[dudifordMann]

Hey, don't keep pushing that stereotype on us. Software engineering, much like other disciplines, have people from all backgrounds and capabilities. I hate the idea that the persistence of these beliefs can effect the industry further, possibly leading to some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy where good communication skills are not expected.

Routinely software engineers need to give presentations to customers, have to collaborate with other disciplines, and provide clear written and verbal communication.

This type of thinking is, I believe, the same mentality that keeps women out of STEM career paths. Just because you have a small sample set that leads you to believe we are poor communicators, do not broad brush it and assume most software folk are as inept.

[rjzzleep]

I'm sure you enjoy dilbert a lot.

But more seriously, software engineers are merely the loudest of all engineering professions. Hardly the end-all and be-all. A significant portion of software engineers, never even had a scientific education(programming doesn't have to be scientific, though it can be, and almost every programmer calls himself a software engineer).

> This type of thinking is, I believe, the same mentality that keeps women out of STEM career paths.

i'm probably going to get a lot of hate for saying that, but

... no offence, you just pulled that out of your ass. people don't generally know what professions are like until they actually start working in them. Law is arguably way more racist, sexist and whatnot, but that doesn't stop women from doing it. The same goes for banking. It's just better marketed in central european culture.

and if you're going to make such an argument be sure to include the socioeconomic background that is relevant to that statement.

i personally had to witness the culture clash, when all the persian part of the family was encouraging a girl on how she's going to be successful doing her engineering studies and all the german part of the family saying she couldn't do it and she should instead just study language. incidently iran is also the country where 2/3s of the stem graduates are women and they recently passed laws for male quotas. when i say family, it includes aunts/uncles/cousins and even friends of the difference social backgrounds.

Not once in the entire discussion did anyone consider the potential work environment, the study environment or anything of the likes, nor would they even know. It was just a difference in mentality. The only people truely capable to make qualified statements on the matter were people that watched her teach math to friends high school friends.

And yes, I know, empirically proven doesn't mean it applies everywhere, but then the same applies to your statement.

EDIT: i kind of knew, but so much hate and not even a comment to justify. so, one just started learning angularjs and has now become a frontend (software) engineer and may now not only speak on behalf of the entire engineering population of the globe, but also on behalf of stem in general. that's at least questionable don't you think?

[apta]

> A significant portion of software engineers, never even had a scientific education(programming doesn't have to be scientific, though it can be...

Such people can't be called engineers then. I find it amusing when I see titles such as "JavaScript engineer" or "HTML engineer", etc.

> ...and almost every programmer calls himself a software engineer

This seems to be a culture in the USA mainly. From what I have seen, Canada is much more strict about having the proper credentials to be able to call yourself an engineer.

[golergka]

> I find it amusing when I see titles such as "JavaScript engineer" or "HTML engineer", etc.

It is amusing indeed, but for a different reason — because "iron engineer" or "rubber engineer" (in case of hardware engineers) would be just as amusing.

The lack of formal scientific education doesn't mean that engineer in question doesn't have the exact same amount of knowledge — it merely means that he chose other ways to acquire it.

[dudifordMann]

I'm having the hardest time following the flow of your statements, which are riddled with assumptions that I, at their base, don't agree with.

> A significant portion of software engineers, never even had a scientific education

I'm not sure that I follow. What is it that you consider a "scientific education"? where do you get your significant figure from?

>... no offence, you just pulled that out of your ass.

I was not stating any statistical evidence, just a belief I have that if you cast a particular field in a negative light, claiming that a majority of people in those fields are poor communicators, that anyone might avoid that field, which I would imagine includes women, so perhaps I should have abstracted away a bit.

> i personally had to witness the culture clash...

I don't discount that cultural or familial background does not play a role in where a person ends up in his or her career, nor did I claim that work/study environment cannot play a factor. But stereotypes, both positive and negative, can have an impact on anyone's perspective on any field.

As to your Dilbert comment, I'm assuming you're trying to be funny or use some sort of straw-man to discredit my statement? Good job, you did it.

<edit: missing some carriage returns>

[ck425]

> people don't generally know what professions are like until they actually start working in them.

Which is exactly why stereotypes are so harmful because it puts people off ever trying and learning differently. Your story just reinforced the point, people often make judgements about careers based on stereotypes not actual data so it's detrimental to our industry to encourage these stereotypes.