Inspiring Women Interview: Corrinne Yu (Lead Halo engine programmer) | Hacker News Reader

Inspiring Women Interview: Corrinne Yu (Lead Halo engine programmer)

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58 pointsiman32 comments

Diversity as a first class citizen is not merely about race or gender or creed. It is diversity of creativity and intellect and technological innovation. If we use only the same people and the same kind of people to create games , our technology and our games will stagnate.

I really like this message. I wish people would stop saying 'we need more women in blah,' then instead say something like this. We really don't need more of anyone just to make the demographics look nice. Lack of a group in a field is a problem because we might be missing out on more like her, and I hate to think that.

I like the way the interview was handled too. Only one question about gender... at the end. It allowed her hardcore programming creds to show through.

I didn't. I thought the title itself was extremely condescending and sexist. Bit of a turn off.

Imagine if it was an interview "Inspiring black people in gaming". How about "Inspiring ginger people in gaming"... Or "Inspiring gays in gaming"

It's suggesting that being a woman is some sort of disability and that the person has overcome the odds and achieved something despite this. It's belittling her actual achievements.

Or, alternatively, it suggest that being a women doesn't fit the stereotype of a game developer, and therefore is an interesting trait in itself.

I wouldn't think the stereotype of a game developer includes skin or hair color, or sexual orientation. Other professions does though, so, say, an article like "inspiring heterosexual opera singers" could be valid for expanding the view of what an opera singer can be.

It's just reinforcing the stereotype though! It's not helping! :)

Look what we're discussing on this comment page... Top comment is discussing the fact she is a woman. We have completely ignored what she has achieved, and are instead focusing on the fact she's a woman. That must be terribly disheartening, and IMHO really doesn't help people feel welcome.

I find it disheartening. I found that snippet interesting because she used the question to downplay gender. She also downplayed it earlier when her husband was brought up.

I guess I need to write better. :(

Got it, I don't like it when people push for minorities to be equal for equalities sake, but I reason if there are too few of some group then it becomes self fulfilling and the group stays small keeping out some who would otherwise do very well as Doctors, mathematicians, scientists, so it's reasonable to encourage them, but only on the right grounds. In this case not because she's a woman, but because she's intelligent and creative. :) (obviously conjecture)

It's not a stereotype when the data backs it up. The fact is that programming is dominated by men. In fact this story wouldn't have been a story, definitely not on the top page of hacker news, if it was just about another man that is a technical lead. I think the point of stories like these are to attempt to inspire the women who are already in our industry and I definitely see no issues with that. It's sad that some think we can't discuss the fact that she is a woman and that she probably had to overcome more than just being a great programmer to get to her position. No doubt her technical skill is amazing, but for her to rise to the top in a male dominated field is equally amazing!

What do you think she had to overcome to get her position? You're suggesting people in the industry make it hard for women? She didn't suggest she's been discriminated against, so why assume she has?

You're right, I shouldn't assume that she had to overcome any additional obstacles just because she is a woman. But let me say that it wouldn't surprise me if she did. I also didn't mean to suggest that it would have been any type of overt discrimination.

"Lack of a group in a field is a problem because we might be missing out on more like her, and I hate to think that."

Isn't that the point of trying to "make the demographics look nice?"

What exactly is this message saying? Obviously diversity of talent is a good thing.

But maybe more is implied?

I read it as "The point of having more women isn't to have more women, the point of having more women is to be able to make games women will like." This is a fairly common argument among people who suggest that diversity is something which should be actively aimed for.

I have never really found it persuasive, personally, although I like it a lot more than the quotas-for-quotas sake rationalization. Here's my beef: people are Ruby objects, not Java objects. They can have all sorts of weird behavior added at runtime that other instances of the same class don't have.

You could, for example, monkey patch an instance of Female on the fly with acts_as_fps_developer, or have an instance of Male which responds_to develop_product_for_female_audience. Moreover, this is not weird or unexpected in any way. So why would you assume that your ability to develop_product_for_female_audience increases linearly as the number of developers who are instances of Female increases?

Instance of: it's a code smell in Ruby, it's a code smell in hiring.

(Yeah yeah, I know, Java can do dependency injection these days. It's a metaphor, deal.)

The problem with stereotypes being excluded is you also tend to exclude people outside that stereotype who think that way. The Sims is a great game for the "Girl" demographic "Barby Dress up" not so much. The problem with "Barby Dress up" style games is you can't do the play acting that most girls do when playing with dolls. It completely misses the point for people of both genders who play with dolls and or action figures.

The Sims on the other hand let's people roll play real life while expanding on the core idea to make it even more fun.

PS: Growing up my little sister liked, Pet's, and Roller Coaster Tycoon, and some RPG's. But, at 18 she completely stooped gaming. Some of that is time constants but mostly it's sitting out of the target audience of most gaming companies.

In context, I read it as an admonishment to not get hung up on race, creed, or gender, but to realize that creativity and intellect are better things to focus on. With some fluffy encouragement.

(Btw, I wasn't saying Patio's interpretation of her statement, although I see where he's coming from.)

