The notion of my comment “Have you guys reaped any benefits? :p” being
seriously interpreted as a power-hungry “could I maybe unlock some hidden
power here” type phrase had not even occurred to me. I made a comment which
amongst my friends would have been interpreted as a cute retorical foray
into “stereotypical geek role-playing”.
Ivor, I didn’t really interpret it that way, but closer to what you
intended (i think). I wasn’t really just offended, I just thought it
was a good place to point out the risks of interpretations of comments
like that.
So if I made it seem like I was singling you out, I didn’t intend to.
I was trying to make a general point and get some serious discussion
from it. Next time I should be less lazy and start a new thread.
Haha… They should make a southpark episode about this… Seriously, put the
guns away guys. Ivor, I took your comment as it was intended. To those
hurling rebukes, get off your high horses and consider the context of this
conversation for just a moment. It is a sad fact that this is a
predominately male industry, but seriously, you can’t pin that on some geeks
wanting to show their geeky girlfriends their geeky ways.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to seem inflammatory. More positively, I
think my real question is, “Why are we (almost) never meeting girls
who can teach guys to be better programmers?”
That gets to be a complex, sensitive issue. I guess I’m just
interested in people’s thoughts on this, but I suppose that I’m not
surprised at how quickly people want to close down the topic, sadly.
It may be time to try again, in one way or another.
To attempt to make this constructive rather than critical… How can we
do this?
This question has been tumbling around in my local users groups, among
developers on projects I’m involved with, and in the hallway track at
conferences I’ve been to.
How can we kill the stigma? I think that’s our biggest
responsibility, as it’s something that requires our participation. I
only fear that it starts way before the open source community in terms
of social and intellectual development…
no worries
glad we could save that one!
I’m going to start teaching my gf to program this eve so hold your thumbs!
It’s potentially a very good way to help address the broader issue by
simple, direct participation. Teaching person to person might be one
way to reduce the tensions that arise in academic or professional
settings.
That’s why I think parents who have daughters who seem to enjoy the
computer might want to introduce them to Hackity Hack, or programmers
who have cousins or sisters or a friend who always ask them
interesting questions about computing might be able to give them a
lesson or two.
It won’t magically make things better, but it could make a difference, I
think.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to seem inflammatory. More positively, I
think my real question is, “Why are we (almost) never
meeting girls who can teach guys to be better programmers?”
That gets to be a complex, sensitive issue. I guess I’m just
interested in people’s thoughts on this, but I suppose that
I’m not surprised at how quickly people want to close down
the topic, sadly.
No no, your posts were really constructive. I read them and I’ve been
pondering since. My little outburst was directed more at the few
aggressive
posts that have been made. I just felt it was a little uncalled for.
Anyways. I’ve only met 2 female programmers in my career. One of them
didn’t speak a word of English so I never got to know her, and the other
transferred to support about 6 months after she started. I’ve never
felt
that was a reflection on her though, it was a horrible environment and I
only lasted a year and a half there myself. If anything she made the
smart
move But I have always wondered why we are so unbalanced, and this
is
merely an observation, but until Athena I’d never met a woman who was
even
remotely interested in programming. That’s just my personal experience,
ymmv.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gregory B. [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 05 May 2007 15:04
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: Ruby love
It’s potentially a very good way to help address the broader
issue by simple, direct participation. Teaching person to
person might be one way to reduce the tensions that arise in
academic or professional settings.
Let’s not forget that it’s fun in all this =D Athena really enjoyed
coding
with me, and she got the same buzz from telling the computer what to do
as I
did when I started. That’s all it takes.
That’s why I think parents who have daughters who seem to
enjoy the computer might want to introduce them to Hackity
Hack, or programmers who have cousins or sisters or a friend
who always ask them interesting questions about computing
might be able to give them a lesson or two.
It won’t magically make things better, but it could make a
difference, I think.
On the contrary, ultimately I think this is the key. Programming is one
of
those ‘spark’ things. It’s not a career you generally ‘fall into’ per
se.
Most people see a computer as a black box of tricks with total ignorance
of
the myriad of man hours spent behind the scenes making it all happen.
It’s
a whole world you either see or you don’t. Thinking back, I can name a
fair
few people I’ve introduced to programming who are now professional in
some
capacity, and they’ve all been friends.
