Cool Code, Bro: Brogrammers, Geek Anxiety, and the New Tech Elite | Hacker News Reader

Cool Code, Bro: Brogrammers, Geek Anxiety, and the New Tech Elite

coolcodebro.net

20 pointsgyardley41 comments

Wow. What garbage.

The premise of this book seems to be, "We need to stop people with different values from becoming developers (regardless of how skilled they are at actually writing code)." Really? This seems like a tech equivalent, "the immigrants are ruining this county" rant.

Hey, author here.

Strange to me you'd come off thinking this. The premise of the book is that diversity and a better portrait of society as a whole (including everybody) in the making will result in better software.

I'd love for you to read it and see, it's free for the next two days on Amazon if you can spare a couple hours. There are a few HN cameos.

Can you explain what the hell you think brogrammers are?

Someone who isn't a neckbeard who programs? Someone who wears good clothes? Someone who keeps fit?

All of those types of people have been around and programming for a long, long time. There were lots of "typical nerdy programmers" too, and guess what: there still are.

I think it might be useful to explain the central thesis of your book.

At the moment it seems to be written around a marketing strategy: make programmers mad, tell them to download the book while it is free, and hope it makes it towards the top of the Amazon best seller list when you start charging.

Good luck with that. Bro.

> Strange to me you'd come off thinking this. The premise of the book is that diversity and a better portrait of society as a whole (including everybody) in the making will result in better software.

Really? There is no indication of that message on the landing page.

"A new crowd of jock-like developers has arrived, more likely to spend the wee hours of the morning at the club than writing code, turning workplaces toxic to others and dumbing down the world of computer science."

Not sure how "turning workplaces toxic" in the opening paragraph translates to "diversity results in better software".

I think the point is that typical bro-behavior is anti-diversity, which I think is true, what with phrases like "that's gay!" etc etc.

I don't get why you are trying to categorize people. There are all sorts of people in programming and that diversity is a great thing. Your whole book, at least judging by the excerpt, is an attempt to mock everyone who doesn't fit into your idea of a programmer.

Given the theme of comments so far, it seems to be a presentation and communication issue rather than the reader being "strange".

"Boo-hoo people with social skills and non-computer interests are invading my profession and making more money than me!"

Anyone remember the 1983 movie Wargames? It opened computer culture up to a lot of people who weren't yet interested.

Maybe the author can explain how it's all been downhill since then.

I got that same impression from the abstract, but after reading the article, I think the author abandoned that POV.

This post was killed by user flags.

This is weak.

If you're going to critique brogrammers, deal with the rampant sexism. Don't complain that some people like going to clubs, some people like drinking protein shakes at work etc — you're just trying to make tech _more_ homogenous_ rather than less.

Oh, that's in there.

if it is, you need to rewrite the entire landing page because it sounds awful.

Fair enough, thanks!

This seems a bit hackneyed, yeah?

"They’re the powerful, popular, charismatic geek dispelling the myth of the pocket protector in the only way he knows--as seen on TV. They’re living the lifestyle sold to them by reality television, celebrity culture and their prevailing visions of success. They’re following the MTV Spring Break, Girls Gone Wild-style tutorial for modern success, leaving a callow wake of complaints that stands in opposition to the values we associate with the web."

What values do you associate with the web? And are these really the only aspects of "modern culture" that may be shaping these people? The book sounds like sensational claptrap meant to demonize a social "other."

i am 31 and been a professional programmer for 10 years now. I love programming and the science behind it, but i also pay attention to my clothes, work out and try to be a somewhat social person. Am i a brogrammer because i am not the stereotypical uber nerd ? No, i am just a programmer that has interests outside of compsci, like any other programmer i know. This book rides the stereotypes and overall has a very weak argument.

