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Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

Don't want to appear arrogant... but I have a pretty good track record... and I wear a skirt!

Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

A female dev that wears a skirt! you are truly unique ;) I guess the point is that it is outragous that aren't more female devs. What do we need to do to make the industry more appealing? Bronwen tried to convice Tech Ed that as a way to increase participation the event should be free for females. What do you think? I know my BIT had 10:1 ratio of male:female back in 98.

Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

Well, having personally come from an admin background many moons ago, I found that all those secretarial/admin type really complimented my ability to understand the concept of systems and objects (must have been all that filing!) - as well as the ability to negotiate & communicate. Targeting both young and mature women with those types of backgrounds could be a well needed injection of people who are capable of getting a job DONE and overcoming communication and ego issues. Most admin types are pretty good at that, as well as documentation etc. Some sort of pathway to assist them to get in could be good as well. I have several friends with degrees, who never got the work opportunities - confidence and a lack of pro-activity is the main obstacle in their cases. I think suitable entry points are in business analysis, testing and easy design (such as DNN). From there, the girls with a knack for code can be encouraged and trained. How does that sound?

And by the way, I must confess that the skirt only comes out on special occasions or hot working days!

Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

needless to say the same goes for Sys Admin roles. oh for the day someone rocks up to an interview wearing a skirt (or blouse, or lipstick or something) i mean i'm sure one of my techies could pull it off :|

Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

Hi magwash,

I think we need some good female dev role models/evangelists.....

I found a nice correlation between your suggested entry points..
business analysis, testing and easy design (such as DNN).
and the list of tasks many places think girls are only capable of doing. I can think if times asked in interviews if refactoring big chunks of code is scary to me....On other occasions when they find out you like to write code, do design and architecture...they comment "I thought girls only wanted to be BAs".

Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

ha ha... I guess my point with suggested entry points are not gender specific - I have recommended same to many gentlemen - who also had confidence, pro-active deficiencies! My feeling is just that these are appropriate entry points from a development perspective, so that you can crawl before you can walk - a background in systems, objects, information flows and quality are all essential to becoming a good coder/architect (IMHO).

With these basic understandings I feel that many would then embrace the challenge of refactoring big chunks of code - Without being branded a generalist/sexist - it is common for females (esp.) to take great pride in cleaning things up and having them all nice and tidy and perfect. We're also scientifically proven to be gifted at multi-tasking and dare I add - communicating.

What a great combination!

Perhaps if our field was more widely promoted as one requiring discipline, attention to detail, methodically focussed etc, rather than one of technical "gobbeldy-gook" then more females would take an interest.

Additionally - the appeal of telecommuting & remote work would be huge to the female population and finally I believe (& have proven, as have others) that it is now possible to work in this manner.

Re: Good female developers and the Loch Ness monster.....

Hi magwash,

Don't get me wrong...I agree with you :)