June 17, 2013 at 10:02 am
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
Steve Jones wrote:It may mean that the newest, youngest person at your company might rise much faster than you simply because they're a better DBA or developer.
Sounds a bit like ageism to me. Since when does 'younger' necessarily equate to 'better'?
Totally disagree. The younger DBA or developer may be better. It is a valid scenario. Just like the older DBA or developer may be better. I believe Steve is saying that we cannot assume either way.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
June 17, 2013 at 10:07 am
Perhaps that was Steve Jones' intent, but it could easily be interpreted as a slam against older workers.
Why was age specifically used as an example? Would it have been any more acceptable to say a black, or Hispanic, or female colleague 'may' rise more quickly?
June 17, 2013 at 10:15 am
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
Steve Jones wrote:It may mean that the newest, youngest person at your company might rise much faster than you simply because they're a better DBA or developer.
Sounds a bit like ageism to me. Since when does 'younger' necessarily equate to 'better'?
It doesn't, which is probably why he included the word "may".
Sometimes younger/older does me faster/slower. For example, a younger person may be faster at something, and sometimes an older more experienced person may be faster. Sometimes faster means nothing more than that, sometimes faster means less quality. IMO when you add the qualifier of "may mean" that eliminates any possibility of discrimination.
Hearing someone say that a "square is a rectangle" should not offend anyone, and neither should "a rectangle may be a square".
Dave
June 17, 2013 at 10:17 am
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
Perhaps that was Steve Jones' intent, but it could easily be interpreted as a slam against older workers.Why was age specifically used as an example? Would it have been any more acceptable to say a black, or Hispanic, or female colleague 'may' rise more quickly?
Because in the context of the overall discussion people had raised age as an example where there was a false assumption attributed to it i.e. younger was better. There was plenty of examples discussed of when this did not apply and, I am assuming, in the course of balance Steve said that there may be cases where this is actually the case.
I have never heard anyone say anything as ridiculous such as "Magyars make the best programmers" (except for me in jest - being half-Hungarian ;-)). That would just be silly.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
June 17, 2013 at 10:29 am
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
Perhaps that was Steve Jones' intent, but it could easily be interpreted as a slam against older workers.Why was age specifically used as an example? Would it have been any more acceptable to say a black, or Hispanic, or female colleague 'may' rise more quickly?
It would have been equally acceptable.
There is nothing at all wrong with the statement. We as a society really need to stop all the PC garbage. Humans all have different qualities, no matter what certain groups want us to believe. Acknowledging that someone may be different is NOT discrimination, it is a fact of life.
Dave
June 17, 2013 at 10:41 am
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
Steve Jones wrote:It may mean that the newest, youngest person at your company might rise much faster than you simply because they're a better DBA or developer.
Sounds a bit like ageism to me. Since when does 'younger' necessarily equate to 'better'?
It doesn't. I said might, because the traditional ways of growing your career involve time. By definition, youth haven't had time in the company, or anywhere for that matter. If someone younger rises faster because of merit, it can be a shock, since many people view their time in a job as having value. This could be true for older, but new-to-IT people, but that's less common.
Far too many people are not self aware with their careers. They often think they've gained 10 years of experience in a job when they've really had one year 10 times, or often six months experience 20 times over.
June 17, 2013 at 10:43 am
djackson wrote:
It would have been equally acceptable.
There is nothing at all wrong with the statement. We as a society really need to stop all the PC garbage.
Or it would have been equally unacceptable. Part of the reason 'all the PC garbage' (as you put it) exists is because some people are indeed insensitive to the disadvantages other groups have endured in past and present.
A meritocracy is to what we all should aspire, most certainly. And whilst youth and age confer their own particular advantages and disadvantages, I do think it was in poor form to single out older workers as an editorial example.
June 17, 2013 at 10:51 am
Steve, I understand your clarification and in fact agree with it.
I took exception only to the phrasing in the original editorial, which I understand you to have corrected through your clarification, thank you.
I consider the issue closed.
June 17, 2013 at 10:51 am
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
djackson wrote:It would have been equally acceptable.
