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Women write better code


steph Arnott
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steph Arnott wrote:

Do you intend to answer the factual data or just be five years old?

The ability of any given person to code has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of a different person to code. A statistician is someone who drowns in a pond with an average depth of two inches. And if someone claims to be a better coder because of their gender while otherwise giving ample evidence that they're not particularly bright it's probably not a good idea to ask them to code for you.

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"

another take is here :

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/12/women-considered-better-coders-hide-gender-github

The actual (depressing) main result is that, merit aside, the edge vanishes when the coder was identified as a woman, although I would want to see more of the data on that.

(Also interesting links to the 'meritocracy' hoo hah that GitHub  went through).

 

(Worth remembering is the part on the BBC report

"Github is an enormous developer community which does not request gender information from its 12 million users.H owever the team was able to identify whether roughly 1.4m were male or female - either because it was clear from the users' profiles or because their email addresses could be matched with the Google + social network."

a nice example of some pretty easy to do data matching/mining).

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My own personal experience isn't sufficient for me to conclude that women code better, but it is sufficient for me to suspect that people (men and women) think we don't. The (unfortunately) few female coders I've known have all been top-notch. I can't say the same for all the males, but that's because there were a hell of a lot more of them, they might be believed better coders, and so there's a greater opportunity to encounter an actual dud.

Again, my sample size is small, but I did notice that my female colleagues were better at commenting their code than the fellas. It's not uncommon for the comments in my code to outweigh the code itself by a large margin. I do that to explain not only how the hardware and software works, but why it's designed that way, and what things anyone inheriting my project should think about before making changes. At the end of every project, I generated a "How and Why Book" for the entire system. I did this as a courtesy to those who'd follow me, remembering the anguish of trying to pierce the seemingly inpenetrable veil of uncommented work myself during my early days as an engineer.

Meanwhile, it was not uncommon for me to delve into someone else's code to find no comments at all. And that code was always written by men. Once again, the preponderance of male coders makes it inevitable that comment free code (or any kind of code) will more often be found in their camp, but I do wonder if there's more collaboration in the X chromosome.

One of the things that surprised me about SL was the impressive number of female creators. There is something about this place seems to attract creative females. Someone might argue that it also creates them, as guys might pose as gals. But I'm not sure I see the advantage of doing that as a creator.

And finally, Rolig Loon embodies both the talent and the perspective I've seen in my female colleagues. She's superbly capable, and proclaims herself to be "Not as dumb as I look". I have always interpreted her signature, perhaps incorrectly, as a winking glare at the misperception that women can't do it.

 

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

... but I did notice that
my female colleagues were better at commenting their code than the fellas.

It's not uncommon for
the comments in my code to outweigh the code itself
by a large margin. 

 

 

If programs do not contain comments then they are near useless; reason for dismissal on the grounds of being a poor programmer, imo.

The second part shows me that you probably talk too much as well.   Yes, women are better at that.

 

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steph Arnott wrote:

You remind me of a guy when i first came into SL, I asked a simple question and he said "go play with your dolls, girls can not code". I reduce his code now by 60%. Had no interest in code until that comment.

You remind me of a girl who needs to go play with her dolls.

 

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DejaHo wrote:


steph Arnott wrote:

Research of 1.4 million Github users shows we write better code. As if we did not know that fact anyway. LOL

But most sysadmins are boyz . . . ya see, female programmers need a hero!

 

Doesn't prove a thing.  At one time most all college graduates were boyz but now days more women then men earn college degrees.  US Bureau of Labor Statistics Report

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DejaHo wrote:


Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

... but I did notice that
my female colleagues were better at commenting their code than the fellas.

It's not uncommon for
the comments in my code to outweigh the code itself
by a large margin. 

 

 

If programs do not contain comments then they are near useless;
reason for dismissal on the grounds of being a poor programmer, imo.

The second part shows me that you probably talk too much as well.   Yes, women are better at that.

 

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and you did state that it's only your opinion. Nevertheless, your opinion is wrong.

Whilst it may be grounds for dismissal, assuming the programmer is paid for programming, lack of commenting in a programme does not make it "poor programming". It merely makes it more difficult for someone else to carry it on. The programming itself is as good or as bad as it is, irrespective of the commenting, or lack thereof, within it. If you'd added the word "practise", so that it became "poor programming practise", then I wouldn't disagree with you. But you didn't, and your opinion was wrong. And that's not even a matter of opinion, because, as we all know, comments have no bearing on the programming..

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Phil Deakins wrote:



You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and you did state that it's only your opinion. Nevertheless, your opinion is wrong.

Whilst it may be grounds for dismissal, assuming the programmer is paid for programming, lack of commenting in a programme does not make it "
poor programming
". It merely makes it more difficult for someone else to carry it on. The programming itself is as good or as bad as it is, irrespective of the commenting, or lack thereof, within it. If you'd added the word "
practise
", so that it became "
poor programming practise
", then I wouldn't disagree with you. But you didn't, and your opinion was wrong. And that's not even a matter of opinion, because, as we all know, 
comments have no bearing on the programming..

Or anything else, for that matter.

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Phil Deakins wrote:


DejaHo wrote:


Madelaine McMasters wrote:

 

... but I did notice that
my female colleagues were better at commenting their code than the fellas.

It's not uncommon for
the comments in my code to outweigh the code itself
by a large margin. 

 

 

If programs do not contain comments then they are near useless;
reason for dismissal on the grounds of being a poor programmer, imo.

The second part shows me that you probably talk too much as well.   Yes, women are better at that.

 

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and you did state that it's only your opinion. Nevertheless, your opinion is wrong.

Whilst it may be grounds for dismissal, assuming the programmer is paid for programming, lack of commenting in a programme does not make it "
poor programming
". I
t merely makes it more difficult for someone else to carry it on

Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.

 

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