BlogCoward

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Repost: Technology vs Sexism

I’m reposting about the original that can be found here.

Since I’m reposting it, I obviously agree with it, but let me add my own spin/rant to the whole thing.

To repeat something I posted previously:

“If you are a woman in any industry, and you find yourself going to meetings where the first comment you hear is “Hey babe, nice tits”, run, don’t walk to your HR department. “

Since that could be read as being flippant, let me make clear how serious I was. Like racism, sexism takes different forms. Not every form is as blatant as what I mentioned, obviously. But having worked in IT in general for 15 years or so and in a number of different types of business, real sexism needs to be combated from many angles, not just from a managerial level, but from a personal level as well.

Any company worth anything has to have explicit HR policies regarding it. As such, any display of explicit sexism should be reported by anyone who either observes it or experiences it directly, so as to let the proper processes take place. This is, obviously, much more difficult for women who experience it directly, as it involves risk, but is also, from a legal perspective, unavoidable.

Having said all that, I will repeat that I have not seen that IT is any better or worse than other forms of business when it comes to it.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I was an HR manager previously and not only was educated in the law in the district I was in, but was also aware of various lawsuits involving then current employees against previous employers involving what I considered not just sexism, but sexual assault, stuff that, if true, was just disgusting. Not just disgusting, but really depressing..

Technically, sexism policies cover both sexes but except for rare circumstances, generally involve women. Not every complaint that any particular woman might raise is actually actionable, but in this day and age, what is or isn’t actionable is usually clear cut.

The whole nokiadeveloper controversy is interesting because the person who created the media content that was objected to was a woman. This raises a whole set of considerations that I won’t cover here.

From a marketing perspective, even non-legally actionable is obviously an issue.

If people want women to stop being portrayed as sex objects, you are probably going to be disappointed, as there are women who don’t object to this.

Having said that, any instance of women being treated as sex objects in a workplace environment can and should be combated.

And if you are a guy who can’t hide that fact that you want to fuck a co-worker because you think she’s hot, you’re just a dick.

posted @ Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:57 PM | Feedback (0)

Monday, May 14, 2012

A colorful analogy for bad technical requirements

As uttered today by a coworker (imagine it spoken with a heavy Russian accent, it makes it funnier):

“First they tell us we must eat soup with fork and knife, spoon is not allowed. Now they tell us fork is unavailable.”

Pretty accurate to boot.

posted @ Monday, May 14, 2012 10:32 PM | Feedback (0)

Friday, May 11, 2012

How not to try and make a point about potential sexual discrimination in Tech

Rob, god bless him, has posted something that, in some way, is apparently supposed to make some sort of point about sexual discrimination in the tech industry.

It’s embarrassingly stupid, but read it for context.

I’ve told this story before, but I graduated with a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the age of 25, and made a horrible mistake. The graduating part. The economy was so bad (and ironically, totally biased against white males getting a job in academics due to imposed quotas, but I digress) that I had to give up teaching and get a real job in order to pay off the student loans that started coming due, due to the whole graduating thing.

Anyway, I ended up as an HR manager at a company, and as part of that role, I got to learn a whole heaping hell of a lot about sexual harassment in the workplace, how to combat it, how to set up company policies to enforce combating it, and so on.

There’s this myth that tech industries are somehow more rife with sexual harassment than other industries. Depending on your point of view, you will either be thrilled to know that it isn’t more prevalent, or appalled to know that it is equally as prevalent in other industries.

The myth is partially driven by the fact that the ‘diversity folks’, i.e., the people who think that various percentages of the workforce must meet some demographic driven percentages of the overall population, are unable to see divergences through non-‘it must be discriminatory’ glasses.

One of the things that I learned is that, as good corporate governance, you have to have a policy/program that combats sexual harassment, and that the policy/program is rigorously enforced. This might seem obvious, but there you go. This is something a smaller, ‘start-up’ type company might miss. Large corporations generally don’t, at least not in my experience.

If you are a woman in any industry, and you find yourself going to meetings where the first comment you hear is “Hey babe, nice tits”, run, don’t walk to your HR department.

But, let’s not pretend there is something about writing code that causes men to behave in ways that are legally objectionable more than the norm, unless you actually have an argument that shows it.

posted @ Friday, May 11, 2012 11:39 PM | Feedback (0)

Monday, April 30, 2012

What really separates Senior Developers from Junior Developers

I’ve posted previously why I don’t like the term ‘junior developer’ as it usually just means you are saying a developer is younger than you, and is often used to be demeaning for no good reason.

