At least half of the women I know in IT do it because they were interested in it. Often they have degrees in maths. One of my friends has been working as a programmer for maybe 20 years. Mostly as a contractor and I'd say almost never out of work - there's a reason for that.
Many are great project managers and IT project management pays better than in business. Some are great analysts.
I wouldn't be surprised if they are getting out considering how much IT has slumped into geekdom now.
IT departments used to be much more regular. During latter mainframe days, people were heading for a more business-orientated computing world. The talk was all about 4GLs and people having tools that would be closer to building from a business models. Analysts would do a lot more development.
Geeks in business computing are mostly a nightmare. They like to just play around with code, optimise beyond what is necessary, and have helped create the cycle of constantly keeping up with vendors changing tools and forcing relearning for no benefit. They often shun certain tools and languages that give productivity benefits for all sorts of reasons (eg MS Access, COBOL) and have never actually used them or thought about their use.
Re:Looking at the distribution ...
on
Women Leaving I.T.
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· Score: 4, Insightful
That's not it at all.
I know a lot of women in IT, and there are certain qualities that they have. Men have different qualities.
To generalise, women are better in less geeky programming, where it is more business oriented. They don't tend to "play" in the way men do.
Most women I know have less languages/tools under their belt, but have done a lot more of them. They have some wisdom about languages - mostly a change of language doesn't deliver the stratospheric improvements touted by the manufacturers.
Here's why this matters: the world of programming used to be a lot more stable. You could learn COBOL and use it almost unchanged for a decade and keep getting better at it. The current thing of skills changing rapidly (i.e. another version of a tool that delivers nothing in terms of productivity to a business) doesn't help that.
I think a lot of women just get fed up with this geeky game.
It may also be that at one time, software development in companies was becoming more and more business orientated. Now, I see more and more hacker mentality than business oriented programming. And, I don't know if it's a culture particularly attractive to women.
How many people who say the same as you (I'm not pointing a finger at you) give even a few bucks to the EFF to help protect their rights?
I'm sorry to say it, but government are corrupt, then again, they always have been, we're just more aware of it. But funding lawyers, advocacy and lobbying groups in your favour is the way to beat it.
It is possible that this has happened, but "virtually guaranteed"? That suggests a better than 50% odds, and somewhere around 90% odds to me. Now, let's see your figures to support such an assertion.
The RIAA would not want to pursue cases where there is an error or a reasonable doubt about the case. Because it would cause them serious damage.
Now, maybe someone out there has just paid, even though they've never file shared in their lives. I've got a name for people like that: idiots. If the RIAA didn't get to them, some pyramid scheme would have got them soon after.
Thing is, I know businesses that take an evil route - screw customers, don't worry about recommendations and retention because there will be another sucker along soon, just keep aggressive marketing going.
On the other hand, there are businesses founded by people who whilst they wanted to make money, also had an interest in creating something. In many cases, they fostered a positive culture.
I've worked in organisations that turned from evil to good. Rather than being dishonest with customers, they decided to be more transparent with them. As well as being easier to work with, it paid off.
I don't think such decisions are down to someone taking alternate profit views, they are far more about the attitude of the person in charge. Are they a cynic about the world, or positive about it?
Sometimes, these things don't even come (like people always assume) from the top.
I've seen times when junior guys have acted in what they thought was a company's interest and been a bit bad and potentially soured a client relationship and once it got to a senior guy, they then had to apologise/explain what was wrong to the junior guy.
I remember digital watches and how they ended up with tons of features and then people eventually went back to analogue. Partly they looked better, but also I think they learnt that they didn't use the stopwatch or world time much.
I'd like phones to have an options menu like the Windows calculator. Except instead of scientific/standard it would be loadofcrap/standard. That way, I could get a phone and tell it to give me a phone, SMS, simple name book and clock.
The whizz-bang stuff is quite a lot about sales of content. My phone has a single button on the front for a browser. Why? To take me to buy those reasonably priced backgrounds, wallpapers and services. Cellphones are no longer about making calls, they are a tool for selling crap.
You can bet your life that one of the first things they'll push with this hard disk phone is direct MP3 downloads.
Same thing with an independent record shop in my town. I recall going to one of the majors, checking the price and then walking 50 yards up the road to check the independent. It was something like 25% cheaper.
