Is Grandma writing software really a good thing?
Is it such a bad thing, either?
I'm not a programmer, but I write programs. Why? Because I need to do stuff that 1) I can write programs to make easier for me and that 2) nobody else seems to want to do so I can't find stuff already written for it.
My stuff has a "user base" of at most, two. But Perl makes it easy to do what I need to do, regex stuff that would otherwise make my eyeballs fall out of my head. I taught myself from a couple of O'Reilly books, and if I can do it, anyone can.
If Grandma wants to use Perl to organize her recipe files or knitting patterns or email from her grandkids, why not? Is she hurting anyone by doing so? What's the UNIX kernel got to do with it?
Maybe you just feel a bit threatened that "ordinary people" are learning to write simple programs and you aren't the allknowing guru anymore?
The Meaning of Everything is a history of the whole project of the OED. The Surgeon of Crowthorn (Professor and the Madman in the US) is just one small story about the OED. It's like the difference between a book about the whole Civil War and a book about Antietam.
A guy in a CS class, sure. A guy in a cake decorating class, a ballet class, or a class in early elementary education, or some other traditionally female class? I'm not so sure that a guy would just "learned what he wanted to anyway." Social disapproval I think is MORE punishing to men. I think what you mean to say is that women are more likely to doubt themselves, which I do think is true.
Okay, I'm only seeing posts from guys, or from women who are actually working in IT, not from women who like computers/programming but who AREN'T working in IT.
I was interested in computers and took a programming class in high school --PASCAL. (Yeah, I'm old.) I was one of two girls in the class; the instructor ignored us both, unless he was standing WAY TOO CLOSE. The guys did not want to partner with us for programming projects (although MY code always worked, dammit). My dad bought a PS/2; I was the only one in the house who used it. I took another class in college (Hypercard, also called Computer Programming as a Liberal Art). Two quarters. It was interesting (and taught by Don Crabb, anyone remember him?) but not very technical. My technical questions (How Do It Work?) were met by pats on the head and suggestions to just work with the program, not take it apart.
I got a job in a very women-friendly field. However, my job brought me in contact with SGML/XML and (surprise!) Perl. I taught myself Perl from an O'Reilly book. I did a huge conversion project, all by myself, that would have cost my employer $25K to send out-of-house. When it finally ran, perfectly, I spent twenty minutes trying to find a co-worker to tell who would understand why I was so happy!
I love Perl and use it almost every day. I enjoy programming immensely. I have three computers in arm's reach (two Macs and a PC) and another two in the next room. I don't need to call some guy to fix my network settings or my printer (I replaced the rollers on my laser jet myself). I might not be the best programmer ever, but I can hack my way through most of the problems that I need to solve. I even interviewed for a programming job once, but only as a way to get my then-employer to realize how much I was actually worth. (It worked, I got a 15K raise.)
Perhaps we don't need to encourage women to go into CS, but rather let them know how CS skills can enhance their worth in other jobs that they may be interested in. (I find that I don't like to hire people who express disdain for computers -- it's like hiring people to do construction work that don't like hammers.) Also, I totally don't understand why people say women aren't good at programming -- they're programming LANGUAGES, aren't they? Women are supposed to be good at languages. (I find a language like Perl, that has so many Ways To Do It, very easy to work with. If the computer doesn't understand me the first time, I just rephrase my question. Just like I do with my husband. Simple.)
(And I would have loved a computer camp. All those cute geeky boys, at a ratio of 5:1 or better?)
It doesn't matter if she's just got a normal young person's "I'm god" complex or not. The point is, this guy is telling her that he knows better than she does what is good for her, which, if she hasn't asked him to take that responsibility, is just plain WRONG. As a young man, he's much more likely to be in a car accident than she is... so she shouldn't let him drive, right? She should drive him everywhere whenever she can, because otherwise he might die, or become paralyzed, or suffer brain injury!
Part of equal rights is equal responsibility. Women are (or should be) responsible for themselves, and this kind of misguided "chivalry" is a short step to controlling behavior, and sets off a lot of alarm bells. First it's walking her to work, and then it's telling her her clothes are too provocative, and then it's trying to separate her from her friends... all because he "cares" and "just wants to protect her". Yeah, right.
A guy walking twelve miles a night to escort a woman (who is not his girlfriend, sister, wife, daughter, or mother and who is annoyed by this behavior) is not "overprotective." A guy walking twelve miles a night is creepy.
Stranger rape is a lot less common than you folks seem to think. I see a lot of "The lil' WIMMIN might get themselves RAPED!" here, which is, I have to tell you guys, pretty creepy in itself. (And it's coming from the same guys who make posts about how women are looking for rich guys and are cheating bitches, which is also ver-y creepy.) Rape is a shattering crime, but it's not the end of the world, and it's certainly not an excuse to limit women's ability to make decisions for THEMSELVES. Which is the whole point.
