Archive for March, 2010

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Friday, March 26th, 2010

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Today is Ada Lovelace day, a day to celebrate the achievements of women in technology, named after Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, who wrote the first computer programs.

More Open Source-ey Goodness

In honor of Ava Lovelace day, Anil Dash talked about encouraging women to join open source – how appropriate considering I just posted about the lack of women in open source yesterday. The Ada Lovelace Day website also directed me to this optimistic post showing some women in open source.

My Female Heroine in Tech

This is the part of the show where I get to reveal my female heroine in tech.  I racked my brain thinking of someone (female and semi-famous) who inspired me in technology, science or mathematics.  I even perused the existing list of entries and came up with squat.

That can’t be right.  There must be some female that I admired. Looked up to. Emulated.  *think think*

Oh, right.

B’Elanna Torres

Oh what a cheesy world I live in it, but it’s true. Remember B’Elanna? The fiery half-Klingon and Chief Engineer of the Star Ship Voyager (it’s star trek, people).  She is so awesome.  She kicks ass, she’s smart and you don’t get in her way when it’s time to work.  On the personal side, she seemed all hard and rough around the edges, and then settled down and had a baby (fawn).

That doesn’t count!  Pick someone real!

I do see how it seems odd to select a heroine that isn’t real but the fact is I don’t even know about many women in tech.  I read a lot and virtually never come across any remarkable women in technology because there are so few.

I have no desire to seek out reading about someone successful in technology just because she’s a woman.  I’d much rather read about remarkable people (in tech, or not) and learn from them even if we don’t have the same anatomy.   Doing cool things is not cooler just because you’re female.

In fact, I’m not particularly inspired with women who do cool things in tech, but don’t have children.  Take Marissa Mayer at Google.  She is unequivocally awesome.  I think that men and women alike would love to have her experience and position.  Except, how does she apply to my life anymore than a man in her equivalent position?

Fine.

So if I had to pick someone real, I would say Penelope Trunk, blogger and CEO of Brazen Careerist. She rocks and is in tech (despite not being an actual programmer/engineer, she has a start up in the tech sector).

She’s honest and open and it’s not pretty – because that’s life. And she really shows what it’s like to be a woman with children and be successful. What do you do when your little kid wants to cuddle in bed but you’ve got to get to work in the morning? What do you do when your husband takes a call for work and you’re watching the kids and you get a call too? What do you do when you’ve decided to stay-at-home with the kids and are so desperate for just a teeny tiny bit of professional achievement in your life?

This is what working full-time and mothering looks like:

1) Not counting working, sleeping, showering or eating, you only get 15 extra minutes each day do you:

a) bond with your child
b) talk to your spouse
c) clean the house
d) cook dinner
e) do something for work

2) Now, let’s say you need 15 minutes more (and more and more). Working is pretty much a constant at full-time.  So, which category do you take them from: sleeping, showering or eating?

I don’t know the right answers and I don’t think Penelope does either, but she is talking about it publicly and that takes guts.

Posted in Open Source, Women, Work/Life Balance | No Comments »

Don't Judge a Developer by Open Source

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

At Code Anthem, we’re big fans of the Signal vs Noise crew. In their book/manifesto Getting Real, they advise to hire developers based on “Actions, Not Words“:

When it comes to programmers, we only hire people we know through open source. We think doing anything else is irresponsible.

Strong words and a compelling argument. There’s only one problem. I am a damn good developer, and I have no open source contributions.  And I know plenty more where I came from, comparable and sometimes superior to our open-source-contributing contemporaries in technical skill and communication savvy.

Supposedly, any smart and passionate developer would contribute to open source. 

That is crap.  Here’s why:

1. It’s an arbitrary distinction.

Open source is a culture. There are plenty of smart and passionate developers out there who are not part of that culture.  And certainly there are plenty of dumb and curmudgeonly developers out there participating in open source.

You might as well not hire developers who don’t drink Mountain Dew or play World of Warcraft, just because there is a large subset of smart, passionate developers who do these things. 

It’s like golf of the executive business world.  Since the people at the top played golf/contributed to open source, then everyone they want to hire would do so also.  There’s a fundamental logic flaw.

