Accidentally in Code

Tag: books

  • Book: Unlocking the Clubhouse

    Book: Unlocking the Clubhouse

    unlocking the cloubhouseI’d heard about this book (Amazon) for a long time, but especially since I arrived here – the other women in the office are huge fans, and talked about it a lot. And I kept thinking I would get around to reading it, but no hurry, I’ve read a lot of the research, I think I get what the issues are.

    But we were running these events in New Zealand – discussion groups about the book. So it became pressing and there was a deadline! So I finally got around to reading it.

    I was right. I didn’t get much new information out of it – but wow, how I wish I had read it when I was 18. It’s full of information and data about things that I learned the hard way. How you don’t need to be one-dimensional to be a good engineer, how women are less likely to only code – “dream in code” – in their spare time, and that is OK. The kind of things – poor teaching, for example – that disproportionately affect women.

    That was just the book. The discussion groups were amazing, the best events I have done for university students. We just had these amazing and open conversations about what we find hard, and ways that we find to cope. Especially afterwards, when we could go around and chat to the girls in smaller groups, and they would really open up. I’ve been getting amazing, lovely emails in response to the events, and hopefully more events will follow.

    Seriously, if you have any interest in female engineers, read this book. If you can, get a or some copies for female university students near you. I wonder how much would change if every first year girl in (or near) CS got a copy! And if you want to run a discussion group, hit me up, I’d be happy to help.

  • MWF Seeks BFF

    MWF Seeks BFF

    Heard about this blog via the lovely Erica, and since I wonder if I have enough local friends (and, obviously moving, the answer will once again be no) seemed like the book (Amazon) would be just the thing for one of the many, many long haul flights I’m taking.

    I really enjoyed it, very honest and funny. Since I left university, I’ve been missing the kind of relationship I had with my roommate, similar to the one I had with my roommate at boarding school. Pizza and girly movie nights used to be a staple, but then in Ottawa my social life was very different. I felt like I had a lot of acquaintances (I guess I am good at that bit) but didn’t manage to close the gap to friendship with enough of them. Remember talking to a friend there (who was from Ottawa) about how I hadn’t wanted to be push myself on her because I assumed he had tons of friends, but she didn’t and I wish we had started hanging out more, moved from acquaintances to friends, earlier.

    One of the things I realized leaving KW, was that there were so many people there who I wished I had spent more time with. Life was full, I travelled too much, lots of reasons, but the main one – I lacked follow up, I didn’t make time. I didn’t invite people out to do things often, I felt like I would be imposing, that their lives already had enough in them and they didn’t need more friends. They might have wanted more friends, though. The book also offers some definition of friendship, which are helpful – assuming you’ll hang out on a regular basis, the kind of person you can suggest something last-minute to. The breadth of people she managed to meet, too, was really cool.

    One of the things that tipped the balance for Sydney over Zurich, was that I already have a good, non-work friend there, and I felt with the chaos this year, that was something I needed. But I’m going to meet new people, and make more effort to follow up. But definitely, I recommend this book, whether you think you have enough friends or not!

  • Trust and Team Dysfunction

    Trust and Team Dysfunction

    Trust No Faces
    Credit: Flickr / Dr Case

    I’m taking a leadership course at work at the moment, and this week we spent time discussing The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Amazon). I’d recently read Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Amazon) so it was interesting to hear what other people thought of the concepts.

    There’s a pyramid of things – Inattention to Results, Avoidance of Accountability, Lack of Commitment, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Trust (I can’t find any images licensed for re-use, but Google Image Search is your friend here).

    Trust is the base of the pyramid. When I read Overcoming the Five Dysfynctions, there was this focus on vulnerability that I didn’t quite get. However, trust being at the base – this makes complete sense to me. Lack of trust destroys everything.

    When you don’t trust someone, it’s obvious. If you have to rely on them, you’re bracing yourself for their failures. But I think often people just avoid interacting with people they don’t trust, I know I do. You’re more critical, more alert to mistakes.

