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A demographicly uniform team can communicate more effectively with each other due to having a larger shared vocabulary of common experiences. Aren't you arguin

by rada 14y ago

A demographicly uniform team can communicate more effectively with each other due to having a larger shared vocabulary of common experiences. Aren't you arguing against OSS here, essentially? Is OSS not the perfect example of communication across cultural and demographic differences? Should Torvalds just shut out everyone under 40 in the name of efficiency? It reminds me of my manager going on about how our unit test coverage is only 60%. Splitting your time between coding and test coverage is an extremely poor analogy to inclusivity in software. For one, your time is a resource, software is output. If you split 8 (wo)man hours into 8 hours testing and 0 hours coding, your output goes down; if you add 8 (wo)man hours to a software project, your output goes up. Even more importantly, coding and testing are not people, they don't have feelings, children to feed, etc. The comparison simply doesn't apply. As far as your point about "bursaries" (had to look it up, it means scholarships), please consider that the original article talks about having more women's user groups and better conference policies and makes no references to financial aid of any kind. It's really not germane to pit every discussion about gender in software against apocalyptic scenarios. Yes, it would be bad if all of a sudden men were totally excluded and women were totally included, but we are far from that now, aren't we? Shall we worry about "loads of bursaries" when said loads become an actual problem?

lmm 14y ago
>Should Torvalds just shut out everyone under 40 in the name of efficiency? Of course not, that would be putting the cart before the horse. He should recruit those who work together most efficiently - but if it turns out the most efficient team is demographicly homogeneous (and I suspect that the core linux team is) - then why not? Are you going to argue that he should form a less efficient team in the name of diversity? >Splitting your time between coding and test coverage is an extremely poor analogy to inclusivity in software. For one, your time is a resource, software is output. If you split 8 (wo)man hours into 8 hours testing and 0 hours coding, your output goes down; if you add 8 (wo)man hours to a software project, your output goes up. Even more importantly, coding and testing are not people, they don't have feelings, children to feed, etc. The comparison simply doesn't apply. You've misunderstood; my point is not that by focussing on testing you take away from coding. My point is that, while a low test coverage number indicates a problem, if you just focus on the coverage number you can end up doing more harm to the problem you were trying to fix. The post I replied to was saying "look, if only 4% of OSS developers are female then clearly that indicates some problem." My point is that if we focus too much on the number, then we're only going to treat the symptom. Let's fix the problems, but let's not put too much attention on one shallow number.
- rada 14y ago
  You are changing your tune on me. Your original statement was that homogeneous teams are more efficient (greatly increased productivity, according to you). Your new argument is that homogeneous teams would be more efficient if they were more efficient, and you posit a sarcastic challenge for me to disagree with you on that. Well, I can't. If something is more better, then by golly, it's more better. You win, sir. Edit. You say: the post I replied to was saying "look, if only 4% of OSS developers are female then clearly that indicates some problem." I've re-read the post that you replied to, and it neither said, nor implied anything of the sort.
- deleted 14y ago
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by rada 14y ago

lmm 14y ago

>Should Torvalds just shut out everyone under 40 in the name of efficiency? Of course not, that would be putting the cart before the horse. He should recruit those who work together most efficiently - but if it turns out the most efficient team is demographicly homogeneous (and I suspect that the core linux team is) - then why not? Are you going to argue that he should form a less efficient team in the name of diversity? >Splitting your time between coding and test coverage is an extremely poor analogy to inclusivity in software. For one, your time is a resource, software is output. If you split 8 (wo)man hours into 8 hours testing and 0 hours coding, your output goes down; if you add 8 (wo)man hours to a software project, your output goes up. Even more importantly, coding and testing are not people, they don't have feelings, children to feed, etc. The comparison simply doesn't apply. You've misunderstood; my point is not that by focussing on testing you take away from coding. My point is that, while a low test coverage number indicates a problem, if you just focus on the coverage number you can end up doing more harm to the problem you were trying to fix. The post I replied to was saying "look, if only 4% of OSS developers are female then clearly that indicates some problem." My point is that if we focus too much on the number, then we're only going to treat the symptom. Let's fix the problems, but let's not put too much attention on one shallow number.

rada 14y ago
You are changing your tune on me. Your original statement was that homogeneous teams are more efficient (greatly increased productivity, according to you). Your new argument is that homogeneous teams would be more efficient if they were more efficient, and you posit a sarcastic challenge for me to disagree with you on that. Well, I can't. If something is more better, then by golly, it's more better. You win, sir. Edit. You say: the post I replied to was saying "look, if only 4% of OSS developers are female then clearly that indicates some problem." I've re-read the post that you replied to, and it neither said, nor implied anything of the sort.
deleted 14y ago
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