The guy said that even if they dropped the price another quid (about $1.50), they still wouldn't get takers.
People trust all the crap about sales in big stores. Most of what they say is true, but it just persuades people they are likely to get a better deal from the major guy.
Absolutely. It should all be about process and data, and most tools don't work that way.
Start by eliminating most free-format documents. I've seen free-format documents used for things like change management. Free-format is not the same as data.
So, when someone makes a change they type something in Word, print it, sign it and file it. There's also an electronic copy. Now, how do you mine a Word document? You have all the fields in the right places? Have people all detailed the changes (eg what changes to what programs) in the same way? What wording did one person use to set the status? Did they write "live" or "implemented". What if they misspelt "implemented"?
There are times that free-format documents may be useful (like system specifications) but they are best kept to a minimum.
A friend of mine urged me to catch The Usual Suspects. I know that big names do not always a great movie make. So, I watched it and was absolutely blown away by it. I guess you've seen it.
Anyway, so I start telling people I work with about how great it is. First question "who's in it". Well, errr, no-one well known, but it's a great movie.
A lot of people pick movies on stars. They view them as a quality indicator, and it's probably one of the worst. Particularly some stars who just so often seem to appear in crap for no reason but the money.
Except that Dr Who, Hitch Hikers and Monty Python were all created by the BBC, a major media network.
Even though anyone can put any music on the net for downloading, very little has made a cultural impact that way alone. This may change, but right now, the internet is full of small artists.
I tend to agree - I'm not sure that the mainstream won't continue to exist as a powerful force, regardless of what some management consultants are saying (I don't want to name names). There are people who talk up all sorts of things - how the internet and blogging will kill the mainstream, and it is complete and utter garbage. If they spent 5 minutes away from their high-income middle class existence, they'd see that.
One thing that can make a big difference is how much you do yourself. Some bands I can think of write, record and produce their albums. Other people do little more than sing to a session band.
If you spend a few million on videos and a huge amount on publicity, that's going to eat in too.
I bet Judi Dench did that film to broader her acting talents;) *
Anyway, I think that one thing that could fall out of this thing with music is that we may see a lot more music produced and sold outside of the charts/large record companies. Sometimes by people doing it independently.
I know an ex-professional musician who records in a band for fun/beer money. They sell a few CDs. It's not bad stuff. What has changed is that they can get their music on the net, set up newsletters for gigs and the like. Producing recorded music has also become a much cheaper thing (including CD pressing being real simple with low setups). He's been there in terms of fame, and basically needs to support his family.
I think it's pretty cool that people can choose to do music for a hobby, including making a CD.
* Actually, I shouldn't knock crappy films with massive budgets. They often result in talented actors being paid enough that they'll do the stuff they really want to at much lower rates.
That's a key part of this whole internet thing. You will not get word-of-mouth without being good and loved.
I can think back to bands from my youth - The Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, The Cult, Spear of Destiny. All off-beat, and mostly I didn't hear about them because of the radio. It was friends telling other friends about them.
However, back in the early 1980s, how would I have converted that into a sale, except through a record shop. Bands could not easily sell music. Mail order wasn't really practical for records.
The split that may occur in the music industry is a split between the talented and the hyped. TV presenters turned popstars need the hype, grooming and videos. They have to make more media noise than the next TV presenter turned popstar. They also can't exist in their own way because they basically aren't songwriters, can do nothing much else but sing (averagely - and pitch tuned later) and so need record companies to help them through.
The equipment is only shared by people on the label in terms that artists who win for the label pick up part of the recording cost of those that lose for the label.
A lot of artists fail. I don't know the percentage, but a heck of a lot of bands have advances spent on them and basically go nowehere. Someone has to pay for that.
It also may take expensive equipment, but studio time can vary massively. And in some cases, expensive equipment isn't always required.
A guy in the UK called Daniel Bedingfield had a number 1 single which was recorded in his bedroom with a computer and a microphone.
It's despicable for government anywhere to not write into legislation the people who will be unaffected and not codify the rules. We are getting a lot of laws passed in the UK with little clear definition.
It leads down a road to fascism.
Because what it's actually giving them is the power in reserve to do so without further legislation. Laws are being written very broadly, meaning that almost everyone is at some time or another breaking the law.