There is nothing at all wrong with the statement. We as a society really need to stop all the PC garbage.
Or it would have been equally unacceptable. Part of the reason 'all the PC garbage' (as you put it) exists is because some people are indeed insensitive to the disadvantages other groups have endured in past and present.
A meritocracy is to what we all should aspire, most certainly. And whilst youth and age confer their own particular advantages and disadvantages, I do think it was in poor form to single out older workers as an editorial example.
There is nothing wrong with stating a fact. When people attempt to portray that as discrimination they are in fact engaging in discrimination, and decreasing the value of any gains made against discrimination in the past. As I said, humans are all different, and that is one of our greatest strengths. Ignoring our differences is causing more issues than acknowledging them.
Sorry, we will have to agree to disagree.
We can agree on what you said about it being equally unacceptable, but I view the level of unacceptability as absolutely zero, and you don't.
Dave
June 17, 2013 at 10:55 am
@djackson, I would refer you to my response to Steve's clarification. I understand and agree with it, and feel his post explains his views much better than did his original editorial phrasing.
June 17, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/17/2013)
Far too many people are not self aware with their careers. They often think they've gained 10 years of experience in a job when they've really had one year 10 times, or often six months experience 20 times over.
Yet employers are always looking for a large number of years experience doing just one thing; to me, it seems that a competent developer can learn a new language and development tool-set well enough to be effective (albeit slowed down by frequent reference to the book) in a fortnight, and become fluent and capable of developing software rapidly within 6 months. Of course with complex horror stories like C++ and its assorted template libraries or Java and its run-time packages that assumes that the developer learns the bits he is likely to use, not the whole foul mess, while with something like T-SQL it's comparatively to learn it all in a fairly short time, so in some cases an employer may be justified in asking for more experience of a particular development technology, but there's no justification for asking for five or ten years experience with a particular development setup. A DBA of course isn't just learning T-SQL but learning the way SQL-Server does recovery, what is available in the way of features that reduce risk of data loss and/or time for recovery, and so on, but there's no real reason for asking for five years experience with configuring log shipping. What a DBA or a developer really needs is lots of experience of doing lots of different things, and the difficult part of the job is choosing algorithms, data structures, modular structure, and error management and security mechanisms, not churning the coding or configuration handle. But what HR departments and recruitment agents generally ask for is lots of experience of doing the same thing over and over again, and t is almost always trivia that they choose to ask for years of experience of. If some developers and DBAs are deluded into thinking they are gaining useful extra experience by repeating the same 6 months of activity twice a year for ten years that's more the fault of the recruitment process which asks for candidates with that repetition of the same experience than of the poor deluded DBAs and developers.
Tom
June 18, 2013 at 10:18 am
L' Eomot Inversé (6/17/2013)
Yet employers are always looking for a large number of years experience doing just one thing; to me, it seems that a competent developer can learn a new language and development tool-set well enough to be effective ...
Very well state Tom and I appreciate it.
I also have like experience to what you have. And that experience has shown me that there is a point where the understanding of IT theory and science take priority over syntax and punctuation, and logic becomes the language and the code is just a dialect. At that point languages can be learned quickly. Should we pay people like this what they are worth, or should we pay them the same as the first year grad from Junior College?
And conversely, should we pay the more experienced employee who has given up ten years ago and is working for rocking chair money the same as we would the second year employee with a degree from MIT in Computer Engineering who is all but performing miracles?
Appreciate the question Steve!
M...
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
June 18, 2013 at 6:52 pm
Craig-315134 (6/17/2013)
David Tennant. Tom Baker a close second! 😉
Probably because I've been watching for so long, I still prefer Tom Baker to David Tennant. But I'd say Tennant is a close second. He played the Doctor brilliantly (as his Doctor would say). 🙂
Rod
June 18, 2013 at 6:59 pm
Greetings, Rod! I've been watching Doctor Who since William Hartnell played the Doctor.
It seems the Doctors keep getting younger. I'm hoping the next one is someone older and more cynical!
Hugh Laurie!
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