2. There are there smarter ways to spend your time.

The stereotypical open source developer works for a bumbling corporate during the day, doing dull work (but necessary to make money) and then comes home to work on his passion, OpenOKHRWUJ Framework.  This is romanticized as being the high point of any developer, but how about a few (smarter) alternatives:

  • A developer has found a job that is challenging and fullfilling with plenty of technical freedom, leaving no need to express his/her passion in another outlet
  • Instead of doing a free project, the developer may spend his evening doing extra work for his employer, doing side contract work to make some extra money or working on a side business (still writing tons of top-notch code, except for money)
  • Instead of working at nights, the developer decides to spend time with his family (work-life balance anyone?) or actually get some sleep (god forbid my developer actually be alert and healthy)

While I wouldn’t fault an open source developer for spending his time that way, it’s a hobby.  Having other hobbies or spending time with your family or getting enough sleep does not make you a worse developer, it just makes you well-rounded.

3. Requiring open source contributions is sexist.

Open source is dominated by men even more so than the programming community as a whole.

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from Women in Free/Open Source Software Development

It’s not because women developers are not as passionate or smart as men developers. It’s because women value work/life balance more than men, because the open source environment is sometimes (read:often) hostile towards women or for a myriad of other reasons. 

Actually, it’s irresponsible to require your new hire developers to come from a male-oriented pool. Alas… “Underrepresentation breeds underrepresentation”.

 

In conclusion, the goal to judge a developer by their “actions, not words” is a worthy one. But the means of using open source as the one-stop-shop to do so is incredibly flawed.

Posted in Hiring Programmers, Open Source | 22 Comments »

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

One day there was a team of rowers who wanted to go out on their own. They started looking for a boat to rent, and came across one for a great price called the Good Boat. It didn’t look as nice or seem as big as the boats that the other rowers had, but the boat-maker assured them that the construction was high-quality and that they wouldn’t have any problems. And just to be sure, he was willing to join their team as their in-house Professional Boat Fixer.

They began their rowing journey and a little while later, the hull had a small leak. The Professional Boat Fixer sprang to action, applying all sorts of complicated looking patches. He worked long hours and was happy to regale anyone who would listen with the complexities of his solutions, so no one could complain. After awhile, the patch broke and another leak sprang up somewhere else, so the Professional Boat Fixer became very busy, fixing the fixes and new problems. He even hired Assistant Boat Fixers to work under him and help him apply his patches under his close supervision.

The rowers decided the wanted some new benches to sit on and some other items that the Professional Boat Fixer refused to create. So they found themselves a New Professional Boat Fixer to work in tandem with the Old Professional Boat Fixer, to be in charge Things the Old Professional Boat Fixer Will Not Do. The New Professional Boat Fixer was shocked to see the horrible state that the Good Boat was in. The New Professional Boat Fixer exclaimed, ‘I can fix that!’ The captain and other rowers were interested at first (not realizing they had such a problem) but the Old Professional Boat Fixer firmly explained that there was NO problem with the Good Boat or his fixes, and also, the furniture was all shoddy and the New Professional Boat Fixer was not to be trusted. Unable to continue to work on a sinking ship, the New Professional Boat Fixer left the boat, to be replaced by a string of Newer New Professional Boat Fixers. All of them tried to fix the state of the Good Boat, but they were bad boat-fixers and not to be trusted, or so said the Old Professional Boat Fixer.

At some point, the Old Professional Boat Fixer was promoted to oversee the rowers, in addition to the Assistant Boat Fixers. After all, there was a complex system of rowing required to keep the boat going straight (it naturally veered all over the place, in no predictable pattern), so it only make sense that he should oversee them.

To this day, the Good Boat is still chugging around the ocean, slow and not-so-steady. The Old Professional Boat Fixer and the Rowers are considering creating more Good Boats together, with the Old Professional Boat Fixer as the Overlord Good Boat Master. The Good Boat is considered a myth by some Professional Boat Fixers, but I have seen it with my own eyes and share this story as a cautionary tale.

Images by danslegrandbleu, law_keven, and rene_ehrhardt.

Posted in Software Building | No Comments »