Geeking Out in Barcelona (Channel 9)

What do you do after an evening at a Girly Geek dinner? Well, you head back to the hotel lobby and geek out, of course. Join Catherine Heller, Technical Evangelist and one of Microsoft's smartest people, Kate Gregory, C++ Guru and Regional Director, and Cyra Richardson, IE Program Manager and passionate customer advocate, as we debate programming language syntax, C++, VB, managed code and other truly geeky topics.

For those of you who've not heard of Kate Gregory, she's an incredible programmer, runs a software consulting company ( Gregory Consulting, based in Canada: http://www.gregcons.com ) and is one of the premier C++ experts and developer conference speakers in the world. Her technical talks at developer conferences consistenty rank among the top in attendee speaker ratings. Oh yeah, and she LOVES C++. Rock on, Kate!

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SecretSoftware Code to live, but Live to code.

Dec 07, 2006 at 2:18 PM

I dont know who is who. Forgot the "Who Are you?" question?
jsampsonPC SampsonBlog.com SampsonVideos.com

Dec 07, 2006 at 2:24 PM

whoa...Is it just me, or are programmer-chicks incredibly attractive
I'm serious, these women are drivng me crazy I want a calendar on my wall with a different programmer-chick for every month, and opinions on managed-code

I love these women - don't tell my wife
Charles Welcome Change

Dec 07, 2006 at 2:30 PM

SecretSoftware wrote:

I dont know who is who. Forgot the "Who Are you?" question?

It comes later in the video... At any rate, Kate is to the left, Cyra is in the middle and Catherine is on the right.
C
Charles Welcome Change

Dec 07, 2006 at 4:07 PM

"Programmer chicks"? More like really smart, passionate geeky humans who happen to be female and also write code.

C
serishema The Last Hacker Chick

Dec 07, 2006 at 8:46 PM

thank you charles.

i do get sick of how in my department virtually any geek guy gets infatuated with all the girls who are into code and programming.

It's never about her (or me) as a person and i find it offensive.

We are just like you, we enjoy the challenge of solving problems and thinking in code just like you. A new CTP makes me hyper.

I just happen to be female. i think i speak for all of us when i say i'd just like to be related to on the same level as a fellow programmer
Charles Welcome Change

Dec 07, 2006 at 9:12 PM

Hang in there, serishema. This unfortunate social problem will go away in time, especially as more and more women help shape the world of technology by taking part in it, creating it, innovating it, living it.

Remember, it's not what you are that defines you, but rather who you are.

Keep being you,
C
Massif aim stupidly high, expect to fail often.

Dec 08, 2006 at 2:53 AM

JSampson - so you'll be getting one of these for christmas then?

Now, I'm not sure where the problem is - unless being referred to as a chick is disrespectful. (In which case is guy? bloke? hunk?) As long as people don't simply judge you on your appearance then what's wrong with it? It reminds me of a conversation I had when I was about 16 - conversation went:
Me: "Did you see that girl?"
Friend: "Yep, she's pretty damn fit."
Other Friend: "Don't just judge her on her looks! You should judge people on what sort of person they are."
Me: "I'm judging her appearance on how she looks, I've got no idea what she's like as a person."

I'd be flattered if someone said "whoa, who's the programmer-hunk in the video?" talking about me. I'd probably want to check their medication though.

Then again, as a man I've not suffered any sort of sexism, so I'm not exactly sensitive to it. But none of the women I've worked with appears to have ever suffered either - at my last place they were all progressing far more quickly with their careers than I was!

y'all need to lighten up methinks.
KosherCoder

Dec 08, 2006 at 4:52 AM

serishema wrote:

It's never about her (or me) as a person and i find it offensive.

Whoa, guys just cannot win. Some women complain that we're just after good looks: "Why can't they like us for our minds?" Now you don't want us being attracted to your minds either. It's ALL about you as a person - a techy geeky person!

serishema wrote:

We are just like you, we enjoy the challenge of solving problems and thinking in code just like you. A new CTP makes me hyper.

