If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable?

Isn't there a place for people good at thinking deeply about difficult problems on their own and coming up with effective solutions?

Yes, everyone needs to be able to communicate well to be part of an effective team. But there is also a role for deep thinking and introspection.

By the way, introverted women exist, too.

> If I understand you correctly, people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient and we need to drive them out of the workplace to make others more comfortable?

You can't possibly think that this is what the person you are replying to is saying. But anyway, the point is that the conception of programming as a task suited to people who like to work in isolation is incorrect and harmful. One of the most common pitfalls of software development is writing software that no-one wants or needs. The solution to that problem lies in better communication. Of course, there are some kinds of programming problems that are suited to intense work in isolation. But most programmers probably need to spend more time talking to their non-programmer colleagues.

> You can't possibly think that this is what the person you are replying to is saying.

I do think that.

I think programming selects for people high in introversion and maybe even on the autistic spectrum.

I think some extroverted people find those people deficient and don't like working with them, and would like to change the working environment to be less comfortable for the introverts and more comfortable for the extroverts.

Programming culture selects for those people, to an extent.

If you're employed as a programmer, you're most likely being paid to solve other people's problems by writing code. If you can't communicate with those people, you'll never be able to do that successfully.

It's no conspiracy. A socially clueless introvert who's being paid a lot of money to do nothing useful doesn't have much to offer.

Of course you have to communicate with people to be effective.

There are also a lot of tasks where thinking deeply without distractions or interruptions for an extended period of time is the best way to come up with good solutions.

And even a lot of the best communication comes from taking time in quiet and deeply thinking about what you want to say and writing a good, convincing argument.

Thinking introverts have nothing productive to offer is just bigotry, and really makes you come across as a complete ass.

Of course you sometimes need quiet time alone to work on a programming task. The point is that you'd better also be capable of communicating frequently and effectively with your colleagues. For sure, many introverts are perfectly capable of doing that. (There are also many extroverts who can work alone when the occasion calls for it.) My point is that introversion is not a wholly adventitious trait for a programmer. Looking at the job description objectively, one would not expect programmers to skew strongly towards introversion.

I don't really follow the distinction you're drawing here. If you think that working in isolation is a bad thing, and most programmers should be talking to lots of people all the time, "people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient" sounds like an accurate summary of that view. It seems perfectly reasonable for an introvert to say that they don't want to work that way, and that it would be bad for them if your views on how programmers ought to work become more common.

>"people who like working alone on challenging tasks are inherently deficient" sounds like an accurate summary of that view.

???

I don't say that they're deficient as people, or that working in isolation is bad per se. I'm just saying that people who like to work in isolation are unlikely to make good programmers (in the context of a typical programming job).

Personally, I switched to programming from academia, where I really did work in isolation on challenging problems. Now I spend most of my time talking to my colleagues to figure out exactly which not very challenging problem I should be spending my limited time on solving.

Ah, so you are in an environment with “not very challenging problems” and you assume all work environments are like that.

Now it makes sense.

Nice shade, but here's some in return. If you frequently find your work challenging, then you are not a good programmer (or you are working on problems that aren't primarily programming problems).