A law should be explicit in what it does and how it is measured. The fundamental laws are, of course, very simple.
Of recent months on the BBC has been Little Britain (fantastic) and Nighty Night (really dark). If you like Python, Little Britain might be to your taste.
Oh, and if you've not seen The Day Today and any of the Alan Partridge stuff, that's really worth tracking down.
I've seen a few US remakes of UK things, and mostly they just seem to miss the point.
To the credit of US TV, there are some things that you do better. We haven't made a good early evening sitcom for years - probably as far back as The Good Life.
It has overturned cases on what many would call a technicality. That would be very sweet, if the railroading then resulted in someone overturning this and the patent lobbyists had to go back to square 1.
Slashdot Mirror
At least half of the women I know in IT do it because they were interested in it. Often they have degrees in maths. One of my friends has been working as a programmer for maybe 20 years. Mostly as a contractor and I'd say almost never out of work - there's a reason for that.
Many are great project managers and IT project management pays better than in business. Some are great analysts.
I wouldn't be surprised if they are getting out considering how much IT has slumped into geekdom now.
What studies?
Geeks in business computing are mostly a nightmare. They like to just play around with code, optimise beyond what is necessary, and have helped create the cycle of constantly keeping up with vendors changing tools and forcing relearning for no benefit. They often shun certain tools and languages that give productivity benefits for all sorts of reasons (eg MS Access, COBOL) and have never actually used them or thought about their use.
I know a lot of women in IT, and there are certain qualities that they have. Men have different qualities.
To generalise, women are better in less geeky programming, where it is more business oriented. They don't tend to "play" in the way men do.
Most women I know have less languages/tools under their belt, but have done a lot more of them. They have some wisdom about languages - mostly a change of language doesn't deliver the stratospheric improvements touted by the manufacturers.
Here's why this matters: the world of programming used to be a lot more stable. You could learn COBOL and use it almost unchanged for a decade and keep getting better at it. The current thing of skills changing rapidly (i.e. another version of a tool that delivers nothing in terms of productivity to a business) doesn't help that.
I think a lot of women just get fed up with this geeky game.
It may also be that at one time, software development in companies was becoming more and more business orientated. Now, I see more and more hacker mentality than business oriented programming. And, I don't know if it's a culture particularly attractive to women.
How many people who say the same as you (I'm not pointing a finger at you) give even a few bucks to the EFF to help protect their rights?
I'm sorry to say it, but government are corrupt, then again, they always have been, we're just more aware of it. But funding lawyers, advocacy and lobbying groups in your favour is the way to beat it.
The RIAA would not want to pursue cases where there is an error or a reasonable doubt about the case. Because it would cause them serious damage.
Now, maybe someone out there has just paid, even though they've never file shared in their lives. I've got a name for people like that: idiots. If the RIAA didn't get to them, some pyramid scheme would have got them soon after.
On the other hand, there are businesses founded by people who whilst they wanted to make money, also had an interest in creating something. In many cases, they fostered a positive culture.
I've worked in organisations that turned from evil to good. Rather than being dishonest with customers, they decided to be more transparent with them. As well as being easier to work with, it paid off.
I don't think such decisions are down to someone taking alternate profit views, they are far more about the attitude of the person in charge. Are they a cynic about the world, or positive about it?
I've seen times when junior guys have acted in what they thought was a company's interest and been a bit bad and potentially soured a client relationship and once it got to a senior guy, they then had to apologise/explain what was wrong to the junior guy.
I'd like phones to have an options menu like the Windows calculator. Except instead of scientific/standard it would be loadofcrap/standard. That way, I could get a phone and tell it to give me a phone, SMS, simple name book and clock.
The whizz-bang stuff is quite a lot about sales of content. My phone has a single button on the front for a browser. Why? To take me to buy those reasonably priced backgrounds, wallpapers and services. Cellphones are no longer about making calls, they are a tool for selling crap.
You can bet your life that one of the first things they'll push with this hard disk phone is direct MP3 downloads.
Couldn't they just move to Belgium?
The guy said that even if they dropped the price another quid (about $1.50), they still wouldn't get takers.
People trust all the crap about sales in big stores. Most of what they say is true, but it just persuades people they are likely to get a better deal from the major guy.
Start by eliminating most free-format documents. I've seen free-format documents used for things like change management. Free-format is not the same as data.
