This problem cannot be fixed by changing hiring policy or corporate diversity training. 18% of computer science graduates are women. If women are 18% of programmers, then arithmetic dictates that most software companies cannot reach gender parity. If one company has more than 18%, another company has to have less than 18%. It's just simple math.

I applaud companies who try to increase the diversity of people learning computer science. But they cannot, by changing internal policy, reach gender parity - not without making some other company even more male-dominated. It is pointless and counter-productive to continually whack Google and Facebook over the head for their inability to make two plus two equal five.

When I first saw a first computer I knew that I want to know more about these mysterious machines. I still remember the joy and happiness on a day of the first snow when I realized what the double for cycle does. I think I was 13 then. I also remember the passion in reading the only accessible book about object oriented programming in C++.

My passion became my profession and therefore it is hard for me to relate with this dance around the diversity.

People should do what they feel passionate about regardless of their gender (or skin color or other nonsense there is possible to come up with). Everything else is a moot point.

It still does not follow that we should not make something more accessible for anyone, or that we should tolerate a discrimination. But if people do not share the passion then for me it does not matter what special body parts they have or have not, there is no place in my heart for them.

An interesting tidbit is that Ada's mother "forced" (maybe too strong a word, but obsessively encouraged her) to study the opposite of what Lord Byron did (poetry, arts) in fear that Ada would turn out like him and thus she studied mathematics and logic.

On Tuesday, how diverse are garbage/sewer workers?