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Gay programmers

4 points by rtfa ↗ HN
It's a very politically incorrect topic, but I wanted to know what others' opinion was. Many people agreed on proggit and here that there is such a thing as "programming like a girl" (pestering others with questions instead of doing what you are supposed to do). What was your experience with gay programmers? Mine wasn't very positive (let's not bring Von Neumann into this). Thanks.

28 comments

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andreyf
Most likely, your sample is not statistically significant. How would someone's sexual orientation affect their coding?
rtfa
My sample is 3-4 : bad. 0.8 (suspected gay) : good. That's not counting Von Neumann. This isn't statistically significant. That's why I'm asking about others' opinions. Why is everyone so quick to say girls tend to be bad programmers, but gay programmers are a touchy subject?

This is not a troll. I'm just stimulating a discussion that AFAIK has never taken place before.

Thanks

alnayyir
For the record I've only ever met one gay programmer and he was "bad".

He'd never coded prior to school, and he treated it purely as a "career" in which he thought he could make "good money".

It was his attitude towards the profession and not his actual skill that bothered me. An earnest but poor programmer can be fixed and is respectable, the sort of fuck that floods our profession with these ideas that we make insane money or something is obnoxious.

EDIT: Never gave a shit or a thought at any point to the fact that he was gay.

andreyf
Girls are bad programmers? What is this, grade school?
rms
I'm calling troll, but you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Turing.
cperciva
I'm not sure about "wouldn't be here", but Allman and McKusick can certainly be added to a list of people without whom the Internet would be a far worse place.
[dead] rtfa
You're right about Turing. He was the gay one, not von Neumann. I can't help but wonder however, how come you know so much about homosexuality amongst coders? Is it perhaps because of your own deviances? (I'm just curious. If the question is too personal, you don't have to answer)
nailer
news.yc needs a report button.
rms
You suck at trolling.
sama
Turing FTW! And lots of others. I think they have about the same incidence of intelligence/effectiveness as straight ones.
rtfa
I agree actually. Gays are as intelligent as straights, on average. So are women. But I think it takes a real man to implement a complicated app.
alnayyir
a "real man"? I'm a straight white male and I'm insulted by that statement.

You have to be a troll to say something as ignorant as that.

rtfa
> I'm a straight white male

I find it interesting that you decided to mention your race.

alnayyir
There's (in my country) something of a running joke concerning "WASP"s and the archetype I get lumped into.

It's just part of the whole mise en scene concerning my background and about how I'm supposed to be some sort of ignorant rich bastard or something. (FTR, I'm quite poor, an an atheist.)

I find it interesting you decided not to mention the point I was raising.

EDITS: Grammar, additions.

rtfa
So you are not a WASP. Case closed.
alnayyir
I'm white and anglo saxon, the stereotype is created when someone sees me in person. That's the point.

You're a semantic troll. Bugger off YC, seriously.

nakajima
I know smart programmers who are gay. I know smart programmers who are straight. It's foolish to think a sexual orientation would influence one's ability to program well.

Also, just because a discussion has never taken place before doesn't mean it's worth having.

rtfa
Have you seen the last season of the sopranos where the fat guy goes into an antique store, and he is told that he is a "natural" (w.r.t. appreciating art). So it's OK to stereotype gays as being better at artsy stuff, but not OK to think of straights as being better at, well, some other things?
bprater
Completely irrelevant and flagged. I suggest positive karma for being able to submit.
underscore
I'm a gay programmer, and I'm not quite sure how my sexual orientation would affect how I code. If it is any help, most of the people around me seem to think I'm competent enough, at least to the point that they don't complain about what I write to my face. Perhaps they'll find this thread and respond.

The more interesting question, at least to me, would be about the experiences of gay programmers (I guess I'm biased). I can't speak for all gay programmers, but I know that my sexual orientation would certainly affect the people I choose to work for (e.g.: I'd like to work for someone who provided benefits for a same-sex partner, or who donated money to gay rights causes, while I'd probably not ever work for a company with a history of opposing (with policies or money) gay rights). It probably also affects the atmosphere of the place that I do work: perhaps co-workers deal with a gay colleague differently (not necessarily on a good/bad continuum: only differently) than they would a straight colleague. I could go on, but you probably get the idea.

Most of the replies present when I started this comment were skeptical of the possibility of a correlation between sexual orientation and code quality. I happen to agree. What about the correlation between sexual orientation and employment in certain industries (affecting what code we write)? What about sexual orientation and choosing to be a programmer at all?

I'm kind of hoping that this doesn't get downvoted to oblivion: it might make for an interesting discussion (or flame war).

rtfa
But you are not skeptical about correlations between programming talent and gender, are you?
underscore
I'm not really familiar enough with the subject to know whether I should be. If there are any serious studies out there about gender and code quality, I'd love to read them. While gender itself may well be irrelevant when it comes to programming aptitude, the way that a society treats girls and women (and the fact that it may be (is, for mine) different than the way it treats boys and men) could influence how many/which women go into the world of programming, which might in turn influence the quality of what they produce.

I can't remember ever meeting a female programmer that I didn't later come to respect for their skill. Anecdotal evidence isn't really useful, though.

edit: Good point. I guess that if a correlation may exist for women by this logic, it may well also exist for non-mainstream sexual orientations.

rtfa
... Do you find it too far-fetched to think of wanting to kiss a fireman as a girlish quality?
[dead] billydee
Think you might program with a lisp?
bootload
"... Many people agreed on proggit and here that there is such a thing as "programming like a girl" ..."

Why couldn't it be "programming like a prat?"

"... What was your experience with FOO programmers? ..."

I know about these kind of questions except I care less about the labels someone gives them than the quality of their ideas and code.

froo
I just came across this topic - not only is it irrelevant to HN, but it is plain to see this was designed to be an inflammatory topic.

I find it offensive that you would judge someone's coding ability on their sexual orientation (or for that matter, sex, skin colour, nationality, political preference or shoe size) as opposed to actual talent.

It's a pathetic attempt at trolling and I find it sad you feel the need to feed your (probably unfounded) superiority complex in such an immature way.

Before you respond with a "lol you're gay" comment rtfa, I'm straight - but this kind of crap is still unacceptable.

theoneill
This is such a classic troll. I'm surprised you all fell for it. Maybe it's a good sign, though. Maybe it was because trolling is so rare here that you've lost your resistance.