Comment by aragot
11 years ago
As read in an earlier HN post, being a programmer is all about having been socially excluded from evry circle. At 7 yo, excluded from football. At 8 from the local bike boys. At 16 from any group at high school. At student age because I'm a nerd. At 29 because a woman stepped ahead for the management job I hoped for. Do I look unhappy? I still have the best job someone could hope for. And tolerant friends.
Part of the happy programmer's life is, being socially excluded and building a potentially successful life for above social considerations.
A similar experience of being an outsider also pushed me into programming. I think it's sad that although so many in programming can directly empathize with feeling excluded, there's such a push to protect exclusionary aspects of the programming world.
Congrats to us, we've paid forward the insults, instead of making a better space.
Amusingly, wasn't the original 'brogrammer' pitch used to describe programmers that were not excluded from the rest of male culture; that fitted in with the 'usual' non-nerdy male fraternity stereotypes - athletic and sporty or physical - but also intelligent...?