March 31, 2014 at 1:09 pm
jtallent-840140 (3/31/2014)
"If only developers were able to bring such a range of skills, experience and knowledge to the job!"Wow, nice job generalizing and bashing an entire profession. Thanks for the insult.
I love this thread. Everyone feels insulted. Who's next? 🙂
March 31, 2014 at 1:35 pm
wgarces (3/31/2014)
jtallent-840140 (3/31/2014)
"If only developers were able to bring such a range of skills, experience and knowledge to the job!"Wow, nice job generalizing and bashing an entire profession. Thanks for the insult.
I love this thread. Everyone feels insulted. Who's next? 🙂
My sarcasm was to point out that his statement could have been more tactful and considerate. As it was written, it is contrite and implies a level of superiority and arrogance.
Personally, I have played classical piano and guitar for more years that I care to mention. I also have an affinity for drawing and painting both traditional and computer-generated. Both of these I have shared with my daughter. I also personally believe that a solid understanding of database design and architecture makes for a better developer and for better coding and I highly encourage it of any new developer coming onto the team.
So yes, Phil's statement in the article reveals a degree of disrespect for the developer profession in general and could have been left out or worded more tactfully and respectfully, whether Phil was serious or intended it to be a tongue-in-cheek remark.
March 31, 2014 at 2:19 pm
jtallent-840140 (3/31/2014)
So yes, Phil's statement in the article reveals a degree of disrespect for the developer profession in general and could have been left out or worded more tactfully and respectfully, whether Phil was serious or intended it to be a tongue-in-cheek remark.
Considering that Phil was a developer for many years (based on his prior writings) and as such is insulting himself with that statement, I suspect it's there to generate controversy and comments
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
March 31, 2014 at 3:58 pm
I come not to raise the flag of social ineptitude but to bury it. (With apologies to the bard for my blatant steal.) On that scale I would say I've found people both well rounded and horribly inept in all phases of the development cycle and would go back to "all generalizations are wrong including this one".
What I have seen of late is a generational difference in development practice. I've learned over the course of almost 35 years in IT to distrust the Flavor of the Month in IT development. The latest FotM being "Agile" which no one seems to be able to spell out other than it is automatically better than the old outdated method with all it's unnecessary checks and time wasting procedures. And as a result I have one developer who has repeatedly quoted "source code control is a waste of time anyway". He also teaches at a midwest college so I can only assume he's bringing up the next generation to think that way. And it makes me shudder. I can't even begin to count the number of times where having the ability to go back to older versions of the code and compare them to find out how a bug got reintroduced has saved weeks of debugging and testing. Other similar practices seem to be to meld development and all forms of testing into one single database and then push directly into production. And we don't want to make the development environment look like production because that puts all kinds of unnecessary security in the way. "I am sure if there are any problems we can just figure it out on the production system". He is going to give me an aneurysm some day. (I'm remind of Lewis Black's "and now I know where aneurysms come from" quip.)
I know, years don't always add up to experience. As one of my mentor's told me once "20 years of experience isn't that great if it's the same year 20 times". But overall I have notice a trend that disdains the hard won experience of a previous generation of developers, testers, and administrators by insisting that there must be a better, faster and cheaper way if we would just do away with all these shackles. And the result, to my experience, is repeating some rather spectacular "crash and burns" that were the exact reason that some structured methods were put in place in the first place. But we must stay slaves to releasing something every six weeks no matter what because "Our reputation is on the line now" and so our new reputation becomes "Oh yeah I remember those guys, the ones with the buggy systems".
Crawling off my soap box to go back and chase agile programmers off my lawn...
March 31, 2014 at 5:24 pm
wgarces (3/31/2014)
jtallent-840140 (3/31/2014)
"If only developers were able to bring such a range of skills, experience and knowledge to the job!"Wow, nice job generalizing and bashing an entire profession. Thanks for the insult.
I love this thread. Everyone feels insulted. Who's next? 🙂
...I would if I had any other skills :-S
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 1, 2014 at 2:48 am
I'm surprised, I'll admit, that anyone should want to argue that developers as a profession are noted for their diversity. Please, if you think that the profession is being maligned or insulted by the people like me who campaign for more women in IT, or who wish to encourage a career path for senior technical people in IT, encourage people who want a career-change into IT, or who feel that we should encourage people with disabilities into IT careers, then why not write about your views in an editorial and see if your peers 'buy' the idea. I've worked in too many IT departments to count, in a variety of scales, and I've almost always been surprised at the bias towards twenty-thirty-something males in recruitment. It is a bias that I don't think has improved over the years. I'm not deliberately trying to insult anyone, or even to argue that there is a moral dimension to this; just pointing out that the skills shortage might disappear if we take steps to make sure that we aren't unconsciously excluding many people who would do well in IT.
It isn't immediately obvious what these steps are, since society at large sleepwalks into accepting stereotypes for some professions. I once took on the task of recruiting developers and project managers for a company in London where every team member, when I arrived, was in their mid-twenties, male and with the same ethnicity. I wanted to redress the balance if I could, but the Agencies sent me only the CVs of mid-twenties males, with the same ethnicity. I was puzzled and phoned them up. After a great deal of bullshit from them, they all eventually admitted that they (illegally) pre-filtered the CVs because they knew that this was the only type that got recruited by us. Why, they decided, waste time sending us older programmers, the women, other races, and so on. The result of these phone-calls was a startling increase in the quality of CVs and some very able people recruited into the company.
