From: Sherm Pendley <spamtrap@...>
Date: 2007-05-06T05:50:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby love

"Gregory Brown" <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to seem inflammatory.   More positively, I
> think my real question is, "Why are we (almost) *never* meeting girls
> who can teach guys to be better programmers?"

I have - several in fact.

I once saw a documentary which described an experiment where volunteers were
connected to an EEG, and asked to solve math problems. Men and women were
given the same problems, and about the same percentage of each solved them
correctly, but the EEG showed *completely* different areas of the brain were
being used while they were working on them.

It's the literal truth - men and women think differently. That being the
case, having both on a team means that when a developer gets stuck on a
difficult problem, he or she can consult a co-worker to get a completely
different perspective on it. This works with same-sex colleagues too, but
in my experience it works better with the opposite sex.

I'm obviously not a neurologist and lack the biology-fu to explain this,
but I've seen it happen first-hand enough times to know it's for real.

That doesn't quite answer your question about teaching individuals to be
better programmers, I know. But I'm convinced that a *team* is better if
it includes both sexes.

sherm--

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