"All of the competitors—and this will come as a shock—are men, or at least on their way to becoming men. They’re not the healthiest-looking bunch, with an average weight that appears to be no more than 120 pounds. There's a disturbingly stereotypical assortment of ticks, both verbal and gesticular, as well as bowl haircuts, wan faces, and shabby clothes. Mark Zuckerberg would look like an Adonis in this room."
Glad to see the mainstream media is continuing its feminist critique of technology by holding tech workers to traditional norms of masculinity.
if you abuse your body with bad food and no exercise, you tend to be skinny and weak when you're a teenager, then dumpy and overweight when you get old. brogrammers exist but mostly aren't good enough to compete in programming contests.
I think the sentence means that they're so young they're not men yet (think "adolescent males".) It could mean what you're implying, but I think it's fairer to not jump to that conclusion.
I think more pertinently, the entire article seems to be designed to portray the participants as negatively as possible without coming across as totally acerbic. The whole subject and the people in it are treated as jokes, ending in a few dry factoids that destroy the article's established, cynical mood.
Gender norms also happen to be "biological markers of health and success" norms. I don't think light social pressure to eat better, get more exercise, work on your social self is a bad thing.
Frankly, I agree with you and I exercise regularly.
But I find it hard to interpret the snide comments in this article (or in many others) as honest health recommendations and not as a concerted effort to portray the members of this industry as low status. Perhaps I'm wrong and perhaps you are right to give it a more charitable interpretation.
no, i think your interpretation is entirely correct. maybe we could exert some light social pressure on people like ashlee vance to learn some social skills and respect for other human beings, especially human beings engaged in demanding creative activities.
Once I had a conversation with a female designer who organizes "Design hackathons" who said that she "gets disrespected on a regular basis" during meetup with "male participants." I actually agree with her on that point and can empathize with her.
However later on, she went on in a different context of conversation, to discount someone in her coding school program and justified how he is fast learner by his background: "he is just one of those computer nerds" and derided some job opportunities the group was discussing as some "stupid code monkey job".
IMHO, American society's left coast isn't progressive nor liberal but wants to feel progressive. I attended a extremely liberal and elite school in New England, and everyone on campus said the right things and some even did the right superficial things - but when it came to most sensitive things, dating/career/loyalty, everyone instinctively reverted back to the most base human tribal instinct.
In my early twenties, I used to feel upset and somewhat betrayed by my sullied idealism. But I got over it and realized that I am not special snowflake, and whatever difficulties, prejudices against me is nothing in context to other people's in history, better time could be used for me to learn and better myself (than sulking and railing with the "misery loves company" "social justice warrior"/"MRA"crowd on Facebook); and accumulate skills every day.
The same people who think a person is "just a 120lb nerd" or a "dumb jock" will be the same crowd that will "like" Facebook post about a "Science is Cool" post about a paper that the said nerd publishes later on, and likewise for the "jock"'s accomplishment dumbed down for the social media format. Hence people's need to "feel good," and need to not want to "feel bad" during the years it takes to be actually "good."
It's garbage, but just flag it and move on. Wired (and sites like Gawker and Vox) make money from baiting their readers with stuff like this and then showing them ads.
Yes. It is unusual for a healthy male to weigh 120 pounds unless they are much shorter than average. Similarly it is unusual for a person with well developed social skills to dress poorly and have nervous tics.
Imagine if the article said instead that "all were women, with an average weight over 200 pounds, with an assortment of short hair, unshaved underarms and nose rings".
hmm, interesting. so not only is 'smart and gets things done' what you need for a job, it's also what you need to win a programming contest, apparently. i'd've thought there'd be more of a discrepancy between the skillsets, since one is about tasks you complete in hours, while the other is about tasks you complete in days, weeks, months, or years — so you'd think other kinds of prioritization skills would come into play, even though the same 'smart and gets things done (and gets along with people)' skills apply to both. but the article makes it sound like, really, if there's a difference, there's very substantial skill transfer.
so that's super interesting. maybe i should do more programming contests, not in order to attract attention, but in order to train my prioritization and focus, with the hope that that kind of intense training will apply to programming more generally. i don't know where to start. icfp and ioi only happen once a year. icpc is only open to college students. maybe topcoder, codeforces, kaggle, spoj, hackerrank, codechef, hackerearth, or poj. advice welcome.
>by Ashlee Vance
"All of the competitors—and this will come as a shock—are men, or at least on their way to becoming men. They’re not the healthiest-looking bunch, with an average weight that appears to be no more than 120 pounds. There's a disturbingly stereotypical assortment of ticks, both verbal and gesticular, as well as bowl haircuts, wan faces, and shabby clothes. Mark Zuckerberg would look like an Adonis in this room."
What class act.
Huh I wonder what the outcry would look like if it were written about a bunch of women not being 'healthy looking' and pointing out their characteristics.
>I introduce myself and, after several awkward exchanges, ask if he’d be up for an interview. “We will see,” he replies. He never speaks to me again. (His friends explain that he mostly shuns the press after Wired did a story several years ago, which posited the idea that Korotkevich might “die a virgin.”)
Huh and here this author is also making a point to criticize this person for their looks.
roup included the name of the author, followed by the quote. That isn't one continuous quote. Ashlee is a somewhat androgynous name. Given roup's comment it seems like the name was included with the intention to highlight that it was a woman writing pejoratively about men. Why else would roup include the author's name? Simply to shame him? I suppose I could be wrong, I'm making an assumption too.
> There’s growing evidence that hiring a top sport programmer is a coup for software companies.
