How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary (2002)
samizdat.mines.edu
A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary
samizdat.mines.edu
Why the use of the word "she" ? I see a lot of articles written where the undefined person will be a she. I speak french, and "person" is a feminine name, so you can say about a person "she", but why in English ? Especially when in male dominated jobs like programming. A programmer is likely to be a he than a she, so why try this hard to be politically correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Generic_he
Anything else is just politically correct nonsense.
Interestingly wikipedia also states "In the 19th century, grammarians in England petitioned the British Parliament to declare gender-indeterminate pronouns as 'he' rather than 'they', which was common usage at the time. "
The english language is far from a codified, logically consistent system.
Just as frustrating is writing that switches pronoun gender when referring to ostensibly the same person. However describing some operation between two people "Alice and Bob" it can improve clarity to make both people belong to different genders.
As to using she it's very common convention these days in some domains. Many books on games use that for example (chess, bridge, go, poker - you need to a pronoun for black/white/last to act player there ). I also saw some computer science books using it. At this point I would say it's so common that it becomes part of the language. I personally like it although I can see how it raises eyebrows when encountered for the first time :)
It's not a matter of being grammaticaly incorrect or correct, but rather to imply that for this example, the programmer is female. It's goal seems to be inclusion. The other reason is that perhaps that the programmer the author thought about when writing this is a lady.
It's a simple method to get people thinking about issues :)
Of course you may argue that this convention is evil, as a product of political oppression etc. etc.
And I'm not even questioning that - my point is that this is beyond the point. Even if it's true, it doesn't mean it has to be brought up everywhere all the time.
I'd like to be able to read an article on programming (or any other neutral subject) without an unrelated political or social agenda being shoved in my face, in whatever form.
If somebody says "to hell with your pet peeves, this is more important and you're probably a bigot anyway", that's fine to me - it's a matter of taste.
It gets on my nerves more when people pretend not to get the point at all (for the sake of polemics of course). "The use of the word she? Why on Earth would you think it sticks out? Of course if one becomes a programmer, then as a programmer she bears certain responsibilities. I can't see what you mean? I'm stumped? Why can't you read on - you're stupid, huh?" (as aaren subtly hinted in reply to my previous comment)
Unless your point is that you're tired of it coming out as an explicit point for discussion, as in this current thread of the conversation. That's optional to the core of the effort.
It's not much of a point then ;)
If it even did some good to anyone. But all this linguistic ritual smells of magical thinking to me. The idea that if you change the usus and call things differently, they will change. It's pushing on a string.
Basically it's another incarnation of Facebook's "liking this picture will end world hunger" :)
No, fixing the world is not that simple. Just you wait, gender inequality - I'll replace all the "he"s with "she"s on my blog. Ouch that's tough blow, I can only hope my misogyne silicone bracelet will shield me!
"Unless your point is that you're tired of it coming out as an explicit point for discussion, as in this current thread of the conversation. That's optional to the core of the effort."
If one decides to be importunate and pushy (ever had that friend who wouldn't talk about anything else that 9/11 conspiracy, for example - be it at work, at lunch, parties...?) - fine, but don't be surprised if it creates backlash and is counter-effective on occasions. It's a trade-off that should be weighed in. You're free to use that tactic just as I'm free to comment on it :)
Programmers are unique in the world, in a philosophical sense, in that the skills and techniques of programming can be applied to any human subject, and seriously productive results can be attained. Computers are an "infinity machine" in that any single subject that a human being can describe, using words, can be in some way supported by computerization.
So if you think an organization is broken, programming can often-times fix it. Good programming, which encodes the domain-specific knowledge of the organization, can be applied to any particular role in human existence - including that of management. In that sense, programmers are able to operate exterior to any organization - and must, in fact, if they wish to deliver a productive result - and apply their skills to that organization in order to improve it.
Programmers who have worked professionally in any industry have an intuitive understanding of this fact, and its strengths.
So I would put it to you that its not Stockholm Syndrome you're observing, but rather this simple fact: Programmers > Managers. (Well, Programmers who deliver working systems, that is..)
There are good programmers and there are bad programmers. There are good managers and there are bad managers. The good variants of either are very valuable and can deliver huge value to very diverse businesses. The bad ones, not so much.
Since the computer-based automation of everything is a reasonably recent phenonomen, there have been more low-hanging fruit to be picked by bad programmers. Management is a much more mature field, so having "Teach yourself Management in 24 hours"-level competence is much less likely to have a positive yield.
What you're describing is just general intelligence and analytical thought. It's harder and rarer than most people think, and both managers and programmers to be really good at their jobs. But just as there are less demanding management positions in the world, there is an emergent class of programmers who are perfectly capable of building and maintaining simple CRUD apps to spec, but wouldn't need to know half of what is in this guide to be effective.
Believing this fallacy will bring you nothing but suffering.
If an organization is limited - if the will is there to do the right thing but the workload is more than the people involved can handle - then programming can indeed help, by amplifying productivity.
But a broken organization is not merely one where means are insufficient. It's one where you are forbidden to do the right thing. That's not a technical problem, it's a political one, and no amount of programming can fix it. You have to either get into a political fight - which probably isn't your area of comparative advantage, but best of luck if you do take that approach - or get out and find a job somewhere less dysfunctional.
By your logic. Everyone who can speak is Shakespeare.
I have had the privilege to work mostly in happy, stable companies, and all the team and organization suggestions in this article have been helpful to me. The "how to get promoted", too. I'm now in a position to do even more to make my team healthy and my company successful. And I love it.
Edit: we're not in the Valley. We're in the DC area, which generally has fairly poor working conditions and long hours for programmers. It helps that we're a product company and not a bodyshop.
Of course, do take care to throw out the bathwater.
I've seen quite a few programmers have breakdowns, and have to leave the industry. Far higher rate than other industries. I think it's because programmers see themselves as creatives, but managers in some companies seem them as builders of somebody else's vision.
:/
Brilliant! This whole section on choosing a language is great.
"One tends to think of a large system that has components in three or four languages as a messy hodgepodge; but I argue that such a system is in many cases stronger than a one-language system..."
This part sounds insane until you start working with eventually consistent messaging like: http://www.reactivemanifesto.org
Thanks a lot for this!
Engineers have the power to create and sustain.In most companies, technology-centered or not, the non-engineers have a large amount of power to "create and sustain" something far more important than code or systems: institutional political power. I don't care how good a programmer one is, in such organizations institutional politics almost always wins. The old addage, "It's not what you know but who", applies here, as in any other industry. Talent is only good to carry a person so far, within the confines of somebody else's business.
For everyone else, go ahead and try to read things titled "How to Be a Programmer" but don't expect it to actually help you, you know, BECOME one.
As a young hacker who's not sure yet where he belongs in the world of tech & science & engineering (worked freelance, worked in startups, worked in research as a grad student, worked in larger companies, and I still don't know what I want to spend my life as a hacker doing :-), I found it extremely useful and well written.
The title "A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary". This is not short. It's pretty verbose.
His coverage of debugging, and how it's critical to overcome fear of breaking things, and of asking the right questions of how things might fail in this way, is a great explanation.