    And when someone doesn’t trust you, it’s so difficult to interact with them. You second guess yourself. You’re resistent even to comments that you later, on reflection, find reasonable. In short, feeling untrusted is a productivity killer.

    Some people find the code review process we have crazy. But, I think it all comes down to trust. I’m going to send you a code review, and trust that you’ll be reasonable, and timely, and helpful. When you receive my code review, you’re going to trust that I know what I’m doing, and that I’ve thought things through. That trust means that you’ll look for improvements, not things to nitpick for the hell of it.

    Trust means that if you make a suggestion that I’ve considered and rejected, you are not casting a slight on my decision making process. Trust means that if you suggest an option I haven’t considered, this doesn’t not imply that I’m an idiot.

    Trust means that we both have different information and knowledge, and we’re going to take the opportunity to share and learn.

    Without that trust, yeah, code reviews would be crazy. But if it’s there, it’s the best learning process I’ve encountered.

    Fascinating to consider how that one process has an insight into your entire team dynamic.

  • Female Chauvinist Pigs

    Female Chauvinist Pigs

    Continuing my education in Feminism, I’ve been reading this, mind-blowing, book – Female Chauvinist Pigs, by Ariel Levy (Amazon). Essentially it’s about how the sexualization of women and the increasing sexual promiscuity of women is not female liberation. To be clear, the book is not anti-sex. It’s pro-sex. But, sex for pleasure and not for celebrity. If sex is a performance, we have for show or because it’s how one becomes popular, but our own sexual pleasure is not even considered… that is not freedom.

    “…I would be happier if my daughter and her friends were crashing through the glass ceiling instead of the sexual ceiling. Being able to have an orgaism with a man you don’t love or haveing Sex and the City on television, that is not liberation. If you start to think about women as if we’re all Carrie on Sex and the City, well the problem is: You are not going to elect Carrie to the Senate or to run your company. Let’s see the Senate fifty percent female; let’s see women in decision-making positions —that’s power. Sexual freedom can be a smoke-screen for how far we haven’t come.”

    Erica Jong (author of Fear of Flying – a book I found on a shelf and started to read as a teenager, but could not finish, I think I found it dull), quoted in the Female Chauvinist Pigs.

    This book was an eye-opener for me. I’ve not bought any books by porn-stars and I don’t measure my worth in the number of men I have “conquered”, but I definitely enjoyed Sex and the City. I think one of the most fascinating points was about sex education in the US – abstinence is the big one (insert usual metrics about ineffectiveness, ignored by conservatives here), but the liberals message is merely “sex is ok”, at no point are teenager girls encouraged to take ownership of their own pleasure. Pleasure doesn’t even come up in the list of reasons they give to have sex.

    So – at times explicit. Somewhat depressing. But, really, fascinating. Highly recommend.

  • Novels are the Best Hiding Place

    Novels are the Best Hiding Place

    Gaudy Night

    I do subscribe to the theory that will-power is a depletable resource. It’s why I hired a trainer in grad school – I felt like my willpower was used up by research and grad school tedium, and whilst I would do exercise that I enjoyed, I would not get round to doing the weight training that I needed.

    Of course, I still have a trainer, although now it’s more travel than willpower that is the issue. But I’ve started to feel like creativity is a depletable resource too. Not in the absolute sense, but in the number of aspects that one can be creative about at a given time. Writing code, solving problems all week… at the weekend I’ve either been getting on a plane or curled up with a good book, or 5 (I think that’s this weekend’s total – one novel devoured Friday, two on Saturday, two on Sunday).

    It can be so mentally exhausting, and as I get better at coding the more tiring I find it – maybe because I’ve got so much more done. It’s become not uncommon for me – on days without meetings, of course – to get so much done that come around 4pm I feel like every thought in my head has been emptied out and all that is left for me to do is lie down with a good book.

    Maybe I’ll get better at it, things will get less stressful. Maybe I’m just down because life has been dealing unfair blows to people I’m fond of. Maybe it’s the change in seasons.

