Cool Code, Bro: Brogrammers, Geek Anxiety and the New Tech Elite

by Nick Parish

The startup world has a brogrammers.A new crowd of jock-like developers has arrived, more likely to spend the wee hours of the morning at the club than writing code, turning workplaces toxic to others and dumbing down the world of computer science.The new bros in town have turned the geek-dominated pecking order on its head, revealing who's really winning the art-versus-commerce struggle on the web. Cool Code, Bro goes inside the subculture to show where brogrammers came from and how a new order of activists and advocates are trying to restore optimism and diverse perspectives to tech.

Genres: Technology, Nonfiction

75 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2014

Reviews

[Byron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remember a brief controversy either earlier this year or last year having to do with "brogrammers?" I did a post on an app called Titstare that feminists had their panties in a bunch about. I can't remember if it was real or if it was just a joke. I might have to check the store on my Android phone just in case.

Cool Code Bro makes the case that brogrammers aren't just humorously sexist, they're evil in ways that could actually have severe real world consequences. And by "makes the case" I mean doesn't make much of a case.

Believe it or not, I'm not completely unsympathetic to this guy's point of view. These tech guys are clearly assholes, and I'm sure those companies are terrible places to work, aside from them paying literally all the money in the world.

The problem with this "book" is, it doesn't even claim to have any real dirt on brogrammers. Where is the scene where a room full of brogrammers tie up the one female programmer and take turns with her? Where is the scene where brogrammers build an app that sells crack to schoolchildren?

Essentially, this guy's case against brogrammers is that they're mean guys, and wouldn't the world be a better place if only nice people were allowed to have jobs?

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting survey of bro culture in the internet industry. Will it become a strange historical artifact? Will it become obsolete? No idea. It'll be worth it as a historical document for the interviews, though. Some are brilliant. I'm in there, and mine is decidedly not brilliant. And kind of crazy that it turns out my old boss, David Karp, has the first recorded use of the word on the web. Some of the ideas that the book puts forth are compelling and make this a topic worth thinking about, such as "we care about how our coffee is harvested and how our oil is extracted, but not necessarily about the environments where and under which conditions software is made. Software’s production is much less tangible than coffee or oil, of course, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider a creator’s aims or a company’s values in how we judge its place in society."

[Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read, more like a really long magazine article than a book. Programmers familiar with this culture may not find a lot of new information, but having it collected in this context was meaningful. Did not provide as much depth as I had anticipated. Worth a read.

[Finlay · Rating 3 out of 5]

More interesting than I expected -- the author doesn't offer any opinions or insights, but quotes a lot of people who seem to have done deeper, nuanced writing on the topic, which I may go read. I will say that this strikes me as an especially American problem; I have trouble recognizing it in the cultures I've experienced.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read on the silicon valley cultural phenomenon of the brogrammer.

Unfortunately, I found the writing to be a bit dry, and instead of coming across as a great piece of Longform journalism or page-turning short book, it felt like an educational journal article.