There are times when being demeaning is arguably the right thing to do, but it generally isn’t a good thing to do. It should usually be reserved for when dealing with senior management, though I don’t recommend you practice it unless you really know what you are doing. Being demeaning to people who don’t have an opportunity to be better just makes you a dick. And not a good kind of dick, just a dick.

I think there are basically two things that actually make it reasonable to call someone a ‘Senior’ developer:

A Senior developer is someone who can learn a system without any documentation in a ‘reasonable’ amount of time. What counts as reasonable here is, like much in life, largely contextual. In the last decade, there have been numerous times in which I was asked to learn System X which currently does Y and needed to do Z. On approximately zero of those cases, I’ve had any significant amount of assistance, either from documentation or current developers, to learn what System X was, what Y currently does, or what Z is.
1. Keeping names out of it, the best example came from a particular large organization. The current developer who would have been the best resource to learn X,Y and Z from was working 60 hours a week on a very important release, the previous release of which had been a disaster. He was swamped, to say the least. He was very intelligent, and happened to be one of the people I interviewed with to get the job. When I asked him what Y was (I knew enough to know what X was) and how it worked, he looked at me and said (only slightly paraphrasing), “I don’t have time to tell you. We hired you because you seemed vaguely intelligent. Fucking figure it out. Please.”
2. He turned out to be one of the best developers I ever worked with, and though I had maybe 30 seconds of being pissed off at his initial response, it quickly dissipated. He really did not have time to work with me. He really did expect/hope I could just fucking figure it out. That really is why he recommended that I should be hired.
3. Being able to ‘fucking figure stuff out’ is a largely non-teachable skill. You have it or you don’t, for the most part. Younger developers show this ability directly, which is why a ‘junior’ developer is often more valuable than a ‘senior’ developer.
4. As a side note, if you are in management and you find these younger developers with these skills, it is imperative that you protect and foster them. I don’t think I can emphasize that enough. These are resources that are more valuable to you than just about any other.
A Senior developer is able to be self-directed.
1. A regular reader of this blog will know that I’m kind of a prick (“what do you mean kind of?”…I heard that). Part of that ‘skillset’ involves being able to take charge and tell people (including especially senior management) when they are wrong. This does generally take some experience, or a complete lack of tact, or both.
2. If you can talk the talk and walk the walk, senior management actually doesn’t mind this, but it can be ‘scary’ if you’ve never done it before. Looking a senior manager in the eye and telling them they don’t know what they are talking about is risky.

I reserve the right to add to this list, but, to be honest, those are the two things that really make the difference.

One of the the things that should be noted about this is that the ability to write really good code is sort of besides the point. Obviously, it isn’t entirely besides the point. But, you can be a good developer in the sense of following all the shit that ‘Craftsmen’ say you should follow, and yet not be a senior developer, no matter how long you’ve been slinging it.

posted @ Monday, April 30, 2012 7:41 PM | Feedback (3)

If you are in the far left lane on an expressway…

and there are cars lined up behind you, and multiple other cars diving into the next lane on the right who pass you and move back in front of you, please move the f%^& over. Besides being annoying, you are actually a safety hazard to the drivers around you.

Thanks.

posted @ Monday, April 30, 2012 7:04 PM | Feedback (1)

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Marillion – Invisible Man (Live)

This song pretty much sums up what Marillion is and what they do. With any band that has been around for this long, saying any particular song is their best is open to interpretation, but this is their best.

Hogarth keeps the theatrics to a minimum. Actually, not really, it’s still a bit much, but better than other attempts. Just sing the freakin’ song, dude.

Enjoy.

The world's gone mad
And I have lost touch
I shouldn't admit it
But I have.
It slipped away while I was distracted
I haven't changed
I swear I haven't changed

….

My head is haunted
I will scream again
"I am perfectly sane"
"I am perfectly sane"
But I am
The invisible man
I am
The invisible man

Talk to me
Acknowledge me
Confide in me
Confess to me ... or
Leave me be
Leave me be

posted @ Wednesday, April 11, 2012 10:48 PM | Feedback (0)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Words of Wisdom – Doug Gottlieb: "Money doesn’t fix things. It does make things fun when you have larger problems.”; posted @ Tuesday, April 10, 2012 10:41 PM | Feedback (0)

Monday, April 09, 2012

Repost–Can blargsmack on Tuesdays

This post from K. Scott Allen deserves merit on its own for what he’s trying to accomplish, but I’m reposting largely just so I can reproduce the following sentence:

“Although this code was intentionally obfuscated, it's not unlike walking into the code for a complex domain the first time and not understanding why a wurgled customer can blargsmack on Tuesdays if they hold a vorkenhosen status. All domains are nonsense at the start.”

