I'm not really familiar enough with the subject to know whether I should be. If there are any serious studies out there about gender and code quality, I'd love to read them. While gender itself may well be irrelevant when it comes to programming aptitude, the way that a society treats girls and women (and the fact that it may be (is, for mine) different than the way it treats boys and men) could influence how many/which women go into the world of programming, which might in turn influence the quality of what they produce.
I can't remember ever meeting a female programmer that I didn't later come to respect for their skill. Anecdotal evidence isn't really useful, though.
edit: Good point. I guess that if a correlation may exist for women by this logic, it may well also exist for non-mainstream sexual orientations.
I can't remember ever meeting a female programmer that I didn't later come to respect for their skill. Anecdotal evidence isn't really useful, though.
edit: Good point. I guess that if a correlation may exist for women by this logic, it may well also exist for non-mainstream sexual orientations.