Re: [Info-Ingres] Emma McGrattan : Men Write Code from Mars,Women Write More Helpful Code from Venus

[Database Administrator]

IF men & women write code at the same rate.... Discuss.


-----Original Message-----
From: info-ingres-bounces@kettleriverconsulting.com
[mailto:info-ingres-bounces@kettleriverconsulting.com] On Behalf Of Seth
Grimes
Sent: 24 June 2008 14:00
To: info-ingres@kettleriverconsulting.com
Subject: Re: [Info-Ingres] Emma McGrattan : Men Write Code from Mars,
Women Write More Helpful Code from Venus


One the one hand,

"McGrattan boasts that 70% to 80% of the time, she can look at a chunk
of computer code and tell if it was written by a man or a woman."

On the other hand,

"only about 20% of the engineers are women, McGrattan says. (Most of
them are in jobs involving quality assurance or adapting the product
to a new locale, she says, and not the "heavy lifting" of writing
code.)"

If you accept McGrattan's figures, well over 80% of programmers are men.

So here's what you can do: Look at a chunk of computer code, guess
that it was written by a man, and OVER 80% of the time you'll be
correct, and you'll handily beat McGrattan to boot.

Seth


zhenchen17 wrote:
> A lot of Chinese Websites translate this article to open an arguement.
> What does everyone here think about?
>
************************************************** **********************
************************************************** ****
> Men Write Code from Mars, Women Write More Helpful Code from Venus
> We all know men hate to ask for directions. Apparently they loathe
> putting directions in computer code, too.
>
>
>
>
> She would have been one heck of a coder
> Emma McGrattan, the senior vice-president of engineering for computer-
> database company Ingres-and one of Silicon Valley's highest-ranking
> female programmers-insists that men and women write code differently.
> Women are more touchy-feely and considerate of those who will use the
> code later, she says. They'll intersperse their code-those strings of
> instructions that result in nifty applications and programs-with
> helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines
> the way they did and exactly how they did it.
>
> The code becomes a type of "roadmap" for others who might want to
> alter it or add to it later, says McGrattan, a native of Ireland who
> has been with Ingres since 1992.
>
> Men, on the other hand, have no such pretenses. Often, "they try to
> show how clever they are by writing very cryptic code," she tells the
> Business Technology Blog. "They try to obfuscate things in the code,"
> and don't leave clear directions for people using it later. McGrattan
> boasts that 70% to 80% of the time, she can look at a chunk of
> computer code and tell if it was written by a man or a woman.
>
> In an effort to make Ingres's computer code more user-friendly and
> gender-neutral, McGrattan helped institute new coding standards at the
> company. They require programmers to include a detailed set of
> comments before each block of code explaining what the piece of code
> does and why; developers also must supply a detailed history of any
> changes they have made to the code. The rules apply to both Ingres
> employees and members of the open-source community who contribute code
> to Ingres's products.
>
> There's a big need to fix testosterone-fueled code at Ingres because
> only about 20% of the engineers are women, McGrattan says. (Most of
> them are in jobs involving quality assurance or adapting the product
> to a new locale, she says, and not the "heavy lifting" of writing
> code.) She's on a mission to get more women interested in computer-
> programming careers. But "it's proving very challenging," she says.
>
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