If this guy was really concerned about his roommate, he would 1) LISTEN to her, and respect her wishes and 2) think of a way to help keep her safe without trying to take away her autonomy. Maybe they could go in on a car together, and she could drive to work, or a bike or motorcycle. Maybe they could move to an apartment closer to work. I already suggested self-defense classes. Maybe he could ASK her why she doesn't think she's at risk. (When I moved to a new neighborhood, I checked the crime statistics at the local precinct house. I found out that even though my new neighborhood LOOKED seedy, it actually had a lower crime rate across all categories than the more affluent neighborhood I was leaving. Maybe she knows something he doesn't? Maybe HE could look up the statistics for the neighborhoods she walks through, instead of just going "I'm a big strong man and I'll protect you!")
You know, if she's an adult and legally responsible for herself (that is, hasn't been made a ward of the court or put in guardianship), you really need to back off. She's your roommate, not your daughter, and unless she's asked for your help, you don't really have a responsibility to keep her safe. Your hero mentality here is just a bit out of line, and frankly, I find it creepy.
The really thoughtful and helpful thing for you to do here would be to suggest, or even treat her to, a self-defense class. Or at least give her a copy of "The Gift of Fear," (although that might actually set off alarm bells with her about YOU). Violent crimes are actually falling in many areas and I do believe you are overstating her risk. And again: she is responsible for herself. Treating her like a Victim In Training is weird and controlling.
I walk, by myself, through city streets at night fairly often (and I'm talking about major cities: New York, Chicago, London). I always know what is going on around me, don't go places that look dodgy, am alert and aware, and don't wear stupid shoes. I've never been so much as hassled. It takes a lot more than just being "cute" to make yourself a target.
Um, your roommate doesn't ask you to walk with her, you think it annoys her, and you STILL do it despite her assurances that she'll be fine? Do you screen her calls and vet her friends, too?
Jeebus, I'd rather be mugged once and hand over my damn iPod and my treo than deal with this kind of patronizing, controlling behavior every.single.day. There's a fine line between chivalry and jerkdom, you know.
Whatever happened to advice like "carry a dummy wallet with $20, toss it at the guy and run?" That seems more sensible than "Get yerself a big ol' sword heh heh heh! That'll show 'im!"
I have been working at home for nearly four years now. It's been great. I go in to the head office (on the coast) about once every other month, for about a week, mostly to have meetings with outside vendors or international staff.
I am much more productive at home (even including reading/., thank you--since I don't work with gearheads, I'm often able to surprise them with my technical knowledge, gleaned from here, so it actually counts as work...) I am interrupted less often, I can schedule my hardest work for the times when I am most efficient, and I can do most stuff even better here than I can at the home office, because I have a DSL all to myself, and they have a fractional T1 for 800 people. I have more office space here than I would in the (very expensive) main office, so I have more room for books and files, plus it's painted a color I actually like, instead of institutional beige or somebody's dot-com "hip" purple. Better yet, I get to use a Mac for my email/browsing/etc. even though the home office is all-PC. I laugh (to myself, of course) every time they goes down because of a virus and I'm the only one who still has email (I have it.forwarded to my own ISP).
Being at home means that I can live my life more flexibly. I can pick up my daughter from school in the middle of the day and answer voicemail while I wait in the car. I can make a doctor's appointment for any time I want. I can file while I'm on conference calls. Hell, I can fold laundry while I'm on conference calls! I have another job (that my employer knows about and supports, with a non-profit) that I handle while I'm at home. I can wear t-shirts and sandals every day. I never have to take a day off to meet the plumber -- I open the door, wave him in, and go back to work. Takes all of ten minutes. Half the time I never even have to hang up the phone.
I was one of the highest-achieving employees of the last fiscal year, and my reviews have been consistently excellent. I was recently promoted to manager of my division. The people I manage? Two work in the home office, and another works from home three states away. The one thing I hear more than anything else from people who don't work at home? "I don't know how you do all that you do!" I don't think they believe I'm slacking.
If I hated my job, was better at videogames, or wanted to have an office affair, I'd be better off commuting to an office every day. Otherwise, I'm more than happy at home. I don't know if I'd ever work in a "real" office again.
Re:Next will be the We-Pod
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 1
I have an iPod-friendly jacksplitter, for those romantic two-sets-of-headphones moments. It's called an iShare and it's iPod white.
iShare
Never used it though. Cuter in the idea than in the execution; kinda like the "two straws in one soda" thing.
Well, instead of spamming to millions of people, many of whom either don't have the need for your product or the parts to attach it to, you figure out who REALLY needs it and go after them. Unlike sending spam, it takes time and money and thought to find your target consumer. Then you put the ads where those consumers are.
