March 19, 2015 at 10:16 am
GilaMonster (3/18/2015)
Jack Corbett (3/18/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (3/18/2015)
For your discussion: https://medium.com/@sailorhg/coding-like-a-girl-595b90791cceThat was an interesting read. I can't disagree with any of it, but I can honestly say I don't think any of the negative reactions mentioned by the writer are ones I have had.
I've a couple times (here and elsewhere) had the "You should read that article properly.", "I wrote the article"
I've had people assume I'm not technical but that the male colleagues with me are.
I've had a case where the client's senior dev outright told me that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about, but when my male colleague repeated the statements he was believed.
Multiple times people have assumed, prior to meeting me, that my title (when they have my name and surname) is 'Mr'. My usual reply there is that my father is retired and hence won't be coming (he was also in IT, former developer)
I've had cases where, at a meeting with a client, people will initially speak to my boss (male), not to me.
I tend to have had Jack's experiences, but I wonder if I was just unaware of what was happening in the past. I'd like to think that I hadn't seen anything this blatant without reacting.
I know I do tend to watch people interact more, especially with women, and try to gauge how people view men v women. Perhaps we're lucky in the SQL community in public as I don't see this.
I'm sorry that Gail, and others, have experienced this. It's stupidity and presumption at it's worst.
March 19, 2015 at 10:25 am
Brandie Tarvin (3/19/2015)
dwain.c (3/18/2015)
I can disclose one fact. At my company, 90% of developers are men. Likewise, 90% of testers are women. I don't think we have a specific policy enforcing that (and I'm sure we don't have one against it). It is just the way the numbers shake out.At my company, we have at most two women developers (that includes myself) at any one time if I'm just looking at the straight developer / DBAs. But if I include our reporting / BI team, we have six. Now the DBA numbers shake out at 66% male, 33% female (there are three of us). The reporting / BI team numbers shake out closer to 60 / 40 (again favoring the males), and the Dev team shakes out closer to 95 / 5 (since there's only one woman on their team).
Our testers were (at one point) mostly female until one migrated over to the reporting team and the staff got increased because of a higher workload. They are closer to 50-50, though there is one more male, and the manager is female. The managers of all other teams are male.
I remember doing some interviews for a DBA many years ago, and I found the only female applicant had either lied or exagerrated her experience. It broke my heart because I really wanted another woman around the office. But then, these applications were coming from contracting agencies, so I wonder how many women were filtered out before we got to her. Or if there really was that small a number of women DBAs in the area.
It is a horrible circle. The filtering out leads to fewer women in the field, which leads to stereotypes which leads to filtering out.
The number of men I've interviewed who've exaggerated or lied on their resumes. Yeesh. A lot of them it seems to get overlooked by those with the hiring decision. I once helped with an interview process years ago and I kept vetoing the people being interviewed. The solution was to stop having me help with the interviews. They hired someone I had to hand-hold with every piece of work who, at the end of the 3 month project, "lost" the work, hadn't checked it in like I'd told him and then his computer was "stolen".
--------------------------------------
When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
March 19, 2015 at 10:56 am
spaghettidba (3/19/2015)
We don't always realize that we do that, it's true.If you think it's not possible, that you are different, just read this article: http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/bu-research-riddle-reveals-the-depth-of-gender-bias/
What is really surprising is that even a significant number of women was unable to solve the riddle. The gender bias is part of our perception of the world. We have to do something about it, but I think that whatever we do will change the world for our children, not so much for ourselves: we're too old to drop that bias completely.
The BU Research article is claptrap, presenting a conclusion based on appallingly substandard research procedure; it also blatantly displays religious and geographic bias. An article like that should be unacceptable at any decent university.
The paper that Steve referenced was a far better piece.
The behaviour described in that paper is indeed pretty common (rather more common in the USA than in the UK, in my experience, but it's all too common in the UK too). I hope and believe that I don't do it. If I don't it is probably because I've worked with many women who have simultaneously been very feminine, very knowledgable about computing, extremely good engineers, extremelty good leaders, and excellent at helping others to become better engineers rather than from any virtue of my own. But I'm a product of the society I live in so maybe I do do it sometimes, without noticing that I'm doing it (but I hope that I would get told if I did).
