Joel Spolsky is not Gay Enough

I've always wanted to write something provocative like that. Well, not really. I'm reading Joel's latest column about the development abstraction layer, which I take to mean "make programmers happy". Of course, this is a message that's preaching to the choir. What happens when management thinks programmers are there to serve them? That they are the final arbiters of what goes? Does management usually crawl on their knees begging developers to maybe work out some idea they had? Do software engineers scoff at their time being wasted? I'm not sure it works that way, but maybe because Joel started his company as an engineer, as a developer, he can envision this world that echoes strains of Marx. The workers will rise and take over the cogs of the machinery.

No, that's not quite it either.

Ah, but I would be remiss if I didn't talk about Joel not being gay enough. With a juicy title like that, how could I let my fans down? (Except of course, I have no fans). He opens up his sentence about the perfect coder who is not only adept with memory management issues, but can wow it up with the ladies. He's an attractive man, after all. OK, those aren't his words, exactly. It's simply "He finds it easy to talk to women" (somewhere I realize I should be adding a link back to the article, and yet, the pain I must take to make that happen...fine, fine, here it be). Why not men? Why not hunky men? Why not Ian Somerhalder? Why not Brad Pitt? (By the way, a few weeks ago, when the tournament was still running, Bradley played University of Pittsburgh, and the scores were "BRAD" on top and "PITT" on bottom. Hmm. Yes. Well. I do credit a friend of a friend for making this eagle eyed observation)

I'm sure, a la Doctor McCoy, Joel would plead "I'm a software developer/manager/motivational speaker, not a gay activist". Must he wear tank tops cut off just about the midriff, shorts that reveal his religion, wave a rainbow flag, and call everyone "Miss Thang"? Can't he simply espouse the need for good software programmers, who are born, not made? (It's not a choice! It's Fortran!).

To be fair, he does sneak in Dolly Parton. The people in the "club" are supposed to know that Ms. Parton, who composed that song "I Will Always Love You" before Whitney burned this song into the brains of impressionable people growing up in the early 90s, might have meant the song for women. (Parton denies this in public, just like Jodie Foster).

OK, so this begs the more serious question. How much does Joel, or people of prominence, need to make mention of his preferences? This would be a more compelling question in sports, where no one in football, basketball, nor baseball has ever come out while actively in professional sports. It has happened in individual sports (Martina Navratilova, most famously, but Billie Jean King, Gigi Fernandez, Conchita Martinez as well, for men, the only one that was good, though not quite out, was Big Bill Tilden), but not professionals. Esera Tuaolo came out in the show Real Sports but he had retired from football.

These kinds of homophobic issues don't seem to be problematic in the programming community. Microsoft wanted to limit its support of gay rights legislation, fearing it didn't represent all the employees views, but then backtracked on that, reaffirming their support. Would the NFL do such a thing?

I've read dedications in computer books to male partners. Heck, programmers care about style, love Lisp, believe in unit testing, pair programming, switching who has control of the keyboard (I have no idea what this means, but it sounds dirty). of course, programmers are (type) safe, and always care about (memory) protection, and use LaTeX to protect themselves against WYSIWIGS and other kinds of viruses. Are you DVD-R+ or DVD-R-?

OK, this is just too silly a title, and just too silly an entry to write anymore.

Go home. Nothing to see here.