Comment by cyen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cyen | Hacker News Reader

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Yup, they're as free to attend the same industry events as anyone else. The same way girls are just as free as the boys to play football, the same way men are just as free to be interested in ballet or (to borrow an example from above) crocheting as women.

How many times have you skidded away from attending an event (professional, social, whatever) because you didn't know anyone there? How many more would you have avoided if you knew everyone there was Not Like You, in some fundamental, if suck-it-up-able, way?

I'm still on the fence in terms of whether minorities (numerically in this industry) deserve 'special treatment' - but if members of a minority choose to reach out to each other (networking events, dinners, scholarships), who are we to criticize?

Is girls playing football really the example you want to use? FYI, girls don't play football because most girls are too weak and slow to play (for biological reasons). Regarding ballet, men are actively encouraged to join ballet due to the fact that ballet (unlike coding) has explicit male/female roles and a shortage of men willing to fill those roles.

In any case, I'm not criticizing, just pointing out a bad argument. They can have their little Ruby on Rails "you go girl" event, I have no desire to go. Although I've never attended such an event, I'm told they suck; {Good AND girl} is a much smaller set than simply {good}.

Much smaller, eh? Not, say, 50% smaller, even though they're selecting out non-developers by being a Rails workshop?

If 90% of RoR coders are men, I'd expect the set {good AND girl} to be about 90% smaller than the set {good}.

But suppose you are right. Simple thought experiment: take a workshop, and throw away half the good people. Is the workshop just as good as before?

Depends on how crowded the workshop was. Small is good. The crypto class we're giving in Chicago in a couple weeks was deliberately limited to 20 people.

If by throwing away half the prospectives, the remaining half can learn faster or more comfortably, then I'd go with "better", not "just as good".

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