Tom
March 19, 2015 at 11:03 am
TomThomson (3/19/2015)
spaghettidba (3/19/2015)
We don't always realize that we do that, it's true.If you think it's not possible, that you are different, just read this article: http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/bu-research-riddle-reveals-the-depth-of-gender-bias/
What is really surprising is that even a significant number of women was unable to solve the riddle. The gender bias is part of our perception of the world. We have to do something about it, but I think that whatever we do will change the world for our children, not so much for ourselves: we're too old to drop that bias completely.
The BU Research article is claptrap, presenting a conclusion based on appallingly substandard research procedure; it also blatantly displays religious and geographic bias. An article like that should be unacceptable at any decent university.
The paper that Steve referenced was a far better piece.
The behaviour described in that paper is indeed pretty common (rather more common in the USA than in the UK, in my experience, but it's all too common in the UK too). I hope and believe that I don't do it. If I don't it is probably because I've worked with many women who have simultaneously been very feminine, very knowledgable about computing, extremely good engineers, extremelty good leaders, and excellent at helping others to become better engineers rather than from any virtue of my own. But I'm a product of the society I live in so maybe I do do it sometimes, without noticing that I'm doing it (but I hope that I would get told if I did).
Actually I didn't read the article (my bad for linking it). The part that I wanted to point out is the riddle at the very beginning.
When I was asked to solve the riddle (a couple of years ago, IIRC) I failed it and I don't consider myself a sexist dick.
It has to be said that the Italian language doesn't help either: "the surgeon" translates to "il chirurgo", which is a masculine word to indicate the job, not the person, so it can be used for male and female. As soon as you hear "il chirurgo", you immediately think of a male surgeon, because that's literally what was said.
-- Gianluca Sartori
March 19, 2015 at 12:25 pm
spaghettidba (3/19/2015)
TomThomson (3/19/2015)
spaghettidba (3/19/2015)
We don't always realize that we do that, it's true.If you think it's not possible, that you are different, just read this article: http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/bu-research-riddle-reveals-the-depth-of-gender-bias/
What is really surprising is that even a significant number of women was unable to solve the riddle. The gender bias is part of our perception of the world. We have to do something about it, but I think that whatever we do will change the world for our children, not so much for ourselves: we're too old to drop that bias completely.
The BU Research article is claptrap, presenting a conclusion based on appallingly substandard research procedure; it also blatantly displays religious and geographic bias. An article like that should be unacceptable at any decent university.
The paper that Steve referenced was a far better piece.
The behaviour described in that paper is indeed pretty common (rather more common in the USA than in the UK, in my experience, but it's all too common in the UK too). I hope and believe that I don't do it. If I don't it is probably because I've worked with many women who have simultaneously been very feminine, very knowledgable about computing, extremely good engineers, extremelty good leaders, and excellent at helping others to become better engineers rather than from any virtue of my own. But I'm a product of the society I live in so maybe I do do it sometimes, without noticing that I'm doing it (but I hope that I would get told if I did).
Actually I didn't read the article (my bad for linking it). The part that I wanted to point out is the riddle at the very beginning.
When I was asked to solve the riddle (a couple of years ago, IIRC) I failed it and I don't consider myself a sexist dick.
It has to be said that the Italian language doesn't help either: "the surgeon" translates to "il chirurgo", which is a masculine word to indicate the job, not the person, so it can be used for male and female. As soon as you hear "il chirurgo", you immediately think of a male surgeon, because that's literally what was said.
I just now read the riddle. I remember that from when I was a kid, but I don't remember what my initial reaction was.
As far as the rest of the discussion goes, I'm not trying to cause problems on the forums. I'm just reflecting at what the common reaction is to anyone making a comment about bias.
I will point out that I've seen this reaction to articles about racial bias too. It's not just regarding gender bias.
March 19, 2015 at 12:42 pm
I am so proud of myself. I learned how to do substrings and get month names out of C#.net all by my lonesome today.
Well, mostly. I had to have a dev tell me that I needed to add using System.Globalization to my code.
BUT IT WORKS NOW.
Almost finished with this project. Almost.
March 19, 2015 at 1:23 pm
Brandie Tarvin (3/19/2015)
I am so proud of myself. I learned how to do substrings and get month names out of C#.net all by my lonesome today.Well, mostly. I had to have a dev tell me that I needed to add using System.Globalization to my code.
BUT IT WORKS NOW.
Almost finished with this project. Almost.
Good luck! Venturing into unfamiliar code languages is always a challenge!
--------------------------------------
When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
March 19, 2015 at 4:33 pm
Brandie Tarvin (3/19/2015)
I am so proud of myself. I learned how to do substrings and get month names out of C#.net all by my lonesome today.Well, mostly. I had to have a dev tell me that I needed to add using System.Globalization to my code.