Maybe nothing to do with this book, however; I think the difference is more obvious between early programmers in the 70's/80's and maybe a part of the 90s and the programmers who learned it after that and 'just' do it for the money. The latter can still be excellent and love programming and the science, but they miss that click of what a amazing machine they actually have in front of them. People who have that overwhelming feeling, and I know many of them, see the machine as the most versatile thing in the world in which you can do anything with code; make money, yes, but create worlds, make people happy, make yourself happy, solve puzzles etc. Most of these people don't have time or the inclination to pay attention to clothes, act social (outside the people who understand) and hit the gym. Mostly because everything is possible within the computer and there is enough possibility in 1 80's machine to fill 100 life-times with joy and wonder. I wrote my first program in '82 and I have stuff to do, problems to solve, software to write, infinitely more interesting to me than what I can think of outside this realm. If I plan my biggest project objectively which I now am working on for around 17 years, I get to about 400 man-years of work to do. But I count on more brilliant folks than me helping by inventing shortcuts / faster computers. And that's only 1 of the projects.

I have always been a social animal, I did a lot of sports, I have always started and ran companies with employees and I did go to clubs. I have always regretted that; I wish I could just only spend time on this marvellous apparatus; doing it all over, I would do.

I see that beauty and spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of machines, i simply don't want to die of a heart attack at 60 being overweight and lonely, after all that shortens your opportunity to do stuff quite a bit more. The amount of time spent in clubs or in the gym is laughable in retrospect and any normal person would attest me an unhealthy balance of time spent in front of a machine vs time spent interacting with other people. Also it seems like a dream come true that you can work on the stuff you truely love for so long, reality is that most programmers will have to work on some form of boring project for their employer most of time, which isn't really enlightening in most cases.

I'd urge you to read beyond the preview / intro chapter, this was a big thing I considered in trying to deal with the topic broadly.

I always thought that the "Brogrammer" meme was a joke started at Facebook and that there wasn't much truth to it at all... it was just a funny idea.

> THE HEART OF AMERICA’S technology industry, the last great hope in sustaining U.S. business supremacy...

I think you just lost the non-US audience.

Funnily, as a non-American, I kind of always "divide" by US people's limited view of the world as the US.

Yeah, we had to make a decision early on to isolate to the U.S. because it seemed the phenomenon / stereotype was most known here.

> One is savvy at meeting women; one is shy and prefers to date online.

I think its a little problematic that this assumes geeks are men.

On the other hand, you're assuming that anyone who dates women is a man, which is also problematic :)

totally true, but if you look at the rest of the context, its pretty clear that the author is talking about men.

This book makes me feel bad about myself because I'm a programmer without being outwardly geeky. I don't work out, I don't use the word "bro", my typical weekend activity includes something involving my computer, and I spend almost no money on clothes... but somehow I still felt offended by the beginning of this book.

I don't understand whether this is satire or serious?

I infer serious, given the author's comment above. But I find it hard to read, rather the way I find Emotional Intelligence hard to read, with too much made of anecdotes.

"One is alpha; one is beta."

Sigh.

although the title was and IS interesting, the abstract loses the seriousness and dwells into just-another "funny-stereotypical" arguments. A lot of assumptions are made, which are stereotypical at best from the movie-land fiction. (however, I am not too sure if these jock vs geek stereotype is fiction as portrayed in movies or real, since I am not from US) Still, I find the title interesting, and want to ask you, what type of research did you conduct for it? Any specific research methodology? Where did you sample it (specially since you claim this for the WHOLE of USA)

Flagged for being a link-bait advertisement for a crap book.

Downloaded. It doesn't look good at first glance, but free reading we don't have enough on the web :) so let's give it a shot.

"brogrammers are a group of programmers that more closely resemble jocks than geeks"

This seems like it was written by a high school student.

I think this is a topic worthy of examination.

Love the sarcasm.

While I haven't read this just-launched short book, I posted it because the Kindle version's free until Wednesday.

Cheers.

Hyperbole, anyone? "Boy Kings" by Katherine Losse probably has more insight, as she was an early employee at FB.

I for one, welcome our musclebound overlords.

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