You go to parties. Friends' parties. Then you talk to people, nicely (listen, ping-pong -- you know: you talk, they talk, you talk, they talk) and they'll invite you to their parties.

Don't stare at women. Talk to them like human beings. The hotter they are, the more they will appreciate it.

Conversation starters: (assume the party is hosted by Jack) "Hi, I'm Joe..." She replies: "Hi, I'm Nancy." You then ask: "So how do you know Jack?"... go from there.

Remember, people LOVE to hear their name spoken by others to them. Also, ask questions about them, and let them talk, talk, talk. Stay focused on what they say. Acknowledge what they say with nods, smiles, and the occasional "really?".

Then, they will say of you: "Joe is really nice, and great at parties. Let's invite him again."

You will soon discover that women just like to talk. They are social creatures.

Rules of behavior at parties:

• Don't get drunk.
• Don't eat too much.
• Don't say anything negative about anything.
• Clean, newish clothing, freshly showered, well-groomed (if you wonder whether you need a haircut, you do)
• Bring a gift to the host. (Unless otherwise stated: a $5-10 bottle of wine (no 2buck chuck--tacky) or a nice 6-pack of beer (fat tire is good for that))
• When more than 50% of the guests have gone, it's a clue to leave as well.
• If you want to trade contact information, do it with paper. Some women may be intimidated by the latest gadget. Paper is safer. The back of your business card is good. Write legibly.

Final piece of advice: if all you want is a booty-call, use a dating service, and be frank about what you're looking for. Don't mislead or there will be bruised feelings. And you don't want that. Trust me.

Why limit yourself to significant others that work in the same field? You may as well marry yourself. Women can be found everywhere, they make up more than half the population.

If a girl (or guy if you are into that) doesn't laugh, I know right away they haven't worked with SQL.

I think I've identified your problem...

You're probably better off not finding a female programmer for a romantic interest. Everyone knows that women try to change a man's attributes once they start dating them. The risk of dating a female programmer is they know the mutator functions that can actually do so!

Stop working in VB.NET! No chickie is going for that. You need a much sexier language.

I met my wife at a regional LUG. We struck up a conversation because she was ignoring the meeting and was reading "Caves of Steel" by Isaac Asimov.

I started dating her a few months later, and we got married the year after. I've been with her for nearly 7 years now. She and I both work in IT, she writes ruby, I write python, and we don't bicker or have holy wars in the bedroom.

So yeah, go to LUGs. Meet people, marry them.

Just give the girl a copy of your web.config and point to the row that says:

<add verb="GET,HEAD".../>

Then see whats happens. I always stop scrolling and giggle for myself when I see that row in the web.config and so should also any right minded girl wanting to be my wife do.

I married a Graphic Designer. We have a nice balance of order and creativity in our relationship.

Plus, you'd have a much better chance of meeting a female Graphic Designer than a female Programmer.

Jon Skeet's crib.. all the busty programmer babes are holed up in there... that's why you don't see any;) (Lil' John blaring... To the window...)

Computer pick-up line: "u and i are next to each other (on the keyboard)"

Yay, that works on Dvorak too :)

I can't believe people are actually posting serious answers here. IMHO it is a funny satire on the romantic life of a programmer. Thanks to Jeff Atwood via Twitter ^[1] for turning me on to this hilarious question. I sometimes think we developers take life too seriously.

what kind of projects are you working on? maybe you don't need another programmer but a project manager, or a QA specialist? i'm sure you'll be able to find a woman who can tell you what you need to do, or what you did wrong.

Sea world...... most female programmers are whales

Try this one:

Two strings go to a bar. The bartender walks to the first asking "what would you have?"

The first string says - "I'll have some beerrrjkjjkio;sl909(00&&*&-#r%..."

So the bartender goes to walks to the other and asks discreetly "What's wrong with this guy?"

Then the second string answers - "Oh don't mind him, he's not NULL terminated".

I would suggest the wonderful book Dating Design Patterns ^[1]... ;-)

• Subscribe to Jeff Atwood's Twitter feed ^[1]
• Subscribe to Phil Haack's Twitter feed ^[2]
• Subscribe to Scott Hanselman's Twitter feed ^[3]
• Subscribe to Ayende Rahein's Twitter feed ^[4]

These guys are now your "friends" and if she's not impressed that you know that Hanselman is currently making out with a Zune while Ayende just finished writing that new killer distributed MVC framework that he started this morning then she doesn't deserve you.

Most of them didn't even know the difference between AJAX and DHTML.

There's a difference between AJAX and DHTML?

:P

This is the old build vs buy debate. If you're a coder, you know the answer: Don't waste your time trying to find an existing partner (the buy option), just build your own using your coding skills.

You have to publicize the API that turns you on. Caution: as an educated programmer, you're not supposed to expose your private parts! You should only be accessible through publicized getters and setters.

My fiancee is a programmer by profession, and programming is generally the last thing she wants to talk about with me... Assuming a good proportion of other female programmers are similar, your selection criteria might be even stricter than they initially appear.

+1 for broadening your horizons a bit, I say.

I was all about design until I met my current boyfriend and he's the one who piqued (maybe rekindled is more accurate) my interest in programming. Maybe she doesn't have to code to still be interested in what you do or in learning more about it.
Also, maybe conferences?

An XKCD meetup ^[1] may be a good place. Although it's more of a general geek culture, the chances of meeting a programmess are higher.

i think this is very entertaining! the sql query joke is actually very funny in a goofy kind of way.

Create your own esoteric programming language. Women love guys who can create their own languages. Also, Eugene's suggestion of an xkcd meetup is a very good idea, and I totally recommend it.

There are also geek cafés these days (at least there are here in Canada) and gaming stores are another good place to meet geek girls, if you're not totally fixated on the notion that your love-to-be has to be a programmer.

You need to invent a romantic programming language to talk to her ;)

You should get out more

Computer pick-up line: "u and i are next to each other (on the keyboard)"

Instead of trying to find a programmer chick, just find a chick who's into smart (read "dorky") guys! I think they are much greater in number.

Maybe it goes without saying, but you'll be more likely to meet these sorts of women in more academic-type situations (college/grad school, conventions of various sorts, etc.). My wife and I are outliers in that respect... we met at a bar on spring break, and we've been married for over 7 years now!

Ouch. Some of the jokes are pretty lame.

My suggestion is read a good book on picking up chicks. Check out David D'Angelo. The trick is to talk about things that women like. Stuff that doesn't make any sense to us. Fashion. Celebrities. Surface topics with with little substance. Tease them and joke around a little bit. Lighten up. Don't be such an awful geek.

If you must, though (and one good thing about programmer chicks is that they make a lot of dough) why not take a programming class? Check out each one at the beginning of the semester, and go to the one that has the most babes. You will have better luck in the foreign language section, though. Better still, take up ballroom dancing.

I've found that Programmers often marry nurses, I did and 3 other colleagues did to. All to the infirmiry :).

I actually do not get why is Shawn receiving so many DOWN ratings. Do we have to be so damn serious about everything? :-)

BUT, as a word of advice, when talking to a female programmer (or a female of whatever profession), you'll be better off without any programmer jokes. In fact, leave any programming topic out of the game. The last thing I want to talk about with a girl are the class/interface/SQL topics I came across all day :-)

GirlDeveloper.com?

Why would you want a person in your own field? Have you even tried looking elsewhere?

Try sales/marketing. I married one.

Why is this question open but my question "Why is there less female programmers than male programmers in the field" got closed (and all my reputation lost)?