Well folks, I've been reading an old book about software teams that a lot of people have told me I must read and within the first two pages of the section on measurement it talks about measurements of "latent homosexuality"
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This book did not propose that we include these measures but named them as possible. It's actually a really good example of how implicit bias and failures to confront damaging and painful models about human beings get perpetuated in asides, snide commentary, jokes
Something poignant here: my wife, @analog-ashley.bsky.social wrote a book about neuroscience (https://cup.columbia.edu/book/so-you-want-to-be-a-neuroscientist/9780231190893) and grappled with the fact that the still-exalted "classic text" mentions women once, in a screed about picking a "good wife" who won't distract the (male) neuroscientist !
Now, *I* am writing a book in my own field, and the still-exalted "classic text" contains these jagged shards of exclusion, ready to cut my hands as I sift through the work. But this is what it means to be a person trying to say we deserve a new try, a new vision, a bigger one.
I'm a change scientist at heart. Part of the duty of care of science is for self-correcting change. When I write, I like to imagine that past work with its failings is not my adversary, but that perhaps if we'd ever had the chance to really dialogue, such authors could have listened and changed.
It's Weinberg's Psychology of Computer Programming (1971), which also begins its chapter on human intelligence by asserting that we can assume software developers are all "above average IQ"
Massively cited.
1971 but REISSUED IN 2011!! I mean I JUST bought a copy and this is still in it
Histories of human ability (and limitations/biased evidence about it) is one of my passions unfortunately 😂😅 no but seriously, I think it's really important to notice, face, and move through the discomfort of these things and see how they trap us and how we can move beyond!
Oh my. I've been a programmer, professionally since 1994. That claim that all are above average... hehe.. That got me laughing. Some of us are. I don't think it's a greater percentage than the general population. It's definitely not an easy job.
Oh, gods, that book. "Asking for efficiency and adaptability in the same program is like asking for beauty and modesty in the same woman. They have been known to occur in the same woman, but we will probably have to settle for one or the other. At least that's better than nothing." (page 21)
"Programs are not like mysteries. We can't turn to the last page for the best part. They're not even like sexy books which we can let fall open to the most creased pages to find the warmest passages."
"The Flower and The Flame" is credited with being the first "racy" romance and the herald of the bodice ripper subgenre. It was published a year later. Weinstein was not thinking about romance novels when he wrote that.
"Things are getting worse. Late an night, when the grizzled old-timer is curled up in bed with a sexy subroutine or mystifying macro, the young blade is busily engaged in a dialogue with his terminal."
I have trouble believing this was "okay" even in 1971.
Serious research topic: how much queerness does a software team need to possess to turn out good software? We know it's not zero, but I'm wondering what the optimal amount is.
Crazy work, but not surprised. I find that a lot of buddies of mine have to code heteronormativity to be accepted in their teams, no matter if they are women, trans or straight. The amount of sh— I see is ridiculous for sure. Continue being you Cat.
1/ Different premise, but I'm reading The Art of Loving by Eric Fromm, and he asserts that homosexual people are as incapable of finding and engaging in love as the emotionally immature are 🙄 the inability of philosophers to see past their own world view is quite the blind spot for folks who like to
Oh cool! What are the units you measure that in? Grams, pascals, miliqueens? Can you buy it at a store? "I'd like six pounds of latent homsexuality please, if it's fresh?"
As you probably know, the measurement theory of the 1960s around "latent factors" and "unconscious preferences" is both statistical AND political, and has been used often to perpetuate bigoted ideas of hidden deviance and hidden deficits in ways that are profoundly damaging
It's not that one! I have not read that one actually but I've read sections of it where it riffs on Sackman studies (with extreme generalizations imho)
I hadn't thought about that in a while, but I get the feeling that the "at scale" and "eventual consistency" proponents maybe need to read that book. It feels like cloud engineering didn't get the memo and are trying to do to their apps what managers in the 1990s tried to do with their employees.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculum_(journal)
Massively cited.
1971 but REISSUED IN 2011!! I mean I JUST bought a copy and this is still in it
I have trouble believing this was "okay" even in 1971.
Only after you apply varimax rotation. Otherwise it'll get lost in the noise.