Can you add an easier way to browse the quotes people have already posted? Also, if you spend a few days adding more quotes to the database, the site would be a lot more fun to hang out on. Consider that there may be viewers who want to observe passively before adding anything themselves.

I am a female and I am only friends with equals, both men and women.

Here's an idea I've seen on other sites: before a comment is approved, the poster has to go through a page that contains general posting guidelines. Often it seems people write something quickly, without stopping to think whether it might be offensive. This would give them an extra chance to censor their contribution.

This reminds me of Waiting For Godot: "ESTRAGON: And so on. VLADIMIR: The point is— ESTRAGON: Until he comes. VLADIMIR: You're merciless. ESTRAGON: We came here yesterday. VLADIMIR: Ah no, there you're mistaken. ESTRAGON: What did we do yesterday? VLADIMIR: What did we do yesterday? ESTRAGON: Yes. VLADIMIR: Why . . . (Angrily.) Nothing is certain when you're about. ESTRAGON: In my opinion we were here. VLADIMIR: (looking round). You recognize the place? ESTRAGON: I didn't say that."

My question is: what is it about the naivete of the uninformed/the queries of the inexperienced, which incite such revulsion in the mind of a programmer? Aside from the fact that obviously no one wants to waste time filling someone in on the basics, or do their work for them? Something about being an outsider is, sometimes, inherently looked down upon in this field, it seems. These aren't isolated incidents, is it some sort of reflex? Could it be an assumption of stupidity, because how could any cognizant human be unable to think in that way?

I think there's a few factors at work:

1) The programmer was there once, and probably worked through it on their own. Nobody held their hand.

2) The information being asked is probably in every programming book every written and duplicated hundreds of thousands of times on the internet.

3) Dealing with past programmer-hopefuls has been really disappointing as most of them never get anywhere.

Helping people learn is -awesome-. Holding their hand and doing everything for them is horrifyingly boring and frustrating.

At work, I've had people who were genuinely interested in working hard and learning. They were great and I don't regret a second of the time I spent. These people were generally inclined to look things up for themselves, and only ask for help when they get stuck.

I've had others that I gave way more time than the good learners and they were going nowhere. Then management stepped in and told me I didn't give them enough time and demanded that I spend 1-2 hours every day with them. After weeks of losing 5-10 hours a week, I finally managed to get management to see that no amount of time would help. These people were generally inclined to wait until they could ask a question, instead of looking it up for themselves. It often meant days of non-productivity since they get lost again as soon as you leave their desk.

So to conclude, when a novice programmer asks a really naive question, the first response is to assume they haven't done any legwork on their own, and so the question is really annoying.

That's a lot of syllables to ask, "Why are there so many assholes in this field?"

The answer is low self-esteem and/or poor social skills.

These are the kids the girls overlooked in school for the jocks... No wonder they're inexperienced.

Ah! But did the girls overlook them because they naturally preferred jocks? Or did they overlook them because even when they were younger they lacked a certain social ability that other kids had?

My youthful experience was that nerds tended to be just as sexually active as jocks. They just tended to be active in different ways.

A little of both I guess. Note that I am not saying girls "deserve" it at college for what they did (or rather didn't) do at school. But y'know, as frustrated as she is, that kid had probably explained the ls command a hundred times to people. Both blaming the other for their inexperience.

Hmm. I see where you're coming from, but I don't think that the kid's impatience and intolerance necessarily came from the fact that she was a she. I'm a guy who's seen plenty of exasperation and arrogance from other guys.

(And on the flip side, I know a few programmers who are incredibly nice and patient people but still have problems talking to girls. So I'm not denying that some guys find girls intimidating. But I think that inexperience isn't necessarily what leads to poor social skills in other areas.)

Yep true - but if she'd had any experience of geeks she'd just have shrugged it off as nothing personal.

Only if she had a certain intolerance for that kind of behavior. I don't think it should be expected that she has to conform to their behavior. That's not the polite expectation, anyway.

I don't associate with many geekier types of people, despite a lot of overlapping interests, for precisely this reason. I'm very sensitive and easily hurt/annoyed by that kind of behavior. So I avoid a lot of things that I'm actively interested in because the crowd is so abominable. The gaming world in particular; I don't even look at games which draw is online play, because I've never found an online gaming community that I've felt comfortable being a part of.

True, but equally true if he'd had experience of girls/non-geeks/whoever he'd be more likely to adjust his delivery accordingly.

Basically I don't hold with the notion that there is a gang of males deliberately driving women away from tech.

Oh, definitely not deliberately! But inaction can be just as harmful sometimes, if our natural actions are serving to drive others away.

The argument isn't whether or not some people, including many women, are turned off by the current culture of programming. They absolutely are. The argument is whether it's the responsibility of the current culture to try and adjust its ways to let more people in, or if it's okay to let it stay the way it is. People in this thread are making arguments for each side.

What do men do when entering female dominated professions (e.g. primary school teaching)?

After the government forces them to prove they're not pedophiles, of course. Say what you like about the software industry, we don't have ritual humiliation baked into law.

Not only can I not program, but in addition to that I am a female. In the past I've tried to ask questions from throw away accounts, which were poorly received. So I limit myself to reading and refrain from posting anything. It's better that I don't participate anyway, since I would be wasting a lot of valuable time, which I need to use for my other projects. The amount I've learned in the last year is staggering, and I recommend this site to friends.

I resemble some of those remarks: I also can't program and I also happen to be female. And my questions tend to not get much feedback. But I have a long, long history of falling on my face in that regard, starting well before I ever heard of Hacker News, so I don't think it's "them". I'm pretty darn sure it's me. I participate anyway. It's been a growth experience and I like it here.

YMMV, and probably will.

It's difficult to interpret this mapquest version of live traffic conditions. They are showing the traffic on every tiny street all at the same time, not just major roads and highways, so it's hard to see what's even on the map at all. Google maps does a better job of leaving the smaller streets out of the traffic image, and then displaying them only when you zoom in.

I signed up and I love it. It seems to be geared towards fiction though. Is there a way to use it to help organize ideological themes and subtopics, so you could switch them around and put them in different orders? Maybe a place to set down main ideas so they could be elaborated on at a later time?

for the main ideas, I just use a new book. As for subtopics and switching them around, I would use the chapters section, which is completely sortable.