Let’s not forget that it’s fun in all this =D Athena really enjoyed coding
with me, and she got the same buzz from telling the computer what to do as I
did when I started. That’s all it takes.
I actually typed something about fun and deleted it. The fun factor
is key, teaching anything as a hobby. (possibly just teaching
anything)
those ‘spark’ things. It’s not a career you generally ‘fall into’ per se.
Most people see a computer as a black box of tricks with total ignorance of
the myriad of man hours spent behind the scenes making it all happen. It’s
a whole world you either see or you don’t. Thinking back, I can name a fair
few people I’ve introduced to programming who are now professional in some
capacity, and they’ve all been friends.
Yeah, I suppose it really could make a difference. I blogged about
this issue just now on ORA, as I wanted to de-hijack this thread.
I personally think it’d be a good thing if those who are out there
teaching females to program could take notes on it and see if you run
into any differences in styles (similar to what Philip) posted. I
think a lot of stuff will be simply differences between people, but
if there are more common trends, it could be helpful to investigate
them.
I was being constructive, just vague I admit that “one way or
another” isn’t a very detailed roadmap. But that’s part of the
problem, for me. I’m not sure what the roadmap would look like.
Oh, whoops… should this .
I thought your post was constructive, we’ve had this discussion
offline before
It may be time to try again, in one way or another.
To attempt to make this constructive rather than critical… How can we do
this?
I was being constructive, just vague I admit that “one way or
another” isn’t a very detailed roadmap. But that’s part of the
problem, for me. I’m not sure what the roadmap would look like.
This question has been tumbling around in my local users groups, among
developers on projects I’m involved with, and in the hallway track at
conferences I’ve been to.
How can we kill the stigma? I think that’s our biggest
responsibility, as it’s something that requires our participation. I
only fear that it starts way before the open source community in terms
of social and intellectual development…
Also, it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, or something –
meaning, the idea that technical discourse is of interest only to men
may result in a skewing of the population that then gets compounded
over time.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to seem inflammatory. More positively, I
think my real question is, “Why are we (almost) never meeting girls
who can teach guys to be better programmers?”
I have - several in fact.
I once saw a documentary which described an experiment where volunteers
were
connected to an EEG, and asked to solve math problems. Men and women
were
given the same problems, and about the same percentage of each solved
them
correctly, but the EEG showed completely different areas of the brain
were
being used while they were working on them.
It’s the literal truth - men and women think differently. That being the
case, having both on a team means that when a developer gets stuck on a
difficult problem, he or she can consult a co-worker to get a completely
different perspective on it. This works with same-sex colleagues too,
but
in my experience it works better with the opposite sex.
I’m obviously not a neurologist and lack the biology-fu to explain this,
but I’ve seen it happen first-hand enough times to know it’s for real.
That doesn’t quite answer your question about teaching individuals to be
better programmers, I know. But I’m convinced that a team is better if
it includes both sexes.
I’ve only met 2 female programmers in my career. One of them
didn’t speak a word of English so I never got to know her, and the other
transferred to support about 6 months after she started. I’ve never felt
that was a reflection on her though, it was a horrible environment and I
only lasted a year and a half there myself. If anything she made the smart
move But I have always wondered why we are so unbalanced, and this is
merely an observation, but until Athena I’d never met a woman who was even
remotely interested in programming. That’s just my personal experience,
ymmv.
Well, I’ve known, and worked with quite a few, some rather famous.
Among the well known that I’ve had some personal contact with include:
Jean Sammet - Programming language Expert, author of “Programming
Languages” in 1969 which was THE survey on programming languages in
the 1970s.
Adele Goldberg - member of Xerox PARC and founder of ParcPlace.
Radia Perlman - was a student of Seymour Papert at M.I.T., worked
on Logo, now a distinguished engineer at SUN specializing in networks.
Fran Allen - expert on compilation for parallel architectures,
first woman IBM Fellow.
Two other who come to mind, but who I’ve never had the pleasure to
meet are Grace Murray Hopper, and Barbara Liskov.
But I have always wondered why we are so unbalanced, and this
I admit that “one way or
But I have always wondered why we are so unbalanced, and this is