Be prepared: alert your local law enforcement officers, check out your neighbourhood domestic violence shelter, consider owning a gun for self-defence (or, at very least, a stun gun or mustard spray). Carry these with you at all times. Keep them close by and accessible even when you are asleep or in bathroom.

Erotomanic stalking can last many years. Do not let down your guard even if you haven't heard from him. Stalkers leave traces. They tend, for instance, to "scout" territory before they make their move. A typical stalker invades his or her victim's privacy a few times long before crucial and injurious encounter.

Is your computer being tampered with? Is someone downloading your e-mail? Has anyone been to your house while you were away? Any signs of breaking and entering, missing things, atypical disorder (or too much order)? Is your post being delivered erratically, some of envelopes opened and then sealed? Mysterious phone calls abruptly disconnected when you pick up? Your stalker must have dropped by and is monitoring you.

Notice any unusual pattern, any strange event, any weird occurrence. Someone is driving by your house morning and evening? A new "gardener" or maintenance man came by in your absence? Someone is making enquiries about you and your family? Maybe it's time to move on.

Teach your children to avoid your paranoid ex and to report to you immediately any contact he has made with them. Abusive bullies often strike where it hurts most - at one's kids. Explain danger without being unduly alarming. Make a distinction between adults they can trust - and your abusive former spouse, whom they should avoid.

Ignore your gut reactions and impulses. Sometimes, stress is so onerous and so infuriating that you feel like striking back at stalker. Don't do it. Don't play his game. He is better at it than you are and is likely to defeat you. Instead, unleash full force of law whenever you get chance to do so: restraining orders, spells in jail, and frequent visits from police tend to check abuser's violent and intrusive conduct.

The other behavioural extreme is equally futile and counterproductive. Do not try to buy peace by appeasing your abuser. Submissiveness and attempts to reason with him only whet stalker's appetite. He regards both as contemptible weaknesses, vulnerabilities he can exploit. You cannot communicate with a paranoid because he is likely to distort everything you say to support his persecutory delusions, sense of entitlement, and grandiose fantasies. You cannot appeal to his emotions - he has none, at least not positive ones.

Remember: your abusive and paranoid former partner blames it all on you. As far as he is concerned, you recklessly and unscrupulously wrecked a wonderful thing you both had going. He is vengeful, seething, and prone to bouts of uncontrolled and extreme aggression. Don't listen to those who tell you to "take it easy". Hundreds of thousands of women paid with their lives for heeding this advice. Your paranoid stalker is inordinately dangerous - and, more likely than not, he is with you for a long time to come."

(4) The Antisocial (Psychopath)

Though ruthless and, typically, violent, psychopath is a calculating machine, out to maximize his gratification and personal profit. Psychopaths lack empathy and may even be sadistic - but understand well and instantly language of carrots and sticks.

Best coping strategy

Convince your psychopath that messing with your life or with your nearest is going to cost him dearly. Do not threaten him. Simply, be unequivocal about your desire to be left in peace and your intentions to involve Law should he stalk, harass, or threaten you. Give him a choice between being left alone and becoming target of multiple arrests, restraining orders, and worse. Take extreme precautions at all times and meet him only in public places.

Indeed, I think that linguistic skill is decidedly more important. I'd say that in years past, about 90% of programmers that I encountered produced sloppy code-software that is clumsily structured, poorly documented and difficult to understand. I've also noticed a strong correlation between linguistic skill and ability to generate clean, legible code. And why not? Computer languages are, after all, just that-languages. It's thus reasonable to expect that someone with a strong language aptitude will-on average-produce cleaner, more understandable code than someone whose language skills are lackluster.

That is one reason why I wish more women would pursue a programming career. If it is indeed true that women have better language skills, then they are likely to perform well with computer languages as well. Again, this jibes well with my own experiences. I haven't known many female programmers, but most of ones that I do know have produced some rather outstanding work. (To be fair, I've also known some lousy female programmers; however, these individuals had little passion for their field, and only entered it for sake of a paycheck. That's a pretty good recipe for mediocrity, regardless of one's gender.)

Breaking into this field may not be easy. I'm sure that many women will have to combat prejudiced notion that software development is a man's field, and that female programmers are mere dilettantes. Still, it is my earnest hope that more women will make their marks in this arena. If they have right passion for this field, and if they understand their strengths, then I believe that they have much to offer.