
anon
Monday, December 22, 2003
Just to throw a bit of personal anecdotal experience on the other side: I haven't found the female developers I've worked with to be better, on average, than the male developers I've worked with.
Not that the women were any worse, don't get me wrong. Just that they weren't any better, on average. To put it another way, I haven't personally noticed that gender is a determining factor in software development skill.
Bill Tomlinson
Monday, December 22, 2003
I totally disagree. I've never met a woman who wanted to be a programmer. I've met several who took CS programs because they wanted a high paying job.
Sorry
Monday, December 22, 2003
Yeah I don't know what you guys are talking about... in college and in the workplace I haven't experienced this at all. I tend to agree with Mr. obnoxious Man.
Roose
Monday, December 22, 2003
Sorry, I've only encountered 5 female developers over my career.
Two were pretty sharp, but not so outstanding that I could call them the best developers I have ever met. The other three ranged from mediocre to poor.
I reject the statement that women are the best developers. I'll buy the sentiment that female developers tend to be more socially adept and pleasant to be around, but that's about it.
Immature programmer
Monday, December 22, 2003
Funny story. Early in my career I worked with an old-timer who had been on the Manhattan Project during WWII and he told me back then, before the digital computer was developed, the job title of "Computer" was a female-only position. They had rows and rows of young women, hundreds in each of several huge quonset huts, doing calculations in long-hand. Each computer had a small set of equations to work out. One computer would work out a sheet of numbers and pass it on to the next who then used those results to solve her own equations. Some did very simple math, some more complex, and all calculations were done by three different people in different sections with a fourth doing verification on those. Familiar architecture, no? But the hardware was a bit softer.
old_timer
Monday, December 22, 2003
I've been programming professionally for about seven years, I'm not exactly a vet to say the least. But the women I've worked with have been below average.
I don't think women are less intelligent or hard-working. But I've never known a female to have that near-obsession with coding that the best coders have. That love of a programming breakthrough at 3am... the love of digging through API's and such just for curiosity's sake, etc, etc.
I have no doubt that a female with that same "itch" for programming would be equal to or better than any man. It's not that women can't out-develop guys, it's just that they don't seem to *want* to.
John Rose
Monday, December 22, 2003
"One -- they are less likely to chase career paths for monetary reasons only. This should cut out a bunch of the 'pretenders' we all know and love that are still hanging on from the boom.
Two -- there is less encouragement for women to enter the maths and sciences areas in general. Women need to have significant giftedness before they are encouraged by teachers and parents to enter a math/computer science field."
---------------------------
I disagree on the first point. Why would a woman be less likely to chase a job for money? All other things being equal between men and women, given the economical inequality out there with men out-earning women on average, you'd think a woman would be more apt to snap up a well-paying job. Just based on the statistical fact that jobs for women pay less on average.
I agree on the second point. There is a definite discouragement of women from the sciences. Both overt and subtle. Which is definitely a shame; we need all the minds we can get. :P
I think there's a lot of prejudice against women in computer science in general that might steer many of them away.
John Rose
Monday, December 22, 2003
Women may not be the best developers but would they bother replying to a post by TROLLsen?
Hang So
Monday, December 22, 2003
I've worked with lots of women throughout my career, and I'd have to say that they pretty much fall into the same buckets as the men do: some good, some great, some not-so-good.
In one contract I worked, the women were notorious for playing the discrimination card, even going so far as to blame bug reports on gender discrimination!
The arguments about the softer touch and less antler crashing seem to mainly apply to women as managers; I've worked with some very good female managers who were adept at coaxing men, even "difficult" ones, to play along and deliver results.
Portabella
Monday, December 22, 2003
Clearly its because women are capable of prolonged logical thought. Mens brains tend to overheat when they attempt this and they become emotional.
FullNameRequired
Monday, December 22, 2003
TR Ollsen either hasn't done much development or is a female herself, with an agenda.
To become a good developer requires a lot of self-study and, in my experience, women just don't do that. Even if they do well at coursework, they just don't put in the extra hours in the way men do. If they're good looking, they've probably got better things to do, for one thing.
I've known a handful of good women academics, but in narrow fields, but never any really good women developers.
Monday, December 22, 2003
"Why would a woman be less likely to chase a job for money?"
As long as we're making irrational, stereotypical, baseless observations:
Because they're too busy chasing men with money?
Not a chauvinist
Monday, December 22, 2003
my goodness you fellows are CLUELESS DORKS. no wonder there are zero women in this field.
T.R. OLLsen (GET IT??)
Monday, December 22, 2003
Mr TrollSen,
Since a lot of people want to discuss the topic, the joke's on you!
Thinking outside the Box
Monday, December 22, 2003
>I totally disagree. I've never met a woman who wanted to be a programmer. I've met several who took CS programs because they wanted a high paying job.
I am one, I have wanted to be a programmer since I was 12 years old. (amstrad green tube with BASIC).
Loved it, never stopped loving it.
Aussie Chick
Monday, December 22, 2003
Old timer, you know, because the task of calculating such wartime necessities as missile trajectories, etc., was done by girls w/ calculators, the ENIAC's processing speed was first expressed as girl-hours.
GML
Monday, December 22, 2003
As somone somewhere once said, I think, "Men are sane only for the 90 seconds immediately after ejaculation".
braid_ged
Monday, December 22, 2003
Trollsen, very good. You got me. But there are actually a lot of people who promote the view you express. So I never thought to question that you were genuine.
Monday, December 22, 2003
I know a woman who has: [quote]
"- MY BUTTKICKER is an Athlon XP 1700+ with 256MB DDR-RAM, a GeForce3 video card and 90GB total drivespace.
- MY OTHER BABIES are a 1.4GHz Athlon, 1.2GHz Athlon, and 800 MHz Pentium 3, each with 256-512MB RAM and 20-60GB drives.
- LAPTOP is an IBM A21m Thinkpad (Pentium 3-750 MHz, ATI Rage-Mobility video, etc.) "
That would be Asia Carrera, adult film actress, who writes her own website in notepad. (And purists will revel in the content-uber-fluff approach she's taken)
(And no, she hasn't asked me for help with Sharepoint. Yet)
Philo
Philo
Monday, December 22, 2003
Define "best"
seth
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Err.. like... don't know how to break this to you... but the poster... like... sitdown or something...ok, ready? The poster is a troll.
Brazilian Dude
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
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