Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

[aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch)]

Robert I. Eachus wrote:

> > ... I am absolutely not surprised with that you story, and with
> > the behaviour of the Russian character in it - I saw similar patterns
> > very many times in former Soviet Union, and I certainly was myself
> > subjected to many such things until recently. Now, after acquiring
> > some experience of working with Americans, I'm much more careful about
> > the procedural aspects of joint work... not because I believe in their
> > importance *for my part of work*, but just for not annoying my partner
> > or customer.
>
> ... as you say, his original style of work was very typical for Russians.

Just one addition: I forgot to mention that although those elements of style
was indeed widespread among Russian programmers, but that pertains to *male*
programmers only. Female programmers very rarely exhibited those characteristics
- usually they followed all required procedures quite strictly.

I think that explanation of this difference is that female programmers,
as a rule, are *emotionally* distracted from the essence of their current
programming work. They easily may be emotionally engaged in the details, but
usually not in the essence.

That correlation (between the emotional engagement in the essence of current
programming work and negligence for *externally established* procedures)
is general, I think, and it surely does not depend on gender.

So, that past trend in behaviour of male Russian programmers probably should
be considered as a consequence as their (statistically) relatively higher
emotional engagement in the essence of current programming work. That was not
depend on skills, and only slightly depended on experience - that was true
cultural phenomena.

And in turn, that higher emotional engagement in the essence of current job,
may be explained, at least partially, by the fact that better working performance
in Soviet Union usually did not cause significant difference in one's material
life. Therefore it seems quite natural that many (more or less) intellectually
developed males used the essence of their work as emotionally charged value.

> Not a problem--if you can adapt to the actual culture of the current 
> project.  If you can't, eventually your conflict with the project style 
> will outweigh the contributions you can and do make.

That's it. 4 years ago I observed that process myself, in all details.
I joined a local division of one Danish company. Naturally, they tried to
immerse me in their project culture. I must admit, they tried hard. And as
I was that time in quite desperate financial position, I also tried hard.
But nevertheless we all failed, the cultures appeared totally incompatible,
and after 5 months all that nightmare came to the end. Not that I violated
their procedures - no, I was very accurate with all that, but the fatal
incompatibility emerged another way.

That even was not programming as such, it was design stage, and my job was
to design a part of the system and write the design documents. I wrote the
documents, and then nightmare began. They said that they like my writing
style but disagree with the design approach. Well, we discussed the issues,
and then I reworked the design. With the same result. After 3rd or 4th
iteration I began to hate them (first time in my life... I never knew what is
a true personal hate before that).

When all that unpleasant adventure ended and I relaxed, I concluded that
they really have no need in any particular design, they wanted some process,
not a result (at least at that stage). My fault was that I did not recognize
that (rather usual) thing. And that was exactly the cultural difference
that made me blind - I misinterpeted obvious symptoms, and went into
false interpretation quite deeply. For example, I took many of their phrases
at face value (or almost that way) just because those phrases were said in
foreign language and by good-looking persons... I could never make such
mistakes with the people that belong to my native culture.



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia