Earlier quoted context omitted.
class Computer: pass class IT(Computer): pass class SoftwareDeveloment(Computer): pass #that's how people see it.
old style object or python 3?
None. Just pseudo code. :)
Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
101–110 of 271 posts
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#102Why is it that people group IT and software development together? To me, they are two completely different fields. For example, I see an IT person as a mail server administrator in a large company, and a developer as the person who would write the mail server software. I'm not saying that an IT professional never writes code, or a developer won't ever touch a Nginx config file. I just mean they are two different type…
Yes they are different, but they are so close aswell. After all how much job movement is there between IT & development? Lots. Compare that to the job movemement between IT & being lawyer (not that much) etc.
I wish there was more movement between IT and lawyers; then we'd have some developers who understand data protection and copyright principles and some lawyers who understand IT.
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like this any more. That's why recently there are so many "software engineers" - you write your Ruby code, install and configure NginX, Passenger etc., even support a cluster of machines (LB, DB, Apps), maybe with a little help for Chef.
I think it's interesting that people with a computer science and technical background are often referred to as "engineers" in tech. It seems like such a general label that can apply to anyone from a chemical engineer to a CS major, it all depends on the context.
I just graduated from Uni (in Maths). I had a lot of engineering friends, who didn't mind the CS students going into "engineering" jobs. They got really annoyed with a "telephone engineer" installing their telephone line - they were like "No, you're a technician". The difference in their eyes is that engineers are designing and implementing systems, which we ofc do in software development, whereas technicians solve low-level problems in those systems.
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…
Hang on, that's a little unfair. If you work in an office, and you know they have hired one person, and that is a cleaner / designer, walking unto the new face in the office and saying hi you must be the new cleaner / designer is not a prejudicial assumption. Especially if they are sitting in front of Blender / a mop.
…why are you adding stuff to the situation?
Ceteris paribus: without Blender or a mop, and without knowing anything about new hires, the assumption is that the new girl is a designer.
It's prejudice precisely because you don't have any other information.
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#105"Computer languages and “real” languages are actually very similar."
I really couldn't disagree with that more. Sure, some languages' syntax borrow English words (Python, Pascal, VB, etc), but that's such a minor similarity. Those words are completely arbitrary and the syntax could have been in Klingon for all the difference it would make to the compiler.
Computer languages are a maths language; albeit a very very dumbed down dialect of maths, but maths all the same.
I think the trap many web developers fall in is that PHP teaches some terrible programming practices (no variable declarations nor types, etc) and ANSI SQL isn't Turing complete, so feel that all other languages by extension are equally easy to grasp. However if you look at a number of other languages -particularly the ones with C-derived syntax- then it becomes painfully obvious that any similarities to human languages are just skin deep (which is lucky for me as I majorly suck at writing yet can code proficiently in around a dozen different computer languages).
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#106It is a nice article. Interesting read for me as a male programmer. But this line kinda caught my eye under the "Gender-advantage" headline:
"If a male and a female developer with a similar skill level apply for a job, I bet that in 99.9% of the cases the girl will get the job."
This is a problem.
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…
Of course one can assume a sexist intention behind the remark. My question is why? Is it simply because she is a woman and thus we should assume that anything anyone say to her is sexist? Are we really that far gone, and if so, how are we ever going to get work to become a gender neutral environment? Assuming bad faith is not a road to take.
I didn't say "anything anyone says to her sexist", I said "assuming women can't code and hence must be a designer is sexist".
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…
In those situations the assumptions may, or may not, originate from core racist/sexist beliefs. You need to be careful going around labelling people like that just because they made an assumption. For better or worse it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder. If I was in a rush looking for the new freelance designer one morning and walke…
it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder
Yes, it is accurate to say that "statistically a new female hire in an IT shop is likely to be a designer, not a coder". It is factually accurate to say that, but is it right and moral and nice to say it?
Words can affect people, and set tone and expectations. Is it right for all us men to presume, unless shown otherwise, that the new female hire is not a coder? Will this help or hurt our industry? Every little teeny thing (like presuming this (which is a teeny thing)) can be detrimental and can build up. "Death by a thousand cuts", "Straw that broke the camel's back", our society recognises that sometimes lots of little things can be Too Much™ sometimes.
Would software/the company/society be a better place if we didn't vocalise these presumptions about women, especially if it reinforces negative stereotypes about them?
After all, we all know the mistakes that can come when a female starts getting bigger and we ask "Are you pregnant?". Manners say to be careful here, let's apply some manners, rather than fetishising statically accurate deductions, to presuming women aren't coders.
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
How and in what way would that be sexist remark The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer. To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK, imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assu…
Hang on, that's a little unfair. If you work in an office, and you know they have hired one person, and that is a cleaner / designer, walking unto the new face in the office and saying hi you must be the new cleaner / designer is not a prejudicial assumption. Especially if they are sitting in front of Blender / a mop.
No-one mentioned "seeing an eastern european with a mop". To expand on my analogy, if you met an eastern european/etc. at the company Christmas party, asking "so are you a cleaner?" is presuming negative stereotypes based on race/ethnicity.
Re: Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech
#110Sorry for being off-topic, but why in the world would the net filter here at work have blocked this as "adult content?"