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I knew exactly how she felt

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Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#41

Post by ryanmolden »

memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

This. I used to attribute it to douchiness, and sometimes it can be. Some people seem to feel the need to flaunt some kind of (mostly imaginary) superiority over others. That said, the curse of knowledge is also a good explanation. Some people just assume it is common knowledge because for them and others they talk with it is, so when they encounter someone that doesn't know it, it is easy to think "they must be an idiot". I have heard countless people express this exact sentiment (privately) when so and so doesn't know X, which is odd, since the set of all things one is not an expert in / knowledgeable about generally contains many different Xs.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#42

Post by noonespecial »

geoka9 wrote: post #5
noonespecial wrote: post #2

I'm not sure the author quite understood the seeing Star Wars thing was a super low bar fitness test. Once long ago my new wife asked me why geeks always wear tshirts with obscure references that no one gets. I was slightly put out by the question until I figured it out. They're a uniform. It's how we id the friendlies on the battlefield.

> I figured it out. They're a uniform. I think it's just a way of showing off. Case in point: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12532552/what-part-of-mil... The guy has no idea what the notation means by still wants to wear the t-shirt.

I read the post and got the opposite. He saw the shirt and wanted to know the meaning. He even knew the context in which it should have that meaning. I'd say he's earning the right to wear the shirt with pride right there.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#43

Post by [deleted] »

seivan wrote: post #32
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

The problem isn't PM's know jack about code. The problem is the set where a PM would even be required. That means there's a structural flaw in your process. The idea of having a project manager is ridiculous. People _should_ manage themselves and take ownership of the project. Making the PM useless.

[deleted]

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#44

Post by Spearchucker »

seivan wrote: post #32
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

The problem isn't PM's know jack about code. The problem is the set where a PM would even be required. That means there's a structural flaw in your process. The idea of having a project manager is ridiculous. People _should_ manage themselves and take ownership of the project. Making the PM useless.

There's a place for PMs. If you're willing to step into shoes other than your own, start by reading PeopleWare [1]. And then dig into the origins of self-managing Scrum and have a read through Takeuchi and Nonaka's paper[2].

When you're done, I'd love to hear your thoughts on PMs, and why we're still making the same mistakes we made, and wrote books about, 30 years ago.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633439/

[2] http://hbr.org/product/new-new-product-development-game/an/8...

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#45

Post by ryanmolden »

seivan wrote: post #32
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

The problem isn't PM's know jack about code. The problem is the set where a PM would even be required. That means there's a structural flaw in your process. The idea of having a project manager is ridiculous. People _should_ manage themselves and take ownership of the project. Making the PM useless.

Works great on small projects, does not scale to very large projects. There is a non-zero amount of communication, scheduling and cross-team coordination that needs to happen. If you want developers to do it, that is fine, it just means less development time. If you have never met a good PM it is easy (but intellectually lazy) to write off the discipline. Once you have worked with a good PM you realize by off-loading that drudgery (well, drudgery from a dev perspective) everyone wins.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#46

Post by xyzzy123 »

seivan wrote: post #32
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

The problem isn't PM's know jack about code. The problem is the set where a PM would even be required. That means there's a structural flaw in your process. The idea of having a project manager is ridiculous. People _should_ manage themselves and take ownership of the project. Making the PM useless.

That's probably why, when building a skyscraper, modern construction practices dictate that all the subcontractors just "do their own thing" and sort out with each other when it's OK to put in walls, pipes, wiring and structural alterations.

The N^2 communication overhead is OK, because PMs are just useless overhead anyway.

I heard sometimes building projects fail because the PM only understood what was supposed to be happening and who was responsible for what, as opposed to having advanced plumbing, HVAC, electrical and structural engineering knowledge.

(I don't usually resort to it... promise...)

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#47

Post by mpyne »

seivan wrote: post #32
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

The problem isn't PM's know jack about code. The problem is the set where a PM would even be required. That means there's a structural flaw in your process. The idea of having a project manager is ridiculous. People _should_ manage themselves and take ownership of the project. Making the PM useless.

That might work if the "project" is full spec'ed and defined as if it were the output of a Waterfall design process. I can't imagine that most projects are actually like that, though.

Having a good PM ensures that when ambiguities arise, they can be solved in a single way to allow those doing the coding to continue on unaffected.

Having 10 different people "take ownership" of a single project is itself a recipe for a different type of disaster.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#48

Post by abraininavat »

I knew exactly how she felt? That's really the best title you can come up with? This "use the original title" guideline is stupid, and makes for a shittier site because there's absolutely no way to scan headlines and decide which ones may be interesting.

Think about the difference between:

"I knew exactly how she felt" or "Is this what it's supposed to feel like?"

and

"Exoplanet discovery count by year" or "Earth's core far hotter than we thought?"

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#49

Post by NoPiece »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #15

> One of them told her to stop making them feel stupid all the time. The world is full of idiots. What she experienced isn't unique to women, it happens to anyone who ends up spending time with people who do not care about knowledge.

You are right, but it is a really useful geek skill to share knowledge without making other people feel stupid. It is one of the differences between being the geek who runs the company, and the geek who is just as smart, but gets stuck on projects no one else wants.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#50

Post by gyardley »

seivan wrote: post #32
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

The problem isn't PM's know jack about code. The problem is the set where a PM would even be required. That means there's a structural flaw in your process. The idea of having a project manager is ridiculous. People _should_ manage themselves and take ownership of the project. Making the PM useless.

Perhaps he's referring to a product manager - who if he's doing his job right is the guy with the deep domain expertise who spends his time talking to customers instead of dealing with project-management administrivia.

I do know lots of developers who don't think there should be product managers either - but in my experience they either have incompetent product managers or are working on a developer-centric product where they themselves have the domain expertise they need.

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