Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 18, 2015 19:29 UTC (Sun) by toyotabedzrock (guest, #88005)
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

Many tech people have a slight amount of autism even if they don't want to admit it, so what she is arguing is that we should exclude them based on how they where born.

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Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 18, 2015 21:42 UTC (Sun) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

> Many tech people have a slight amount of autism even if they don't want to admit it,

Hard to test, but I'm happy to accept that premise.

> so what she is arguing is that we should exclude them based on how they where born.

I don't see how it leads to this conclusion.

The core request is that people "attack the code, not the person".
I accept that some people (possibly people with autism) may have trouble understanding why that might be important. That doesn't mean they can't follow the rule though.

It's a bit like the white space rules: indent with tabs, not spaces. Some people think this is very important, others wonder what the fuss is all about. But we can still follow it most of the time, and acknowledge an error when an error is made.

Some people (possibly with Autism) might take a while to learn the difference between attacking people and attacking code. They might need some practical helps like "Make 'I' statements, not 'you' statements". But I'm certain it can be done. People who cannot learn to follow simple rules like that are not going to get very far in the tech world.

It isn't autism that leads people to being repeat unrepentant offenders. It is pride.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 19, 2015 0:07 UTC (Mon) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

Nah. People on the autism spectrum seem to be usually pretty nonplussed by folks like you, who seem to conflate autism with being a total jerk. To wit, here are Russell Coker's (etbe) articles from the time Bruce Perens tried the autism spectrum derailment technique: one, two. Pray take the time and read them.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 19, 2015 16:52 UTC (Mon) by etbe (subscriber, #17516) [Link]

jubal: Thanks for your comment and thanks for summoning me. ;)

toyotabedzrock: A few years ago I met Sarah at LCA and had lunch with her and a group of other delegates. I didn't get the impression then that she would discriminate against people like me and I didn't get that impression when reading her blog post about leaving the Linux kernel community. I have had private conversations with a number of women who have similar opinions to Sarah.

The people who are against Aspies are people like YOU. This was a long discussion about behaviour on mailing lists (most of which I didn't read because I've read enough that I just see familiar patterns) and you were the one to bring up Autism. Your implication that people like me cause the problems is what could theoretically lead to exclusion. I say theoretically because white men almost never get excluded regardless of what they do.

neilbrown: I don't think it's pride, I think it's privilege. People tend to do things that they can get away with.