Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!actnyc!jls@uunet.UU.NET From: actnyc!jls@uunet.UU.NET (Jonathan Schilling) Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Women Wizards? Message-ID: <11957@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 12 Jul 88 01:49:11 GMT References: <11734@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <11790@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <11844@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: InterACT Corporation, New York Lines: 33 Approved: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu The software industry has enough "hackers" and "gurus" as it is. The really successful people at the jobs I've had have been those who've combined great technical abilities with great software engineering and software engineering management abilities. This has been true in an applications shop as well as at two system software companies (application generators, compilers). To design something so that it's elegant, usable, and can be maintained; to handle client/user expectations and pressures; to handle unrealistic attitudes of marketing and upper management; these are what go into making the stars. Doing this requires as much technical excellence as anything else, but it also requires judgment and dedication. What it does *not* require is the hacker personality that was described in several postings. The folks I have in mind haven't been single-minded, socially inept, or any of that. They haven't devoted all hours to their job except for fairly infrequent crunch periods. They're just bright people who like their work but like a lot else also. A number of them have been women, and (no surprise) they've been just as good as the men. You certainly don't need to be part of the hacker subculture (which may well be somewhat difficult for women to get into at the present) to be a star in software. If anything, hacker/guru types have been looked down at in the places I've worked, for being too narrow and obsessed with the minor details of one system. It's ability and judgment that really matter, not the amount of arcane knowledge you possess. Of course, women who want to be hacker/gurus should be able to. But a disinclination towards doing that should not be considered an impediment towards a career in software. Jonathan Schilling