From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9ef0b1ff7be6dd43 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-26 08:37:35 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: prichtmyer@yahoo.com (Peter Richtmyer) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Effect of Gender in Learning Ada - OT Date: 26 Apr 2003 08:37:34 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <1b585154.0304260737.154758a4@posting.google.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.1.176.75 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1051371455 27996 127.0.0.1 (26 Apr 2003 15:37:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Apr 2003 15:37:35 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:36608 Date: 2003-04-26T15:37:35+00:00 List-Id: Preben Randhol wrote in message news:... > 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 ...)