The whole Aspergers/Autism thing just happens to be one of the few areas where male/female brain differences are being studied objectively, with little or no political bias in doing so - as opposed to someone trying to push their personal pet theory. I certainly didn't plan to insult anyone here!
After all, I too am a programmer... Maybe it's just that women tend to flourish more in high-communication environments, and programmers are notoriously bad at that. So much so that we've had to create Agile methodologies to compensate and to get us communicating more. "Agile - a way to attract more women to your workplace", I really must try harder to sell that idea, I'm always keen on finding new ways to encourage agile adoption :) On 7 December 2010 13:27, Chris Adamson <[email protected]> wrote: > Not where I expected this discussion to go (and I could really live > without the romanticization of Autistic Spectrum Disorders, thanks), > but that's fine. The thing that stood out to me, and that I'm > surprised nobody has objected to, is the fact that the article > specifically implicates the Open Source community, and not technology, > computers, or IT in general. > > While I'm happy to criticize a lot of things about the Open Source > community -- it's boastful, prone to infighting, it copies and > commoditizes instead of innovating, and it hasn't done anything really > interesting for at least five years (and maybe 10) -- virulent sexism > and harrassment was not a vice I would have thought to associate with > it. On its face, this seems like a totally unfair charge. > > And yet on the other hand, other programming communities seem to have > more female involvement. It really surprised me at CodeMash last year > to see how many women worked with the various Microsoft technologies, > as opposed to the web languages (Ruby, Python, Java, etc.) that made > up most of the other tracks. There's a pretty big cultural difference > on that side of the fence. > > Conference-wise, it also comes down to who you invite. In the Apple > world, WWDC struck me as having even fewer female attendees than > JavaOne (the fact that WWDC has no vendors may also be a factor). But > the smaller Mac/iOS conferences I go to (360iDev, Voices that Matter, > etc.) focus not only on programming, but also on design, marketing, > running an independent company, etc. That change in focus brings in a > lot more female attendees and speakers, who are better represented > among the ranks of company owners, managers, marketers, web designers, > creative directors, and so on. Open source, by its definition, is > just about the code -- one would think that a conference with a > broader focus (e.g., web apps), would be less one-sidedly male. > > --Chris > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<javaposse%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- Kevin Wright mail / gtalk / msn : [email protected] pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright twitter: @thecoda -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
