I have never written any Python. Maybe that might change in the future, but not soon I think.

So PyCon, a big conference for Python developers, normally would not matter to me, especially as it is on another continent.

But this year’s PyCon saw a huge row about allegedly offensive and sexist behaviour. In my view the sexist bit is moot, the offensive bit is mild - if stripped of context. And the context is a year’s worth of rows about much more clearly sexist and offensive behaviour at developer conferences.

I won’t go into the details of the row, because I have no real knowledge of the detail beyond what I have read this evening, but I do have a sense that this is a sign of the software industry waking up to its very serious problems with women and the ridiculous behaviour and poor socialisation of many of the men who work in it.

So the row may have a positive outcome for the rest of us. Eventually.

Related articles

• Great female participation on PyCon US 2013 (wrongsideofmemphis.com)
• What really happened at PyCon 2013 (peak5390.wordpress.com)
• PyCon’s response to an inappropriate incident on March 17th (pycon.blogspot.com)
• Woman Publicly Fired For Tweeting About “Sexual Jokes” (buzzfeed.com)
• How awesome was PyCon? (mechanicalcat.net)