    Whatever, since the very end of September I have been on a kick of reading books I loved when I was a teenager. First Georgette Heyer, and now Dorothy L Sayers. Checking my Kindle store, since September 30th I have bought 65 books. And read very nearly all of them. It’s pure escapism, but it’s starting to make me feel like I don’t have an original thought in my head.

    That being said, when feeling cynical about how we’re doing with respect to women, there’s nothing like reading old literature to make you grateful for how far you’ve come. And many of Heyer’s heroines are sassy in a way that Austin‘s (aside from the amazing Elizabeth) are not.

    I’ve been frantically pacing through the Lord Peter Wimsey books impatient to come to the point where Harriet – the detective writer he saves from the gallows by proving who did the murder she was accused of – realizes she’s in love with him. That happens in Gaudy Night, when she finally stops fighting being “saved” and realizes that is not the case, what the things he loves her for are. That he doesn’t aspire to save her from pain, but pushes her to do things that are extraordinary.

    I have very little visual imagination, if I close my eyes I can’t “see” anything, but somehow these authors manage to transport me away and give me a little break from the world, if that makes sense. There’s something about going back to authors who I know I love, and extremely human characters that develop over the course of a whole series, that make that escape easier because I know it’s there.

    Perhaps all I’m saying is that I’m a little lost of late, and hiding in the novels I loved when I was 15. I seem to have stopped producing content and have taken to only consuming it. I wonder if things will calm down, and I’ll have re-read all these books and go back to writing more – and I have some things that I want to code, but lack the inspiration. Perhaps I need to just go back to a schedule and make it happen. Or maybe these kind of lulls are normal. Feeling wrung out, building yourself back up with old friends and favorites until back to normal?

    Either way, I might be charmed by Lord Peter, but I’m inspired by Harriet. Enough to write this, at least, and recommend the whole series, but at a minimum Gaudy Night (a poison pen at a women’s college, but about the price women pay in relationships for intelligence and ambition) and Busman’s Honeymoon (where they discover a dead body on their honeymoon, and about two fiercely intelligent and independent people figuring out how to balance themselves together).

    Balancing independence is tough. My boyfriend and I agree – career comes first. And yet, travel eats up weekends and quality time. We try to time things together but that can’t always be done. Things come up, and dates get cancelled. Work stresses happen, and that’s what gets discussed rather than… I don’t know, the latest movie or current affairs. I remembered “whodunnit”, but I didn’t remember the wider context of the plot. Or maybe I just appreciate it more, 10 years later.

    All links Amazon.

     

  • Blood, Bones and Butter

    Blood, Bones and Butter

    blood, bones and butter
    Blood, Bones and Butter

    I read about Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton (Amazon) on the Eloquent Woman blog, which discussed a section of the book in which the author writes about a panel she was on, and things she wanted to say, but didn’t. It was a panel about female chefs. Initially she has an attitude of “why are we still talking about this?” but it turns into frustration with the other panelists, as they come out with trite things and she wants to say, but doesn’t, that it is hard to do the second shift, to constantly second guess yourself, make tradeoffs between your work and your family.

    I was fascinated, drawing parallels between that and women in tech, and trying to find some broader variety in my reading matter. So I bought it.

    That is my favorite chapter in the book, but the book as a whole I also really enjoyed and it gave context for it. This woman has had a fascinating and extremely eventful life. So many stories. They can seem a little disjointed, and the ending a little abrupt, but it’s an autobiography not a novel, so I forgive it.

    I think, ultimately, the thing that gripped me most is that this woman is fantastically successful, and it’s clear – and she writes about this – that she never had a plan. She never set out to be a chef. She went off to grad school thinking about becoming a writer. And here she is, apparently both. There are so many people who are all about the plan, say they always knew. It’s refreshing to see this other, honest, perspective, of not knowing what the hell you’re doing but working incredibly hard and figuring it out as you go along.

