I have dealt with a number of DRY fanatics who seem to think perfect adherence to the acronym outweighs even having a program that does what it is supposed to do. People sometimes forget that their job is to solve problems rather than writing perfect programs.

You may be correct. The sort answer is that it is difficult to know. I think the common perception, which may or may not jive with reality is that the rich are treated more leniently. I have a few personal anecdotes but I'm not going to introduce them; I acknowledge they may warp my own perception. It's just that many people have similar anecodes which makes them more difficult to ignore.

Is the case you described the common case, and do you think it precludes the other? There is still a perception that the rich are reasonably untouched by laws :

Look at outliers like the 'affluenza' case http://www.slate.com/blogs/the... or the case of the crook judge who owed lots of taxes and put the screws on poor people who could not pay their fines. http://crooksandliars.com/2015....

Those just cement the popular perception that justice is a luxury item.

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So true, so true. It applies to any sort of power structure organization.

I think the idea is that is supposed to be more an incentive to not get a ticket, so that the sting hurts everyone equally. It would have to be carefully implemented to not be abusive.

It is probably an emotional response to seeing some rich **** flaunt the law with zero consequence to themselves, where a ticket like that could destroy someone scraping by : see http://www.slate.com/articles/.... I have sympathy for the idea and when I was in Germany, there were similar laws.

But seriously, that's pretty fun. I hope they don't screw it up.

If you are a smart nerd, you realize that you are dealing in anecdotal evidence and know the pitfalls of that. Your thought process seems to be : "I got beat up, therefore girls in general have it easier than I did." If that is truly your thought process, it tells a lot about whether or not you are a smart nerd or not. High school was a social meat grinder with no positive memories for me, and I still recognize the advantages I have had even through that horrible time.

Logically, you know those who were drawn to CS and actually made it into the program, but have negligible information about those who were drawn to CS and discouraged from it.

You really don't believe in a gender bias? Really? There is ample evidence for it. http://blogs.scientificamerica...
[ tldr: a study shows that the exact same resume gets statistically significant different responses when male or female names are attached to it ]

Of course sons are praised for being strong, and they are also praised for being smart. Even the dumb ones are praised for being smart the few times they do something not stupid.

I am not saying that women can work harder than men can.
I'm saying that the work men do is often given more merit.
I'm also saying that women are more actively discouraged from tech than men are, and men are more actively encouraged to get into tech. Why you would think 'good' in the same thought as 'discouraged' is a mystery to me.

Historically sons are praised for being clever and daughters for being pretty. That is an enormous societal pressure right there.

Were you discouraged because of grades, or because of your gender?

She had _great_ grades in high school and was still discouraged. She did more than what was asked and worked solid and hard and did not let herself get distracted by drugs or booze.

I know as well as you do that there isn't a guaranteed correlation between grades and success. What correlation there is, however, is a whole lot less arbitrary than gender is.

While you were in high school getting discouraged, were you working your ass off for high school and working your ass off at a job only to go home and be expected to clean the house spotless every day? Did you pay that many dues? Did you have time to watch TV or drink or toke or anything like that?

She was trying to get out of there fast. She went to the first place she could afford to work her way through and pay for on her own.

"Constant discouragement from everyone" sounds a little fishy to me. Were you ever told by a guidance councilor to not bother?

So you consider yourself sabotaged? Actively discouraged? Are you one of those who thinks a mere 10 hours a day of hard work is something special? Did you know beforehand what you wanted to be? If you have a single interesting path, you will fight tooth and nail to keep it open. If there are 10 interesting paths, you will not fight as hard to keep a single one from closing.

You might not realize this, but there is a societal myth of the ignored loner male turning into some brilliant computer guy. It's possible that did not influence you, but it is more likely that it did.

Well, you didn't get your acceptance letter from Carnage Mellon University engineering program tossed in the trash without being told until later, didya? Happened to my wife.

I would bet that you've never ever been discouraged from tech one bit. But now you are an expert of how to behave when discouraged? Yeahno.

There is no evidence that female programmers write any differently than male ones, but there is plenty of evidence that they are treated differently.

You are right in that there has been a push to get women into computer science. There has to be a pull from industry, too. The students should be taken just as seriously as any other, but that does not happen and nor is it likely anytime soon without a push from people inside the industry http://blogs.scientificamerica....

In other words, many women have left tech because they were treated like shit there and they decided they would no longer going to take that crap any longer. You can pretend that is not so and turn a blind eye to it. I don't know if it is a learned behavior or if there is something intrinsic in humans that causes this. All I can do is hope for the former.

You mention wartime and yes, women did get a big boost in careers to fill the void that working men left behind, see the Rosie the Riveter character. Once them men came back, the women were expected to leave the workforce, to leave their jobs that they were doing perfectly well, and get back to raising children. You might be somehow immune from social pressure, but it weighs heavily on most people.

I'm just going to leave this here : http://blogs.scientificamerica...

Of course a person is not going to be so hot for a career where they are paid less for the same value and have to deal with not being taken seriously. That is not on the women, that is a matter of corporate culture. That is a huge disadvantage. You seem to be claiming that this bias does not exist and that all is a fair level playing field. Is that what you believe? How would you tell one way or an other?

No one is stopping a fracture victim from a race; they can crawl if they want to. They didn't win, well that is on them - they did not try hard enough.