In between statements like “who don’t men ask for directions” and “why are women always right (in their mind)?", there’s a new kid on the block: do women write better, more understandable code, than men?
Emma McGrattan, female programmer, seems to think so.
Emma McGrattan, 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–those strings of instructions that result in nifty applications and programs–with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it. (source)
She goes on explaining that men will try to write complicated code, to show off their intelligence, while women will document more, so others working on the code after them – would find it easier to get started.
Why do men write complicated code? Sure we like to brag, but don’t we all? I’m guessing we write more cryptic code, because we believe it to be more efficient, saving us 0.000001ms in compiling and executing time.
Does anyone have examples of “typical code” written by a male or female? Standard, daily scenes that are programmed – i’d be more than happy to read the differences :-)