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
April 1, 2014 at 3:19 am
When recruiting on behalf of a company I have never (knowingly) been biased based on age, gender, ethnicity, height, etc. I have always based it on skills and personalities i.e. their ability to perform their duties. I never considered that I would have to push an agency not to be biased as I always give clear instructions regarding my criteria. I have even told agencies that I am not bothered about age or any other factor like that but maybe I have been thought of as someone ensuring that I am SEEN to be doing the right thing.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 1, 2014 at 4:36 am
Never mind I think I get it.
I feel like there's quite a large disconnect between the intentions of the author, how the article was read, the comments, and then the author's reply to the comments.
Oh well. No biggie.
April 1, 2014 at 5:56 am
This is thumb rule or nature of law if in IT DBA'S paid more people will attact to that job and salary will nutralize. This is purle game of Demand and Supply. If demand is more price go up and vice versa. But all may not fit for the job.
---------------------------------------------------
"Thare are only 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't."
April 1, 2014 at 6:12 am
Cody K (4/1/2014)
I feel like there's quite a large disconnect between the intentions of the author, how the article was read, the comments, and then the author's reply to the comments.
You've just described 99.99% of all online forums. Sad but true.
April 7, 2014 at 3:37 am
free_mascot (4/1/2014)
This is thumb rule or nature of law if in IT DBA'S paid more people will attact to that job and salary will nutralize. This is purle game of Demand and Supply. If demand is more price go up and vice versa. But all may not fit for the job.
Could someone put that in to English for me?
April 7, 2014 at 3:40 am
"If only developers were able to bring such a range of skills, experience and knowledge to the job!"
The cheek of it! Our development team consists of a teacher with a degree in biochemistry, a maths MSc, a physical chemistry PhD, two geologist BScs and, for want of a better term, a housewife. I'd say that was quite a wide range of skills, experience and knowledge.
Edit: The ethnic make up is one Tamil, one Anglo-Indian, one Vietnamese and three WASIDK (like a WASP but I Don't Know their religion).
April 7, 2014 at 3:41 am
Phil Factor (4/1/2014)
I'm surprised, I'll admit, that anyone should want to argue that developers as a profession are noted for their diversity. Please, if you think that the profession is being maligned or insulted by the people like me who campaign for more women in IT, or who wish to encourage a career path for senior technical people in IT, encourage people who want a career-change into IT, or who feel that we should encourage people with disabilities into IT careers, then why not write about your views in an editorial and see if your peers 'buy' the idea. I've worked in too many IT departments to count, in a variety of scales, and I've almost always been surprised at the bias towards twenty-thirty-something males in recruitment. It is a bias that I don't think has improved over the years. I'm not deliberately trying to insult anyone, or even to argue that there is a moral dimension to this; just pointing out that the skills shortage might disappear if we take steps to make sure that we aren't unconsciously excluding many people who would do well in IT.It isn't immediately obvious what these steps are, since society at large sleepwalks into accepting stereotypes for some professions. I once took on the task of recruiting developers and project managers for a company in London where every team member, when I arrived, was in their mid-twenties, male and with the same ethnicity. I wanted to redress the balance if I could, but the Agencies sent me only the CVs of mid-twenties males, with the same ethnicity. I was puzzled and phoned them up. After a great deal of bullshit from them, they all eventually admitted that they (illegally) pre-filtered the CVs because they knew that this was the only type that got recruited by us. Why, they decided, waste time sending us older programmers, the women, other races, and so on. The result of these phone-calls was a startling increase in the quality of CVs and some very able people recruited into the company.
Did you bring the illegal filtering to the notice of the relevant authorities?
April 7, 2014 at 9:40 am
At a previous consulting company that I left about 2 decades back I used to be in the hiring pipeline. I was the techical manager on a project and I got the candidates after they had been vetted by HR and by my supervisor who handled the administrative parts of the management process. I was the last step in the chain, "Review these 5 people and tell me which one fits best.", were my basic marching orders.
I experienced that same "filtering" described above I was only getting male white twenty-somethings. After kicking around some I found that they were NOT being filtered by our local HR rep who was both female and non-caucasian, she had noticed a similar thing. She wondered allowed to me if those were the only people applying for the job. When we went through two cycles of people who were not technically suitable she asked corporate HR to send her "raw resumes" and let her do the priimary sort on them. We got a whole host of people with varied backgrounds.
It seems that the people who had the primary legal responsibility to KNOW BETTER were the one's doing the filtering. We got a very unofficial response that they were under orders to minimize insurance costs by filtering out older people and women. Don't ask me why color should have entered into it? That may have been some individual or individuals personal animus? Maybe once given the onus to apply one blatantly illegal filter they felt justified in applying others?
Regardless once my local HR rep started doing the primary filtering we got our best three employees in the whole history of the hiring on that project. Top scores on all of the critical aspects, their technical skills were top notch, the worked hard at doing the little things in development that make projects more maintainable, like documentation, and they were all great teamates too.
For the record they were two women and one non-white male. But they were hired for their skills on the strength of their CVs and their interviews. All three had considerable development experience so they were a little older not just fresh out of college. Had the good fortune to work with one of them again on a completely different project for a different firm. I would gladly have worked with or FOR any of them again.
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