Call yourself a 'brogrammer'? Then get the hell away from me.

If only the San Francisco Chronicle article 'Brogrammers' challenge coders' nerdy image had come out on April 1. If only, it was a joke. If only.

But these self-styled 'brogrammers' have decided that what the almost all-male world of programming needs is an injection of... frat-house antics. Great, just, great. Here's a choice quote from one of these neanderthals people:

"We got invited to a party in Malibu where there were naked women in the hot tub," said Stern-Sapad, 25. "We're the cool programmers."

The article continues:

"I don't need to wear a pocket protector to be a programmer," says John Manoogian III, a software engineer and entrepreneur.

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? Who the hell wears a pocket protector? But (shock! horror!), the whole 'brogrammer' thing might just be a little off putting to women programmers (you, know, the "hogrammers" the brogrammers sometimes have to work with):

There's also an audience that has been left out of the joke. Women made up 21 percent of all programmers in 2010, down from 24 percent in 2000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Anything that encourages the perception of tech as being male-dominated is likely to contribute to this decline, said Sara Chipps, founder of Girl Develop It, a series of software-development workshops.

"This brogramming thing would definitely turn off a lot of women from working" at startups, said Chipps.

Because, guess what?, the frat-house 'culture' has always been just a teensy bit derogatory towards women.

Now, I've nothing against sociable programmers who want to 'have fun' and 'socialize' as the article puts it, but frankly the computer industry should not be laughing slyly at brogrammers or turning a blind eye.

Brogrammers should be actively shunned.

PS When this came up before on Hacker News I had a rather more succinct way of putting it:

Perhaps, but more than that it's bloody stupid.

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