  • Pride and Prejudice and a Timely Reminder

    Pride and Prejudice and a Timely Reminder

    “Someone once said to you that you didn’t have a romantic bone in your body, and I’ve come to think they were right…”

    pride and prejudice
    Credit: flickr / Apostolos Letov

    My friend and mentor says. I forget where the conversation went from there, but I feel that she would have been shocked to find me curled up with Pride and Prejudice (free on Kindle!) for the umpteenth time shortly after.

    I love Pride and Prejudice, though. The BBC TV series, the movie, and the modern tale of Bridget Jones (all Amazon). It’s that moment in the middle when Elizabeth tells Darcy, no, you don’t get to speak to me like that and expect me to be grateful – you don’t get to treat me with so little respect and have me thank you for it.

    Of course, at the end Lizzy is putting aside some of her “pin money” to give to her feckless sister, and I can’t help contrasting it with the story Carol Leaman told at our last Girl Geeks Dinner in KW about cutting a personal cheque for a large amount of money to a company she’d just started at in order for them to make payroll.

    We’ve come a long way. And yet – I still see things that make me wonder how far. The woman who says “my boyfriend is my top priority”. The woman who says “I’ll vote the way my husband does”. The woman who compromises her career because her partner won’t compromise his. I want to yell at them – it’s 2011. You get more than that. Take it.

    In the same week I read Penelope Trunk’s post on how her husband is physically abusive. And discover the existence of the Atheist Feminist movement. I’m a little shocked by this, because given the effectiveness of religion to subjugate women, I took it for granted that if we got rid of the religion we’d have equality. Apparently not.

    And so Lizzy’s feistiness reminds me to say – you deserve more. A reminder I should heed the next time someone overlooks me, because I’m a woman. The next time someone tells me I need to be more aggressive in order to be successful. The next time I don’t fight for something because I don’t believe I deserve to win.

    You deserve more. Take it.

     

  • Rise: How to Be Really Successful and Like Your Life

    Rise: How to Be Really Successful and Like Your Life

    rise
    Rise

    Rise (Amazon) is focused on helping you become CEO. As a result I found some of it a bit overly-ambitious for me. But – it contained some really great advice.

    1. Ruthless Priorities. You have too much to do, but hey – don’t we all. The trick is to decide what’s critical and do an outstanding job on that, rather than a mediocre job on everything. It’s important to pick the right things to prioritize ruthlessly – the things that make a huge difference.

    2. Work smarter, not longer. If your answer is to throw hours at everything, you’ll never scale up.

    3. Mentors. This was probably the biggest insight I got from the book, and it made me think “I’ve been doing all these things that will benefit other people, but when did I last make time and prioritize someone mentoring me?” – it motivated me to set a time with one of my mentors and after a fabulous evening of delicious food and horizon-expanding conversation, I left with some key ideas and a contact that will help me move things forward, but more importantly – feeling inspired and energized and ready to go!

    Overall, a useful read if you want some strategies and reminders for moving forward on your personal development and crazy goals.

  • Whistling Vivaldi

    Whistling Vivaldi

    whistling vivaldi Since I heard about research showing that girls who self-identified as female before taking a math test tended to under-perform (compared to when they self-identified after taking the test) I’ve been wondering where else that effect is.

    Specifically, if you are always surrounded by guys, does that continually remind you? Does it affect your performance there?

    Whistling Vivaldi (Amazon) is a book about stereotype threat. It covers: simple words that will cause women and blacks to underperform in math and intelligence tests, and, correspondingly, the phrasing that removed that difference. Other depressing findings – that being in a position of fighting that stereotype puts people under physical stress. Long term, obviously this has a negative effect on people’s health. It’s a fascinating, but depressing, insight into how the stereotypes, so pervasive in the West, affect us.

    Personally, I’m encouraged by anything you can measure, and so this book is encouraging in that respect. It’s also fantastically written, engaging and enjoyable to read. It’s order follows how the research happened, and so the reader really understands how the different aspects of the research built upon one another.

    Really, a must-read for anyone who worries about women and minorities, and for those who don’t, but should (educators, managers in industry, academics – I’m looking at you).