Frustrated; Demoralized; Tired of arguing
I am described by all of these things. A lot of interesting things have been said over the past two weeks. A lot of horrible things have been said too. There is no community consensus. Instead we have what political pundits refer to as a “circular firing squad.” Its not even that the community is divided into separate camps, we can’t even agree on what the terms of the debate are. At this point, no forward progress is being made.
There is more, much more, to be said about gender and the tech world. I personally have things to say about the subject. But right now, there’s not a lot of listening going on. Everyone doing the talking has dug in, and are now just slinging recriminations.
Nick Sieger suggests that we should stand up and speak when we see objectionable behavior. He is absolutely right. We should talk with our friends and colleagues, and make clear what we think. But, we shouldn’t stop there. We can and should do one better. We should do what agile, DYI flash mobs do best. Let’s channel our efforts into making the world a better place.
Go out and help someone. If you think it’s important to recruit women in the Ruby world, do it. It’s good that we’re expressing our opinions, but it’s more important to make the world a better place, not just wish that it were.
Personally, i’ve offered to teach about Sphinx and full text searching.
What are you going to do?
