It’s all tongue-in-cheek references to stereotypes around what would now be called toxic masculinity/gatekeeping.
Of the Fortran programmers (real, manly programmers in this story) it says:
> Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language.
In this vein there’s also the story of Mel the Programmer, a “Real Programmer” who would never stoop so low as to use so abstract a programming language as FORTRAN. Funny how perspectives change over time.
When I started to learn to code, we were supposed to be dismissive of the Java wimps, but now I think it is Python that is too convenient to be cool. It’s all very silly and anyone that takes it seriously should be regarded with suspicion I think.