[rhspeer]

Oh no, be prepared for some really harsh criticism for the "your mother could do it". I did that here: http://www.robertspeer.com/blog/apostrophenow-a-cms-so-easy-..., it's not because my mom's dumb, she's kind of a big deal in the cruise agent world (http://www.cntraveler.com/travel-tips/travel-specialists/lin...) and the kind of person I don't mind talking about on the internet, because she's also a bit of a badass. It's because she's my harshest critic, in the nicest (ish) way and will not tolerate wp & drupal's nonsense.

It's not that mother's are ignorant, it's that mother's care about your success more than your feelings and will tell you drupal & wordpress suck no matter how much work you put into it. I'm working on a new Apostrophe 2 site for her now. Mom if you read this it's coming, and it'll be good I promise :)

[deedubaya]

My mother wouldn't be able to build a website with traditional tools. With SimplyBuilt, she could.

My mother falls into this stereotype that everyone is hating on. If anyone should be offended by this, I should be in that crowd. I'm not offended, because a) she's not dumb, she just hasn't been given the right tools until now b) this post isn't really about my mother or someone else's mother.

Good thing I didn't say "a caveman could do it" as I might be in a similar situation. Except with cavemen. Or people related to cavemen.

[rhspeer]

Perhaps this stereotype reflects poorly on both men and women. Mothers may be more likely to get involved in a new experience and demonstrate their ignorance, but fathers may be less likely to put themselves through the feelings of vulnerability required to learn something new.

Nobody likes feeling stupid, I would assume, this is magnified by how one wants to appear to their children.

My father liked his website but I had to keep it updated for him, he would not participate in it.

[kazinator]

The stereotype is statistically true in the sense that many (probably most) programmers have a mother who isn't a programmer. Secondly, most programmers' mothers are 20-35 years older than they are. So even if they are also programmers themselves, they are senior, which means many of them are probably not coding any more (or are possibly retired,even). They wouldn't be able to build a web site without ramping up on how it's done. Nobody is saying that anyone's mother is an idiot.

What is troublesome, though, is that the example person is invariably a female ancestor or relative: it is always "mother", "grandmother" or "kid sister" ("encryption scheme that will keep out your kid sister but not the NSA").

Many programmers have a father or grandfather who are not programmers, or technologically savvy. Many have a prying kid brother rather than kid sister.

[rhspeer]

in hindsight we both should have substituted would for could