Brilliant.

posted @ Monday, April 09, 2012 6:04 PM | Feedback (0)

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Free TekPub Episode – Why you should care about ASP.NET MVC 2.0

Rob Conery has announced the free availability of a webcast on TekPub.

I have not yet watched the entire thing, but since it is done by Scott Sanderson and Rob, it is undoubtedly a good thing to watch.

And, did I mention it is free?

Rob ~~lucky bastard~~ starts it off while sitting on the beach in Hawaii.

posted @ Tuesday, April 03, 2012 9:02 PM | Feedback (0)

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

I understand how he feels

Microsoft has decided to accept contributions to a wide range of their asp.net stack. Scott Guthrie (among others) describes this decision here.

Rob Conery has a post wherein he describes an attempt on his part to setup a repository on GitHub that could tie into the CodePlex respository (see details in his post). There was apparently some blowback on this, and so he reversed course.

Rob laments this:

“So, when I blasted out my little announcement, people (I spose fairly) thought I was being a jerk (again). Some venom filled my timeline and I even had a rather scathing DM from someone whom I consider a hero of mine.

That sucked a bit.

And I spose I deserved it.

So I’ve deleted the repo and I’ve deleted the account. So much for that idea.”

This might come as a surprise to some readers, but I think this is unfortunate.

Before Rob joined Microsoft as an employee, he was well-known and highly regarded due to his work with SubSonic (among other things). He then joined Microsoft as an employee. After a bit of time, he decided to end his employment at Microsoft.

Now, I’m not on Twitter, so perhaps I’m missing some context, but I don’t recall his public posting about leaving Microsoft as bitter or vindictive or anything like that. He had his reasons at the time, plainly stated them, and it seemed pretty straight forward to me. The dude took a job, then after some time, left it.

Since then, Rob has done a lot of work outside of Microsoft technologies, embracing Ruby, yada yada yada. He has at times when discussing that work made comparisons with Microsoft technologies, but I’ve never thought of what he’s talked about as being some sort of “Fuck you Microsoft” message. He talks about what he does and why he does it. People (including myself) might not agree with it, but so what? Maybe there has been some undercurrent there that only his former co-workers see, but I don’t see it.

Rob further laments:

“As for me, I think it’s probably time to stop ribbing my friends publicly – or talking about Microsoft in general. It’s too easy to be cast as an ass no matter how many open source projects you run, or time you take to educate and show people new things. I’ve always thought my actions would speak louder than whatever dumb words I choose.

I was wrong. Shark Jumped.“

Yes, I am now going to make an analogy comparing Rob Conery with Steve Forbes. Deal with it.

This will age me, but at one point, Steve Forbes decided he wanted to run for President. No, I don’t know why he did it. Anyway, during that time, he proposed something (I believe a flat tax proposal) that drew some criticism along the lines of “Of course Forbes wants a flat tax. He’s rich and it will benefit him.” Paraphrasing a whole lot (since I’m old and don’t feel like looking it up), Steve Forbes responded with a really reasonable answer:

“Yes, I am rich. It is true that you could see a flat tax as benefitting me. The fact is, as someone who is rich, I have the resources to hire people who can find all of the ways that the current tax code gives me loopholes to benefit me with the current tax code. No matter what the tax code is, I will be rich. The question is, is my flat tax proposal a good idea or not?”

In other words, don’t judge something based on the identity of the messenger.

Can’t someone else do the GitHub thing?

I would imagine that there might be corporate/legal reasons why this couldn’t be done by, say, Scott H or Scott Gu himself. Can’t someone else do it? Is Brad Wilson still at Microsoft? If so, someone else? If it helps the overall community, why not do it? Because Rob suggested it? That’s silly.

There is some irony here. Rob sent me an old school DM (called email) about why I was permanently banned from commenting on his blog. It was due to the fact that it was too easy for him to cast me as an ass (keeping in mind, I am one). Pot meet kettle and all that.

Yet it remains: if Rob’s idea is a good one, and I don’t see why it isn’t one, why can’t someone else implement it?

posted @ Wednesday, March 28, 2012 8:55 PM | Feedback (0)