[slashdot]Do Women Write Better Code?

[EndUnknown]

"The senior vice-president of engineering for computer-database company Ingres-and one of Silicon Valley's highest-ranking female programmers-insists that men and women write code differently. Women are more touchy-feely and considerate of those who will use the code later, she says. They'll intersperse their code... with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it. The code becomes a type of "roadmap" for others who might want to alter it or add to it later, says McGrattan, a native of Ireland who has been with Ingres since 1992. Men, on the other hand, have no such pretenses. Often, "they try to show how clever they are by writing very cryptic code," she tells the Business Technology Blog. "They try to obfuscate things in the code," and don't leave clear directions for people using it later. "


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[MasterSprtn117]

Weird..
But it's fun being cryptic.

[Nurta]

wait, girls can code?

[EndUnknown]

Originally Posted by Nurta

wait, girls can code?

it is uncommon, like male cheerleaders, except without crotch hugging uniforms.

[MasterSprtn117]

Originally Posted by Dark616

it is uncommon, like male cheerleaders, except without crotch hugging uniforms.

So basically, they exist; it's just that no one cares.

[Bear holding a shark]

I thought girls liked mystery..

[nashtok]

The two girls in our programming class suck...
By the way, what is wrong with writing obscenely cryptic code Aside from bad grades...

[Bear holding a shark]

Originally Posted by nashtok

The two girls in our programming class suck...
By the way, what is wrong with writing obscenely cryptic code Aside from bad grades...

I took ICS I and I had to write explainatory steps for every command. 'twas the gay.

[Jest311]

Originally Posted by Saline

I took ICS I and I had to write explainatory steps for every command. 'twas the gay.

Same. And it got worse in college. Every program, module, or function had to have a flow chart, description paragraph and comment for each line.

     i++; /* increment the i counter, used to yadayadyada */
} /* end the while loop */

You get the idea. And yes, for loops were not allowed in one of my classes.

I mostly agree with what one of the commenter's said:

Standards are in place to document code changes pretty much everywhere, and not unique to Ingres. Code commenting generally has standards in most I.T. departments as well. I do tend to agree women are more wordy in their comments, but it’s not necessarily more helpful (why say in two sentences what can be said in two words(extreme example)). Extensive commenting can also be seen as a bad thing (i.e., code bloat).

But yeah, I right really small comments, but often have to do more depending on who is instructing or marking my stuff. My friend at another school writes huge explanations, and always has.

[SilentWalrus]

It depends on if they are better trained or know what they are doing.
|Mostly it's men because that's the way the children these days have been told to think.
Listen women stay in the kitchen.
Let men bring home the digital bacon.|