Somehow the process that is selecting computer programmers out of the general population disproportionately selects men. Unless you believe that the dearth of women in the field is driven by biology (and there the evidence is against you), it's pretty clear that women are being deterred from hacking by social factors. Saying "we need more women in CS" is equivalent to saying, let's stop driving half the talent out of our field.

Perhaps I should have said "Lack of women in the field..." But I was trying to be general. I implicitly agree that the problem is social, and was trying to say "crap, with a dearth of women we're missing out on many (?) of the most talented programmers." But that last sentence was a bit off.

Now, I believe words matter and can warp intentions over time and there is a danger of getting into a quota-for-quota's-sake mindset (as patio put it). I think that will alienate women as being somehow different from the majority of us, when they have more in common with us than with the rest of the population.

So, we kinda agree, I was trying to say what you said, but I think "we need more women in CS" is subtly and notably different. ...partially due to guys asking if they're hot or not... (bottom of thread)

I think the kind of comments that settle at the bottom of these threads are a good demonstration of why so many women get turned off of computerland.

You should add some evidence to your comments... I've seen no evidence women are driven away en masse from programming by anything other than their own wants and desires.

I hang out on IRC quite a lot, and if someone brings up the fact that they're a woman, most people are just 'meh'... it's irrelevant to how they're treated and the value they add to discussion etc. That's one of the great things about this industry - it really does not matter.

Girls and boys are very very different biologically, with extremely different strengths and weaknesses. Extremely different brains. Lets stop pretending they're the same.

I think you mean, people are very different biologically, with extremely different strengths and weaknesses and extremely different brains. You cannot reliably make any predictions about a particular person's behaviours, aptitudes or motivations if given only the fact that she's a woman.

No, I don't.

The evidence, as I said, is actually against you. http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Gender-Difference-in-Lear...

What the paper you linked to actually proves:

girls' math scores are just as variable as boys' in some countries and some ethnic groups in the United States such as Asian Americans

I could even grant you that this result transfers to all ethnicities, but still legitimately ask: so what? If yesterday's evidence of differing math scores didn't imply differing ability to you, then equal math scores today shouldn't imply equal ability either. Make up your mind, will ya. Till then I'll consider you to be cherrypicking evidence to support a feel-good conclusion.

I'm guessing you don't have kids yourself. Once you have a girl and a boy the differences are startling and obvious.

People prefer "we need more X in blah" because the alternative turns a moral conclusion into a practical question.

We are obviously missing a few skilled women. We are also missing a few skilled men. If your only goal is to get the most skilled people possible, the practical question to ask, is "which group is it cheaper/easier to recruit more of?"

Another inspiring woman programmer is Niniane formerly from Google and Microsoft.

http://niniane.org/

http://www.ofb.net/~niniane/resume.html

Brief snippets from her resume:

  Google:

   * Founder, Lively by Google

    o Created vision, got project chartered.

    o Built and led a team through technical design and implementation. 

    o Co-inventor on 5 pending patents. 

   * Tech lead, Gmail Ads

  Microsoft:

   * Software Design Engineer Lead, Microsoft Flight Simulator

Also featured in Google's recruiting campaign:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/05/brilliant-niniane-w...

However, she left Google recently after 5 years:

http://niniane.blogspot.com/2009/02/life-updates.html

I appreciate the intention and downmodded you anyway. "Wow, I've heard of a woman programmer, too!" is stigmatizing, although I'm sure that wasn't intended.

I work in Japan, and am one of probably three white guys in my industry in the greater Nagoya area. (That is an exaggeration, but not much of one.) When I get introduced to someone in a professional context, almost without fail, I hear something to the effect of "Wow, you're American? I met an American once." God does that get old.

Yes, I'm an American, but I'm not here in the wow-an-American context, I am here in the valued-professional-employed-by-the-firm-you-are-in-business-with context. I suppose the appropriate remark would be "Oh, a Big Freaking Enterprise Web Apps Java programmer -- I've met one of you before!". (Now, of course, nobody will say that because it is stupid and insipid... but the original was, too, with an extra soupcon of unintentionally insulting added to the mix.)

I think that's a chip on your shoulder, not a reflection on the previous comment.

I work with plenty of women programmers, but whooptie-doo. I think the intention of the previous comment is clearly to point to Niniane as an inspiring programmer[1], who also happens to be female. On-topic for this story, and not stigmatizing, unless you feel simply discussing female under-representation is stigmatizing.

1. well, minus Lively

How is Japan to live in, btw? I have been told they are very closed to foreigners. Can you make friends despite your ethnicity?

10 second version: Some Japanese people dislike foreigners. (Please see my comments above about people being Ruby objects, because that is relevant here, too.) I have good friends, a nice church, and a decent job at a company which is happy to overwork me insanely no matter my skin color.

It should be pointed out that this is "Microsoft's Halo Team" which is not Bungie. Bungie is no longer a part of the company, but Microsoft still owns the IP rights to Halo.

Bungie is developing "Halo: ODST", to be released this year, as well "Halo: REACH" which is only at the teaser phase. Microsoft is developing their own game engine for their own Halo games.

Here's her Moby Games page: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,68...

It seems like she's recently transferred from Gearbox to Microsoft, since she references both Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

I guess she's working on Halo: Reach

I'd hit it!

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