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Comment by vimes656 | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a nice allegory of the struggle that many programmers feel when considering to switch to a more sophisticated language. How would you explain your struggle to someone who doesn't know about programming?

Why it's sexist? The sexes could be perfectly inversed. I guess the programming languages are depicted as girls because the author is male but it would apply as well to boyfriends.

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I don't think this is sexist in any case. Sexism implies that the author suggests through the post that one sex is inferior to the other. I don't understand what could have possibly provoked such an interpretation.

I think "banging on her" is where a line's been crossed. Misogynist if not sexist.

I fail to see the misogyny in that line or anywhere in the op. "Banging on her" doesn't imply any sort of hatred towards women; it more brings to mind a time when you and your sexual partner collapse at the end of a session soaked in sweat and barely able to speak because you are both out of breath and exhausted; usually you converse at this point with only grunts and short bursts of laughter. At times, the activity may have resembled violence to an outside observer and the passion may have reached a level common to warriors in battle, but the emotions were lust and desire, not hate and anger.

The only sexism seen here is the idea that rough, enthusiastic sex is only enjoyed by men and that women engage in it only to fulfill their need for male acceptance.

Back on topic, I loved the analogy and while I don't have any experience with Haskell, I have felt the same confusion in other areas before. The cerebral thrill that cannot be sustained but irregardless is longed for after it's gone.

This is an awful analogy because the author is using a scenario with which most hackers will have no familiarity (having crazy sex with a mysterious woman) to make a point about a scenario with which hackers are much more familiar (trying out a different programming language). Any point he wanted to make about Haskell would've been better made by talking about Haskell instead of his sexual fantasies.

Dollars to donuts the situation the author is describing has never actually happened to him.

Hackers not having sex? That's a stupid myth. I would be very surprised if you show some facts showing that hackers have less sex than the average population. Sex is not the point the author, it's just an extra.

Learning Haskell is tough, yet there is still not much demand for Haskell programmers yet. If there are so many hackers interested in Haskell is because there is something else about it along the lines of what the author describes.

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