And that's what is so attractive! Being able to share our passions (for tech, etc) is, and should be, the very first thing that brings people together.

If you're going to say that you want to be treated like any guy, come on, tell me you haven't been attracted to some geek guy because of his geekiness. It's human nature.

serishema wrote:

i'd just like to be related to on the same level as a fellow programmer

Again, that is what is so great about geek chicks (your word) -- being able to relate so completely, unlike "other" women who just don't get it.

Now, tell me you're also a Trekkie, and you'll REALLY have a problem on your hands!
nightski

Dec 08, 2006 at 6:18 AM

Very fun video! The participants were excellent but I also really liked the concepts discussed. Its nice to just sit back sometimes and think about these sorts of issues.
DarthVista ...

Dec 08, 2006 at 6:44 AM

Thanks for video! I wonder how many females use Linux out there? lol, you can probably count them on two hands.

Speaking of hands, lots of expressive hand movements in this video, both by the interviewer and those being interviewed.
blowdart Peek-a-boo

Dec 08, 2006 at 7:08 AM

Charles wrote:

Hang in there, serishema. This unfortunate social problem will go away in time, especially as more and more women help shape the world of technology by taking part in it, creating it, innovating it, living it.

Of course you can argue the social "problem" is keeping women out of IT, so it will never fix itself.
dahat inanity makes my head hurt

Dec 08, 2006 at 10:48 AM

Oh how I love holy wars where every side makes suburb arguments and yet... fight for sides that are just as easily proven wrong as they are provable right.

Great video Chaz!
serishema The Last Hacker Chick

Dec 08, 2006 at 6:12 PM

Maybe i do need to lighten up a little and maybe i was taking things the wrong way. Definately good to actually get a guys perspective.

I would actually confess that i have been attracted to a geek guy for their geekiness, guilty as charged.

ftr i like star trek, with the exception of TOS.
littleguru <3 Seattle

Dec 09, 2006 at 3:24 AM

I have a problem with understanding Kate's position.

I have now watched 4 minutes and she says that she is a control freak and she wants to know when a handle is freed, lock is released, connection is closed. She says also that she is prepared to let the system manage memory for her.

Has she every had a look at the .NET framework, C# AND VB.NET. The IDisposable interface is exactly what she is talking about. .NET offers a way to explicitely do what she wants: calling Dispose on an object that implements the interface. All objects that hold system resources implement it and you are in full control of releasing system resources (such as locks, connections, file handles, ...).

C# (and now VB.NET) have also the using keywords to do exactly what she says about the scope and knowing that the file, connection, handle is closed afterwards.

So what is she trying to say us? I don't understand.
viper64

Dec 09, 2006 at 5:43 AM

Who spoke the most (and least):

1: Kate --------------- 15
2: Cyra -- 2
3: Catherine ----------------- 17
4: Charles -------------- 13

Order
313434241431431313414343141414313234314313134131

Can anyone explain why Cyra wasn't as included in this conversation? I don't want to reach the wrong conclusions.
Charles Welcome Change

Dec 09, 2006 at 10:07 AM

viper64 wrote:

Who spoke the most (and least):

1: Kate --------------- 15
2: Cyra -- 2
3: Catherine ----------------- 17
4: Charles -------------- 13

Order
313434241431431313414343141414313234314313134131

Can anyone explain why Cyra wasn't as included in this conversation? I don't want to reach the wrong conclusions.

Cyra was included... Amount of talking has little to do with being present in a conversation. Listening is just as important as talking... Not to mention, as you can tell, the specific topics invoke much passion in Cathereine, Kate and I. If anything, I talked too much, but I was really jazzed about the topics.

C
abkrino Time...Time There is always no TIME

Feb 13, 2007 at 8:59 PM

well in my opinion any girl into code is cool why? coz that adds 2 features to her without talking : smart & ambitious so i think this about her personality too if this is not about you or ( her ) as a person would your title or the job you do is you as a person?!

maybe i misunterstood you but this is the way i see it when i see any person male,female don't matter , is into code i know he/she is someone special ..... peroid