In the case of penis-enlargement pumps, a banner on./ would be just about the right place.
Slashdot Mirror
Is Grandma writing software really a good thing? Is it such a bad thing, either? I'm not a programmer, but I write programs. Why? Because I need to do stuff that 1) I can write programs to make easier for me and that 2) nobody else seems to want to do so I can't find stuff already written for it. My stuff has a "user base" of at most, two. But Perl makes it easy to do what I need to do, regex stuff that would otherwise make my eyeballs fall out of my head. I taught myself from a couple of O'Reilly books, and if I can do it, anyone can. If Grandma wants to use Perl to organize her recipe files or knitting patterns or email from her grandkids, why not? Is she hurting anyone by doing so? What's the UNIX kernel got to do with it? Maybe you just feel a bit threatened that "ordinary people" are learning to write simple programs and you aren't the allknowing guru anymore?
The Meaning of Everything is a history of the whole project of the OED. The Surgeon of Crowthorn (Professor and the Madman in the US) is just one small story about the OED. It's like the difference between a book about the whole Civil War and a book about Antietam.
A guy in a CS class, sure. A guy in a cake decorating class, a ballet class, or a class in early elementary education, or some other traditionally female class? I'm not so sure that a guy would just "learned what he wanted to anyway." Social disapproval I think is MORE punishing to men. I think what you mean to say is that women are more likely to doubt themselves, which I do think is true.
Okay, I'm only seeing posts from guys, or from women who are actually working in IT, not from women who like computers/programming but who AREN'T working in IT.
I was interested in computers and took a programming class in high school --PASCAL. (Yeah, I'm old.) I was one of two girls in the class; the instructor ignored us both, unless he was standing WAY TOO CLOSE. The guys did not want to partner with us for programming projects (although MY code always worked, dammit). My dad bought a PS/2; I was the only one in the house who used it. I took another class in college (Hypercard, also called Computer Programming as a Liberal Art). Two quarters. It was interesting (and taught by Don Crabb, anyone remember him?) but not very technical. My technical questions (How Do It Work?) were met by pats on the head and suggestions to just work with the program, not take it apart.
I got a job in a very women-friendly field. However, my job brought me in contact with SGML/XML and (surprise!) Perl. I taught myself Perl from an O'Reilly book. I did a huge conversion project, all by myself, that would have cost my employer $25K to send out-of-house. When it finally ran, perfectly, I spent twenty minutes trying to find a co-worker to tell who would understand why I was so happy!
I love Perl and use it almost every day. I enjoy programming immensely. I have three computers in arm's reach (two Macs and a PC) and another two in the next room. I don't need to call some guy to fix my network settings or my printer (I replaced the rollers on my laser jet myself). I might not be the best programmer ever, but I can hack my way through most of the problems that I need to solve. I even interviewed for a programming job once, but only as a way to get my then-employer to realize how much I was actually worth. (It worked, I got a 15K raise.)
Perhaps we don't need to encourage women to go into CS, but rather let them know how CS skills can enhance their worth in other jobs that they may be interested in. (I find that I don't like to hire people who express disdain for computers -- it's like hiring people to do construction work that don't like hammers.) Also, I totally don't understand why people say women aren't good at programming -- they're programming LANGUAGES, aren't they? Women are supposed to be good at languages. (I find a language like Perl, that has so many Ways To Do It, very easy to work with. If the computer doesn't understand me the first time, I just rephrase my question. Just like I do with my husband. Simple.)
(And I would have loved a computer camp. All those cute geeky boys, at a ratio of 5:1 or better?)
It doesn't matter if she's just got a normal young person's "I'm god" complex or not. The point is, this guy is telling her that he knows better than she does what is good for her, which, if she hasn't asked him to take that responsibility, is just plain WRONG. As a young man, he's much more likely to be in a car accident than she is ... so she shouldn't let him drive, right? She should drive him everywhere whenever she can, because otherwise he might die, or become paralyzed, or suffer brain injury!
... all because he "cares" and "just wants to protect her". Yeah, right.
Part of equal rights is equal responsibility. Women are (or should be) responsible for themselves, and this kind of misguided "chivalry" is a short step to controlling behavior, and sets off a lot of alarm bells. First it's walking her to work, and then it's telling her her clothes are too provocative, and then it's trying to separate her from her friends
A guy walking twelve miles a night to escort a woman (who is not his girlfriend, sister, wife, daughter, or mother and who is annoyed by this behavior) is not "overprotective." A guy walking twelve miles a night is creepy.
