Sure. But I'd put my hours up against any of them.

Okay. But you're an outlier in your profession. Medical residents and partner-seeking attorneys are all expected to work long hours. Regardless, even if the avg. hours worked by software dev's were on par with the avg. hours worked by partner-track attorneys that wouldn't detract from my point, which was that women go into those two fields despite the long hours. Ergo "the long hours" isn't a great explanation for women not going into software dev.

Part of that was my willingness to take on the hard work that others were "too good" for or were worried that they were being taken advantage of if they had to work extra.

I was mostly responding to what seems to be the prevailing view on slashdot that working "crazy hours" is part and parcel with software dev. In my experience that's not the case.

How are you going to ungeekify programming, or even science?

Good question. It's interesting that computer science (and math, and electrical engineering, and physics) have the geek stigma while other STEM-y disciplines (biological research, chemistry, civil engineering) don't. If I had to guess, I think it might stem from the former being seen as "arcane" and "inaccessible", regardless of whether that's actually true. The former also tend to have subcultures build up around them that might be a turnoff for some women.

We can try to show that not all female STEM workers are uncool.

I don't think that would be enough. Mainly because even if not all female STEM workers are uncool, they still have to work around a bunch of uncool male STEM workers and who wants that? The whole field is tainted with the stigma of geek culture.

But notice what I did. I offered something, but I then thought twice about it. The reason? In trying to achive the mythical gender balance, there are people who will bring out their own pet theories. But sad to say, most of them I've heard lately all say one thing. Men are pigs.

In general, men are pigs. And I say that as a man. But I don't think "men are pigs" by itself is a good explanation for women not choosing STEM careers.

I'm certainly not saying women can't handle the workload. I mentioned medical residency as a counterpoint to the argument that women don't go into tech professions because of the long hours.

You say "what you're worth" as though it's an absolute value like the price of gold.

More or less, yes. A given candidate will fetch a certain price in a certain market. That's how much he or she is "worth" when it comes to asking for compensation. If you ask for more than you're "worth" then you will likely not be employed. Adjust your asking price downwards and, assuming prospective employers are aware of this fact, your odds of getting job offers increases.

Even so, a lot of the "worth" isn't in what you can do as much as it is in how much they like you, and anyone who's ever worked in an office with protected deadwood can attest that tht isn't neccesarily related to your intelligence, talent, work ethic or even what you deliver.

Agreed. Regardless, what I said stand. If your asking price is higher than a 22-year old but prospective employers deem you of equal "worth" to a 22-year old then obviously they're going to offer the 22-year old and not you. If your asking price is equal to the 22-year old's then it's a toss-up. So if you're 30 years old and can't find a job then either you're so flawed as to be unemployable at any price or your asking price is just too high.

Broadcast all you like. People believe what they want to believe when valuing candidates.

In my experience, hiring folks tend to believe what they're told by recruiters when it comes to how much a candidate expects to get paid. If a recruiter tells me, "Joe is looking for $90" then I'll assume that's actually what Joe's expecting. I may not offer him that much, but if I'm not looking to spend more than $60 then maybe I opt not to bring Joe in for an interview because he's out of my price range. Had Joe told his recruiter that he'd accept $60, and his recruiter relayed that information to me, then maybe I'd interview him and maybe he'd end up getting the job.

Consider the time demands on medical residents. Or attorneys trying to make partner. And yet women go into those fields. Btw, on another note, it has not been my experience in 15 years as a developer that the time demands are out of whack with other relatively high paying professions. If I ever had a job that matched up with the stereotype (frequent all-nighters, etc.) I would quit. My personal opinion for women's disproportionately low interest in software is the cultural baggage. For whatever reason they're more averse than men to associating themselves with the computer programmer stereotype, even if they themselves don't fit that stereotype. Women seem to be, at an aggregate level, less willing to pursue "geeky" professions. Medicine, despite requiring science classes and long hours, doesn't carry the same stigma as CS and EE.

Note that I didn't say "what you think you're worth" but "what you're worth". If a 30 year old is no more productive than a 22 year old then he should make it clear to potential employers that he's available for a 22-year old's salary. He should broadcast that, in fact, he is no more "expensive" than the 22-year old. If he does this successfully then "22-year olds are cheaper" is no longer a reason for employers to not hire him.

There's no reason for the younger worker to be cheaper. If, at age 30 with 8 years experience, you're not actually worth more than someone age 22 with zero years experience then why in the world would you expect to be paid more?

For the 2009-2010 school year men received 42.6% of bachelor's degrees awarded. Rates were higher for associate's and master's degrees, but lower for doctorates. Data here.

I wonder if you are aware that your rationalization "X is OK if it's profitable"....

That's not my rationale. In this case, Facebook declining to release these stats does no direct harm to anyone. Facebook doesn't "owe" us transparency w.r.t. the composition of its workforce. Shareholders are potentially owed that data, but only if enough of them decide they want to see it and vote accordingly.

It's no big surprise that the megacorps work this way, but to find public support for the highly sociopathic profit motive is more surprising, and indeed disturbing.

Nothing wrong, per se, with the "profit motive" as you put it. Obviously much wrong can be done (and is done) in the name of profits, and its not something I support. What irritates me is the sense people have in this case that Facebook is somehow doing something "wrong" by not releasing its data. Why is that the case? Do they have a moral imperative to be transparent w.r.t. the diversity of their workforce? Why?

He'll release the Facebook stats if and when there's a compelling profit motive to do so, and not a minute sooner. And I don't hold that against him one bit.

I'm very, very surprised that refrigerators aren't #2. Or possibly electric water heaters, in houses that have them.

1. It's a waste of resources to put every student through an AP CS class. As the article notes, most won't get anything out of it. Moreover, most have no interest.

2. While AP CS is only offered in 10% of schools, you have to remember there's some self-selection going on with respect to which school a student attends. The sort of students interested in CS and likely to benefit from an AP CS class will seek out a school where it's actually offered.

3. While students and their parents have some agency with respect to what school they attend, they don't have complete agency so some students will undoubtedly fall through the cracks. I mention self-selection only to point out that the # of students falling through the cracks is likely less than the "only 10% of schools offer AP CS" statistic would suggest.

"...or uses ARM-specific processor features..."

I'll count byte order as a processor feature.

Basically there's C code and then there's architecture-optimized C code. The former should be easily ported between architectures. So, if an app's native code is architecture-agnostic and the dev doesn't include x86 (and MIPS, for that matter) versions then he's just being lazy.

Unless the native code includes ARM-specific inline assembly or uses ARM-specific processor features then the lack of x86 libs is just due to laziness on the part of developers. All the dev would need to do is compile his native code for x86 and include it in the APK. Devs feel free to be "lazy" in this way because ARM is so prevalent relative to x86.

Motorola should totally cut a deal with Lucasfilm (or Disney, or whoever owns the rights now) and put out a commercial that plays off that line from Star Wars. Could maybe make some fake desert footage of a guy looking for a phone and splice it in with clips of Alec Guinness from the movie. People would eat it up.

especially because to function in society today you have to be online.

First of all, no you don't. Second of all, what percentage of low-income families without home broadband have at least one smartphone with a data plan? Voila; they're online.