Testosterone-fueled software development

A business-technology blogger for the Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Buckman, posits that there’s an innate difference in coding style between male and female programmers.

In her June 6 posting, “Men Write Code from Mars, Women Write More Helpful Code from Venus,” Buckman leads by throwing out another gender stereotype. This broad brushstroke, presented as unassailable fact, undermines her conclusion’s credibility right off the bat.

“We all know men hate to ask for directions. Apparently they loathe putting directions in computer code, too,” Buckman writes.

Buckman based her broad characterization of male and female programmers on the comments of one female software executive in Silicon Valley, Ingres’ Emma McGratten.

McGratten’s point, as amplified by Buckman, is that smart women write beautifully clear software to communicate better with their colleagues, while stupid men write cryptic code to show off how clever they think they are. Yay, women. Boo, men.

That’s why McGratten believes there’s a “big need to fix testosterone-fueled code at Ingres because only about 20% of the engineers are women.”

What a load of nonsense. I expect better from the WSJ.