Kathy Sierra
deprogrammaticaipsum.com
deprogrammaticaipsum.com
The article closes with this surprising allegation without explaining anything about it. What did these books have to do with harassment, abuse, misogyny and MeToo? I'd be curios to know.
EDIT: Never mind, I've found what I wanted to know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment_and_wi...
Well worth a read to understand what modern "trolling" is actually like, and why "don't feed the trolls" is impotent and downright hurtful advice.
I saw the above talk first hand: well worth investing the time to watch.
Kathy Sierra on online harassment, betrayal by her own community, and why “don’t feed the troll” is not only ineffective, but a slap in the face to those who face this kind of abuse.
I haven't seen the "Head first" books this article is about, but the above could be a description of any number of books from the 70s and 80s, like the Leo Brodie Forth books.
Her SCJP books were also exceptionally good/the gold standard as far as I remember.
I still think the design accommodates the industry's demographics at the time. Terrible what happened to her, but those books are embarrassing. To be fair the specific decisions around what to put on the cover may not have been hers.
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Design-Patterns-Brain-Frie...
That's a strange way to end the article.
What happened? It is kind of weird to talk about the different eras as a description for people who didn't live through them and then drop that reference expecting the reader to know the context - just my two cents.
HN is a pretty good community. It's got a lot of smart, knowledgeable people who share freely. They are generally curious, inquisitive, and interested in a wide range of things.
And yet, I've been watching this item. It did well to start with, and even now the number of upvotes it's had should have it on the front page. Why is it not there?
My guess (as someone who's been around for a while and watched the dynamics, but with no insider knowledge) is that people are flagging it.
I've seen similar submissions about people thrive and stay on the front page for hours, but this one is being flagged. The primary differentiators are that (a) this is a woman in tech, and (b) she was harassed by the tech community. This is all hypothetical, hand-waving, "You Have No Proof!" territory, but I've seen this played out before.
What happened to Kathy is vile, horrendous, and all-too-believable.
The moment any discussion starts to get "interesting", regardless of who it is about, that moment it drops like a stone.
I guess it happens to any post where a number of people get lots of both upvotes and downvotes or where a number of answers are flagged.
In that regard this site is like a young child of mine who has grown up in such a happy home that when I sometimes say no to some idea my wife has that child is wondering if we are going to divorce :-/
In the same way, on this site people are so polite that either the flamewar detector or a number of users has become way too sensitive.
(That said: IMO it is a good thing that my children never see their parents argue in anger and it is a good thing that people are used to everyone being polite here, I just wish we could be a tiny bit less sensitive. Some hot topics actually should be discussed some times, like this one.)
There's a link to contact the mods at the bottom of the page. They (most often dang) usually reply, and it seems they use the feedback to tune the system.
(Yes BTW, this account is young, but I have been here a long time)
This hasn't triggered the flame-war filter, because the number of up-votes is still higher than the number of comments.
> ... certain people - or an algorithm - will do anything to get hot topics off the front page.
Or not necessarily hot topics, just specifically topics that highlight, even if only tangentially, that women are often driven out of tech by harassment, including threats of rape and death, including to their families.
> The moment any discussion starts to get "interesting", regardless of who it is about, that moment it drops like a stone.
There are many, many discussions that get "interesting" without that happening.
> ... any post ... lots of both upvotes and downvotes ...
You can't downvote a submission.
> Some hot topics actually should be discussed some times, like this one.
Yes, although the evidence suggests that rational discussion about this topic isn't possible, especially in a forum like this one. I genuinely long for the day the topic can be discussed constructively, and even more for the day it's a complete non-issue. I doubt I'll see either.
> There's a link to contact the mods at the bottom of the page.
I suspect the mods are happy to see this sink, because the alternative is that it will erupt into an unpleasant cesspit of people thinking/claiming that they are being logical and rational, when really they aren't.
> ... [the mods] ... usually reply, and it seems they use the feedback to tune the system.
They are the reason the site remains even remotely interesting and useful.
I hope we can learn from that lesson, though given the negative response I've seen to Codes of Conduct and the calling out of sexism within our industry, I can see growth being a very slow process.
I had NO idea that she had been subject to harassment, or that it was so bad (not that it can be good) that she left the industry and removed her online presence.
How incredibly sad for our industry that brilliant, helpful people are pushed out because of such behavior. And how sad that we don't stand up to such bullies more, and stop them from behaving in such terrible ways.
Thanks for mentioning this very important aspect of Sierra's work and life. Her withdrawal from the industry is a loss, and a lesson, for the rest of us.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daniellecitron/2014/04/27/the-c...
I don’t think there would be many complaints (apart from trolls) about a code of conduct that prohibits the things done to Kathy Sierra; about the only justifiable objection is that this behavior should be covered by the unwritten rules of basic civility instead.
Codes of Conduct also has a number of downsides, first and foremost the creation of more meta games.
Also, for the record:
This very site, one of the nicest forums there is, together with lobste.rs and others: none of the have stupid CoCs and they are still among the nicest sites there is.
And while I would say HN is often times civil, I've definitely seen misogynistic or otherwise demeaning comments here.
If CoC were like HN guidelines and enforced the same way I guess almost nobody worth listening to would care at all if every project had one.
Moral stances have a place.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ALl of their guidelines have the same shape as all honor codes: they ask you not to do something that you are, in a strict legalist / absolutist sense, allowed to do.
And then they shame those who violate the rules, and the group codifies that shame in the name of "common" "decency", and those activities no longer happen here in great numbers, despite being "allowed" in the larger sense (they even preface most of the guidelines with "Please" to emphasize the voluntary nature of your choice to submit to the guidelines.)
3 eras of programming books.
1: (1970's) - Booked produced by megacorps (e.g. IBM), and possibly dry content format.
2: (1980's - 1990's) - Rise of Hello World era, books with hello world introductory examples.
3: (2000's) - Effective books - (e.g. effective c++, effective java)
The author refers to that as the "2.5 era".
2.5 era: " ... some might argue that the third era was the “Effective” era, with books such as Meyers’ Effective C++, Bloch’s Effective Java or Wagner’s Effective C# as flagship examples. But I consider these books, as useful as they are, just an offspring of the second era; a much needed upgrade. Let’s say, then, it was the 2.5 era of programming books".
3.0 era: "... at a time where the dot-com boom opened the door for new ideas, right in the middle of the Web 2.0 craze, and right before the rise of the smartphone and social media. Through the use of comic images, unusual text layout, and a fantastic sense of humor, Kathy Sierra argues, readers can learn the concepts easier; tricking the brain into the proper levels of dopamine".
At barnes & nobles / borders I always grabbed one of these books which made content enjoyable to read. She sparked a new era of genres produced by other authors, for example, an anime version of learning python.