Hacker News Reader

I graduated in 2003 with a computer science degree. I was one of two females out of 60 in my program. Neither myself or my other female counterpart continued on programming for very long after graduating. Why? Its simple after 4 yrs of basically communicating only with a computer we needed the human interaction element that is missing from programming. Women love to talk to real people, end of story.

View on HN

Huh.

That doesn't ring true to me. Professional software development is inherently a collaborative process. Yes, there are portion of the day or week when the primary interaction is the human struggling with the computer to bend the machine to the human will, but the process of defining the product, the architecture, and the implementation -- even in a small company -- is work that involves interpersonal interaction.

I don't know any software developer who doesn't need to -- and benefit from -- talking to real people on a daily basis. The successful programmers are the ones who can actually do this without burning bridges and making enemies.

So: I'd love to hear more about your experience, because it's a pretty far cry from anything I've seen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com