We all know men hate to ask for directions. Apparently they loathe adding them to computer code, too.

 

Emma McGrattan--one of Silicon Valley’s highest-ranking female programmers–insists that men and women write code differently. Women are considerate of those who will use the code later, she says. They’ll intersperse their code with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it. (I admit, I do that.)

 

Men, on the other hand, have no such pretenses. Often, “they try to show how clever they are by writing very cryptic code and don’t leave clear directions for people using it later."

 

Do you prefer to read code written by a women or a man?