Re: Effect of Gender in Learning Ada - OT

[prichtmyer@yahoo.com (Peter Richtmyer)]

Preben Randhol <randhol+news@pvv.org> wrote in message news:<slrnbakpn5.ht.randhol+news@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no>...

> However one should of course never generalise these things.

"In general" one must generalize about almost all things. I am 
not an expert on learning or cognitive processes, but it is 
clear to me that we can not process information and survive 
without generalizing. 

We generalize about C programmers, liberals, hockey players,
SARS patients, doctors, WMD, country-and-western musicians, 
pit bulls, anti-gunners, priests, etc. 

What we should not do is apply the generalization to a specific
individual person or thing indiscriminantly:

    Oh, he is an Ada programmer so he must be ...

I suspect that is what most people probably mean when they make a
statement against generalizing.

I feel silly stating (to me) the obvious, but I get chills when I 
see a statement about "not generalizing" like the above. It seems
like some PC "knee-jerk" thing to make that disclaimer.

Should I don the asbestos suit?
peace  :-)

Peter

PS - I don't care if there are more or less of a gender in SW unless:
       -- it is costing me money
       -- there is something illegal or immoral going on

And I do not want my tax money spent trying to get "even parity"
in programming (or back hoe operators or ...)