So, when someone makes a change they type something in Word, print it, sign it and file it. There's also an electronic copy. Now, how do you mine a Word document? You have all the fields in the right places? Have people all detailed the changes (eg what changes to what programs) in the same way? What wording did one person use to set the status? Did they write "live" or "implemented". What if they misspelt "implemented"?
There are times that free-format documents may be useful (like system specifications) but they are best kept to a minimum.
A friend of mine urged me to catch The Usual Suspects. I know that big names do not always a great movie make. So, I watched it and was absolutely blown away by it. I guess you've seen it.
Anyway, so I start telling people I work with about how great it is. First question "who's in it". Well, errr, no-one well known, but it's a great movie.
A lot of people pick movies on stars. They view them as a quality indicator, and it's probably one of the worst. Particularly some stars who just so often seem to appear in crap for no reason but the money.
Even though anyone can put any music on the net for downloading, very little has made a cultural impact that way alone. This may change, but right now, the internet is full of small artists.
I tend to agree - I'm not sure that the mainstream won't continue to exist as a powerful force, regardless of what some management consultants are saying (I don't want to name names). There are people who talk up all sorts of things - how the internet and blogging will kill the mainstream, and it is complete and utter garbage. If they spent 5 minutes away from their high-income middle class existence, they'd see that.
If you spend a few million on videos and a huge amount on publicity, that's going to eat in too.
Anyway, I think that one thing that could fall out of this thing with music is that we may see a lot more music produced and sold outside of the charts/large record companies. Sometimes by people doing it independently.
I know an ex-professional musician who records in a band for fun/beer money. They sell a few CDs. It's not bad stuff. What has changed is that they can get their music on the net, set up newsletters for gigs and the like. Producing recorded music has also become a much cheaper thing (including CD pressing being real simple with low setups). He's been there in terms of fame, and basically needs to support his family.
I think it's pretty cool that people can choose to do music for a hobby, including making a CD.
* Actually, I shouldn't knock crappy films with massive budgets. They often result in talented actors being paid enough that they'll do the stuff they really want to at much lower rates.
That's a key part of this whole internet thing. You will not get word-of-mouth without being good and loved.
I can think back to bands from my youth - The Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, The Cult, Spear of Destiny. All off-beat, and mostly I didn't hear about them because of the radio. It was friends telling other friends about them.
However, back in the early 1980s, how would I have converted that into a sale, except through a record shop. Bands could not easily sell music. Mail order wasn't really practical for records.
The split that may occur in the music industry is a split between the talented and the hyped. TV presenters turned popstars need the hype, grooming and videos. They have to make more media noise than the next TV presenter turned popstar. They also can't exist in their own way because they basically aren't songwriters, can do nothing much else but sing (averagely - and pitch tuned later) and so need record companies to help them through.
A lot of artists fail. I don't know the percentage, but a heck of a lot of bands have advances spent on them and basically go nowehere. Someone has to pay for that.
It also may take expensive equipment, but studio time can vary massively. And in some cases, expensive equipment isn't always required.
A guy in the UK called Daniel Bedingfield had a number 1 single which was recorded in his bedroom with a computer and a microphone.
It leads down a road to fascism.
Because what it's actually giving them is the power in reserve to do so without further legislation. Laws are being written very broadly, meaning that almost everyone is at some time or another breaking the law.
A law should be explicit in what it does and how it is measured. The fundamental laws are, of course, very simple.
Of recent months on the BBC has been Little Britain (fantastic) and Nighty Night (really dark). If you like Python, Little Britain might be to your taste.
Oh, and if you've not seen The Day Today and any of the Alan Partridge stuff, that's really worth tracking down.
I've seen a few US remakes of UK things, and mostly they just seem to miss the point.
To the credit of US TV, there are some things that you do better. We haven't made a good early evening sitcom for years - probably as far back as The Good Life.
The most promising thing is that the writer is both a big Dr Who fan and has done other non-Sci Fi series.
If banks call us, should we put them into out queueing systems? ;)
It has overturned cases on what many would call a technicality. That would be very sweet, if the railroading then resulted in someone overturning this and the patent lobbyists had to go back to square 1.
If you paid for a developer to change something to your needs, that would be. You donate to a project, you don't own it.
Is making a donation to the Red Cross capitalism?