.NET Development

There has been a spate of tweets, articles and blog posts in recent times about sexism in the IT industry. They have ranged from the daily niggles of working with predominantly male co-workers to full blown internet lynchings of companies for the use of scantily clad women in advertising or as service staff at events. These are not anything new, these things have been happening in the IT industry for years and are only coming to the surface now because of the rise in numbers of female IT staff in traditionally male fields of expertise. There’s power in numbers and the more women in IT the less tolerated these behaviours will be. And there’s the rub … the solution to sexism in IT is more women in IT and this leads me to the motivation for writing this post.

It’s a well known fact that bad news makes for good reading. This is every bit as true for the online world as it is for traditional media channels. Any women doing any kind of research on the internet as to a career in IT would surely be dissuaded from such a choice. We have to be careful to not discourage women wishing to join the IT industry with horror stories of discrimination and objectification of women. For every company that has objectionable behaviour towards women, there must be hundreds that don’t. There might even be a few that treat their female (and male) staff very well. But somehow these are unworthy of tweets, articles and blog posts that may show the IT industry as being a place where a woman may find herself a nice career.

I have spent the last ten years working for multiple companies in multiple locations around the world and continue to enjoy my career immensely. I feel like the IT industry is in such a dynamic state at the moment with all the new devices and technologies that have emerged in recent times and it’s a volatile and exciting time to be in this field. I would encourage any person with an aptitude for computers to pursue a career in IT regardless of their race, age or gender and I think it’s a shame that some of these people may be discouraged by reading all negativity on the internet.

I am not, in any way, suggesting that the companies that step over the line should not appear in articles, blogs or be tweeted into submission. I am, however, suggesting that we should endeavour to present a more realistic image of the IT industry as a whole. Lets add some balance by also highlighting the companies that treat their female staff really well or even go the extra mile somehow. Lets tweet about what it is that makes us turn up to work every day or to spend our personal time pouring away over open source projects. If you are a female in IT, make yourself known by writing a blog and sharing your experiences, the good ones as well as the bad ones, and why you joined the IT industry in the first place.

In my time I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with a handful of very talented female developers. I even fell in love with one. We need more of these women. We need more of them now and we need more of them in the future. Eventually I really hope that the cause of the recent rants is a thing of the past and we can get back to what we love … coding!

With the release of the new Windows Phone 7 I figured it might be time for me to get into the mobile market. I’ve been developing business systems for a long time now and the mobile platform offers me the ability to release some funky consumer based apps that I can actually sell. So I figured I’d have a go … I wrote a simple app that was more of an exercise for me to learn the platform rather than something which was going to change the mobile world forever. It didn’t take long and I was ready for release … and this is when the pain started.

I submitted my app and after waiting a few days was notified that it had failed testing because the icon for the tile was missing should the user pin the app to their home screen. My bad .. an error in the resources file was causing the image to not be found .. easy fix. At this point I figured that the rest of testing must have been fine because this was nothing that would stop the app from being tested. Not so. I resubmitted only to be failed again because of a bug … fixed it … resubmitted .. failed again for another unrelated bug … fixed it .. failed again because I had no easy way of a user finding the version number or support contact. Sent an email to support asking for clarification as to what they wanted me to do for a user to be able to find this information … I have never received a reply. I gave up waiting and resubmitted with my email address in the support email field this time despite this being optional … failed again for the same reason … added an about screen and finally passed. Talk about a mission!

Now I don’t argue that the bugs weren’t mine .. they were .. and its a credit to Microsoft’s test team that they test so thoroughly. I do think its a bit rough that the testers take a test and stop approach even if the bug they find does not prevent further testing. Not only does it waste my time but it is certainly not the most efficient way for the Microsoft test team to carry out their work either. They had to test my app six times when they could have just done this twice. A missing icon did not in any way prevent testing. So why was it failed just for that with no further testing done until I resubmitted with the icon bug fixed?

In case you didn’t know … Microsoft allows only five free app submissions .. that is … each time an app fails testing you use one of your free submissions up. I, like may others, thought this meant five free apps can be released not just submitted. Naturally enough I was trying to release mine for free .. it was just an exercise after all
… but due to a testing process which stops and repeats at each bug … by the time I came to release it I either had to pay a fee to release it for free, or put a price on it. This makes my suspicious side believe that A) the testers are lazy and move on to the next app a soon as they have an excuse to reject the one they are testing and B) they do this on purpose to reduce the number of free submissions you have so that you either pay to release you app for free or you put a price on it. I put a price on it and am now quite confident no one will download it … the functionality does not justify even a small price.

Considering that the only complaint I have heard about WP7 is the lack of good apps … you would think that microsoft would be working hard to get developers on board rather than treating them like second rate citizens. Knocking back an app repeatedly for each bug one by one is ridiculous when that bug does not prevent further testing. It demoralizes a developer, wastes our time and is ridiculously inefficient.

I am now working on an iPhone app … I might go back to a WP7 app later … I really should buy a device to test on. And this is my final problem .. I already have everything that I need to develop iPhone apps. To develop for WP7 I need to buy a device. This represents a decent investment which I may not recoup given the tiny market share held by WP7 at the moment. Given my experiences with app submission I am less likely to actually take this risk now due to the downright idiocy of the submission and testing process.

You did well with the OS Microsoft … it only took you ten years and a hiding from your competitors … don’t let a bad submission process screw you and your hopeful developers over … pick up your game …