About a week and a half ago, someone on Twitter posted this:
I wasn’t really active on Twitter to see it happen in real time, but from what I could see afterward, there was instant criticism of the tweet (and for good reason).
It represents a very stereotypical/one-note view of what a “good” coder is. It equates non-stop, high volume coding to being a proper or successful programmer. This is an awful stance because it’s largely used to gatekeep, alienate and scare-off minorities interested in a career in tech – it’s saying if coding isn’t what they want to do 100% of the time, they aren’t a “real” coder. All of this, plus the fact that more commits (what causes the squares that represent each day to turn a darker green) doesn’t not automatically equal quality work.
My friend Chloe’s reply sums up these feelings pretty well:
Anyway, after that original tweet, the phrase “What’s stopping you from coding like this?” was used in some great comebacks like this:
I knew I was late to the game in internet time, but I still wanted to join in because it seemed like a fun excuse for a photoshoot haha. So I vacuumed our living room rug, brought over the ADM-3A and used the remote camera option on my Fujifilm X-T30 to take these photos.
For those who are curious, this machine is an ADM-3A terminal (so not actually a computer, but a screen you need to hook up to a computer). My favorite part about the ADM-3A, aside from how pretty it is, is that the name stands for “American Dream Machine.” 😂💖
I don’t know quite what I expected from this tweet to be honest. Overall I just felt pretty and loved how the photos turned out. What I didn’t fully consider was that a lot of things in these images were kind of bait for an unwanted audience:
- I chose to use a terminal/display vs an actual computer because I thought it was my prettiest machine.
- I had uncovered floppy disks on a rug (I did specify in my thread that any uncovered disks were blanks or didn’t work, but that didn’t stop the comments of course)
- I had manuals and disks for a different machine out (the Kaypro II)
All of these things were ripe for mansplainers to latch onto, and they enjoyed telling me everything that in a way that assumed I had no idea what I was doing. Jokes on them, because they looked awful doing it (one even deleted his tweets after I pointed this out). 😂
Overall though, I don’t regret posting it. I had the chance to connect with some awesome new twitter people because of it. 🙂
Here are some more colorful versions of the meme from some really lovely people: 💖
This last photo was a bit awkward to take since I was laying on the ground behind the machine, but I still like it haha ~