So, hiring people who engage in doing something as a hobby and practice at it outside of (or in addition to) regular "schooling" do well? Whodathunk? We didn't even have programming classes in my day (well, not until 9th grade for me, and that was pretty advanced - many neighboring school districts didn't offer any at all). (edit: so... for many years the only people I knew who programmed were all hobbyists/extracurricular folks)
> “Every time I have hired someone who is good at these contests, they have crushed the job. They tend to be fast, accurate, and into getting things done.”
Wondering how well people like this fit in to team-oriented environments. I'm certainly not a programming-olympian like the subjects of the article - have never done competitive stuff (did "olympics of the mind" back in the day, but not quite the same thing). However, I think I'm a reasonable problem solver and software developer. I don't typically fit in well with teams. Do the benefits of these 'super-coders' outweigh any diminished team capabilities? Is that a tradeoff that can be made for a season, but needs to be rectified later?
an interesting thing about programming competitions (in general, and icpc in particular) is that they select for winning hacker teams, not winning hackers. if your three-person icpc team is even epsilon more productive than you would be on your own, then you will beat any single-hacker team that consists of someone just like you. icpc is especially team-focused because you only have one terminal, so you can't just each hack away on different problems.
so selecting for programming-contest winners might be a good way to find super-coders who don't have diminished team capabilities.
that is interesting. it sounded like at least some of the winners in the article were solo vs team, but yeah... good point.
Although... it basically means they can work with others who also have the ... whatever it takes to play at that level. That programming team member paired with anyone else in your office may be a horrible fit.
> There’s growing evidence that hiring a top sport programmer is a coup for software companies. Novakovski, the retired sport programmer, brought in Neal to work with him at Quora and then later hired Scott to work with him at Addepar. “Neal was like 18 when he started and, within three months on the job, he was in the top 10 percent of all our engineers,” Novakovski says. “Every time I have hired someone who is good at these contests, they have crushed the job. They tend to be fast, accurate, and into getting things done.”
I'm pretty skeptical. I'm sure they are great coders, but is their skill level at solving math-heavy problems like the ones in these contests really required to build something like Quora?
38 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 81.1 ms ] threadGlad to see the mainstream media is continuing its feminist critique of technology by holding tech workers to traditional norms of masculinity.
Mean, or at least tactless.
But I find it hard to interpret the snide comments in this article (or in many others) as honest health recommendations and not as a concerted effort to portray the members of this industry as low status. Perhaps I'm wrong and perhaps you are right to give it a more charitable interpretation.
Once I had a conversation with a female designer who organizes "Design hackathons" who said that she "gets disrespected on a regular basis" during meetup with "male participants." I actually agree with her on that point and can empathize with her.
However later on, she went on in a different context of conversation, to discount someone in her coding school program and justified how he is fast learner by his background: "he is just one of those computer nerds" and derided some job opportunities the group was discussing as some "stupid code monkey job".
IMHO, American society's left coast isn't progressive nor liberal but wants to feel progressive. I attended a extremely liberal and elite school in New England, and everyone on campus said the right things and some even did the right superficial things - but when it came to most sensitive things, dating/career/loyalty, everyone instinctively reverted back to the most base human tribal instinct.
In my early twenties, I used to feel upset and somewhat betrayed by my sullied idealism. But I got over it and realized that I am not special snowflake, and whatever difficulties, prejudices against me is nothing in context to other people's in history, better time could be used for me to learn and better myself (than sulking and railing with the "misery loves company" "social justice warrior"/"MRA"crowd on Facebook); and accumulate skills every day.
The same people who think a person is "just a 120lb nerd" or a "dumb jock" will be the same crowd that will "like" Facebook post about a "Science is Cool" post about a paper that the said nerd publishes later on, and likewise for the "jock"'s accomplishment dumbed down for the social media format. Hence people's need to "feel good," and need to not want to "feel bad" during the years it takes to be actually "good."
so that's super interesting. maybe i should do more programming contests, not in order to attract attention, but in order to train my prioritization and focus, with the hope that that kind of intense training will apply to programming more generally. i don't know where to start. icfp and ioi only happen once a year. icpc is only open to college students. maybe topcoder, codeforces, kaggle, spoj, hackerrank, codechef, hackerearth, or poj. advice welcome.
What class act.
Huh I wonder what the outcry would look like if it were written about a bunch of women not being 'healthy looking' and pointing out their characteristics.
Huh and here this author is also making a point to criticize this person for their looks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashlee_Vance
I really dislike it when people say "there's evidence of X" and then give no evidence or only a few anecdotes.
So, hiring people who engage in doing something as a hobby and practice at it outside of (or in addition to) regular "schooling" do well? Whodathunk? We didn't even have programming classes in my day (well, not until 9th grade for me, and that was pretty advanced - many neighboring school districts didn't offer any at all). (edit: so... for many years the only people I knew who programmed were all hobbyists/extracurricular folks)
> “Every time I have hired someone who is good at these contests, they have crushed the job. They tend to be fast, accurate, and into getting things done.”
Wondering how well people like this fit in to team-oriented environments. I'm certainly not a programming-olympian like the subjects of the article - have never done competitive stuff (did "olympics of the mind" back in the day, but not quite the same thing). However, I think I'm a reasonable problem solver and software developer. I don't typically fit in well with teams. Do the benefits of these 'super-coders' outweigh any diminished team capabilities? Is that a tradeoff that can be made for a season, but needs to be rectified later?
so selecting for programming-contest winners might be a good way to find super-coders who don't have diminished team capabilities.
Although... it basically means they can work with others who also have the ... whatever it takes to play at that level. That programming team member paired with anyone else in your office may be a horrible fit.
I'm pretty skeptical. I'm sure they are great coders, but is their skill level at solving math-heavy problems like the ones in these contests really required to build something like Quora?
Except the United States. Thanks Baby Boomers?