Stranger rape is a lot less common than you folks seem to think. I see a lot of "The lil' WIMMIN might get themselves RAPED!" here, which is, I have to tell you guys, pretty creepy in itself. (And it's coming from the same guys who make posts about how women are looking for rich guys and are cheating bitches, which is also ver-y creepy.) Rape is a shattering crime, but it's not the end of the world, and it's certainly not an excuse to limit women's ability to make decisions for THEMSELVES. Which is the whole point. If this guy was really concerned about his roommate, he would 1) LISTEN to her, and respect her wishes and 2) think of a way to help keep her safe without trying to take away her autonomy. Maybe they could go in on a car together, and she could drive to work, or a bike or motorcycle. Maybe they could move to an apartment closer to work. I already suggested self-defense classes. Maybe he could ASK her why she doesn't think she's at risk. (When I moved to a new neighborhood, I checked the crime statistics at the local precinct house. I found out that even though my new neighborhood LOOKED seedy, it actually had a lower crime rate across all categories than the more affluent neighborhood I was leaving. Maybe she knows something he doesn't? Maybe HE could look up the statistics for the neighborhoods she walks through, instead of just going "I'm a big strong man and I'll protect you!")
You know, if she's an adult and legally responsible for herself (that is, hasn't been made a ward of the court or put in guardianship), you really need to back off. She's your roommate, not your daughter, and unless she's asked for your help, you don't really have a responsibility to keep her safe. Your hero mentality here is just a bit out of line, and frankly, I find it creepy.
The really thoughtful and helpful thing for you to do here would be to suggest, or even treat her to, a self-defense class. Or at least give her a copy of "The Gift of Fear," (although that might actually set off alarm bells with her about YOU). Violent crimes are actually falling in many areas and I do believe you are overstating her risk. And again: she is responsible for herself. Treating her like a Victim In Training is weird and controlling.
I walk, by myself, through city streets at night fairly often (and I'm talking about major cities: New York, Chicago, London). I always know what is going on around me, don't go places that look dodgy, am alert and aware, and don't wear stupid shoes. I've never been so much as hassled. It takes a lot more than just being "cute" to make yourself a target.
Um, your roommate doesn't ask you to walk with her, you think it annoys her, and you STILL do it despite her assurances that she'll be fine? Do you screen her calls and vet her friends, too? Jeebus, I'd rather be mugged once and hand over my damn iPod and my treo than deal with this kind of patronizing, controlling behavior every.single.day. There's a fine line between chivalry and jerkdom, you know. Whatever happened to advice like "carry a dummy wallet with $20, toss it at the guy and run?" That seems more sensible than "Get yerself a big ol' sword heh heh heh! That'll show 'im!"
I have been working at home for nearly four years now. It's been great. I go in to the head office (on the coast) about once every other month, for about a week, mostly to have meetings with outside vendors or international staff. I am much more productive at home (even including reading /., thank you--since I don't work with gearheads, I'm often able to surprise them with my technical knowledge, gleaned from here, so it actually counts as work...) I am interrupted less often, I can schedule my hardest work for the times when I am most efficient, and I can do most stuff even better here than I can at the home office, because I have a DSL all to myself, and they have a fractional T1 for 800 people. I have more office space here than I would in the (very expensive) main office, so I have more room for books and files, plus it's painted a color I actually like, instead of institutional beige or somebody's dot-com "hip" purple. Better yet, I get to use a Mac for my email/browsing/etc. even though the home office is all-PC. I laugh (to myself, of course) every time they goes down because of a virus and I'm the only one who still has email (I have it .forwarded to my own ISP).
Being at home means that I can live my life more flexibly. I can pick up my daughter from school in the middle of the day and answer voicemail while I wait in the car. I can make a doctor's appointment for any time I want. I can file while I'm on conference calls. Hell, I can fold laundry while I'm on conference calls! I have another job (that my employer knows about and supports, with a non-profit) that I handle while I'm at home. I can wear t-shirts and sandals every day. I never have to take a day off to meet the plumber -- I open the door, wave him in, and go back to work. Takes all of ten minutes. Half the time I never even have to hang up the phone.
I was one of the highest-achieving employees of the last fiscal year, and my reviews have been consistently excellent. I was recently promoted to manager of my division. The people I manage? Two work in the home office, and another works from home three states away. The one thing I hear more than anything else from people who don't work at home? "I don't know how you do all that you do!" I don't think they believe I'm slacking.
If I hated my job, was better at videogames, or wanted to have an office affair, I'd be better off commuting to an office every day. Otherwise, I'm more than happy at home. I don't know if I'd ever work in a "real" office again.
I have an iPod-friendly jacksplitter, for those romantic two-sets-of-headphones moments. It's called an iShare and it's iPod white. iShare Never used it though. Cuter in the idea than in the execution; kinda like the "two straws in one soda" thing.
In the case of penis-enlargement pumps, a banner on ./ would be just about the right place.
Ba-dump Bump.