BUT IT WORKS NOW.
Almost finished with this project. Almost.
Well done! Congratulations. As Sioban said, learning a new programming language can be hard at first.
Once you get used to C# you'll discover that it's a vastly easier language than nightmares like Visual Basic and C++.
(F# is even better, although it's a pity the functional component is forced eager instead of overridable lazy - but you don't want to go there without someone to show you the ropes if you haven't previously used a functional language.)
Tom
March 19, 2015 at 5:05 pm
TomThomson (3/19/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (3/19/2015)
I am so proud of myself. I learned how to do substrings and get month names out of C#.net all by my lonesome today.Well, mostly. I had to have a dev tell me that I needed to add using System.Globalization to my code.
BUT IT WORKS NOW.
Almost finished with this project. Almost.
Well done! Congratulations. As Sioban said, learning a new programming language can be hard at first.
Once you get used to C# you'll discover that it's a vastly easier language than nightmares like Visual Basic and C++.
(F# is even better, although it's a pity the functional component is forced eager instead of overridable lazy - but you don't want to go there without someone to show you the ropes if you haven't previously used a functional language.)
Congrats Brandie!
I used to be a decent java programmer some years ago, then I had to switch to VB (VB6, not .NET) and I learned C# very recently. It's by far the best language I tried so far. Compared to java, it's much less verbose.
-- Gianluca Sartori
March 19, 2015 at 5:39 pm
Thinking out loud but bad thoughts, so post deleted.
My thought question: Have you ever been told that your query runs too fast?
My advice:
INDEXing a poor-performing query is like putting sugar on cat food. Yeah, it probably tastes better but are you sure you want to eat it?
The path of least resistance can be a slippery slope. Take care that fixing your fixes of fixes doesn't snowball and end up costing you more than fixing the root cause would have in the first place.
Need to UNPIVOT? Why not CROSS APPLY VALUES instead?[/url]
Since random numbers are too important to be left to chance, let's generate some![/url]
Learn to understand recursive CTEs by example.[/url]
[url url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/St
March 20, 2015 at 6:44 am
I'm trying to figure out if this one is real or not. Anyone seen this? (click the link on the tweet).
March 20, 2015 at 6:57 am
Brandie Tarvin (3/19/2015)
dwain.c (3/18/2015)
I can disclose one fact. At my company, 90% of developers are men. Likewise, 90% of testers are women. I don't think we have a specific policy enforcing that (and I'm sure we don't have one against it). It is just the way the numbers shake out.At my company, we have at most two women developers (that includes myself) at any one time if I'm just looking at the straight developer / DBAs. But if I include our reporting / BI team, we have six. Now the DBA numbers shake out at 66% male, 33% female (there are three of us). The reporting / BI team numbers shake out closer to 60 / 40 (again favoring the males), and the Dev team shakes out closer to 95 / 5 (since there's only one woman on their team).
Our testers were (at one point) mostly female until one migrated over to the reporting team and the staff got increased because of a higher workload. They are closer to 50-50, though there is one more male, and the manager is female. The managers of all other teams are male.
I remember doing some interviews for a DBA many years ago, and I found the only female applicant had either lied or exagerrated her experience. It broke my heart because I really wanted another woman around the office. But then, these applications were coming from contracting agencies, so I wonder how many women were filtered out before we got to her. Or if there really was that small a number of women DBAs in the area.
Oh, agencies do filter like that. The place I work at present is very good with respect to being anything blind. I've known the Dev manager specifically state "look, this place only cares about how good they are, gender, colour, preference, age means nothing, we'll take the best that wants to work here, end of." Cue lists of mid 20 white men (mostly). The Indian female who applied directly via the website for the Senior Dev role, and aced it - I mean blew the lads from the agencies out of the water, had actually been registered with one of them for a while. Never got a nibble.
I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.
March 20, 2015 at 7:25 am
Brandie Tarvin (3/20/2015)
I'm trying to figure out if this one is real or not. Anyone seen this? (click the link on the tweet).
How to post a question to get the most help http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537
March 20, 2015 at 7:33 am
BWFC (3/20/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (3/20/2015)
I'm trying to figure out if this one is real or not. Anyone seen this? (click the link on the tweet).
Wow. Just ... WOW.
March 20, 2015 at 9:16 am
So Scott Adams stepped into the gender bias debate and he has some interesting conclusions. I thought you all might like to read this.
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