Programming is for Girls

re: Programming is for Girls

Jon — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 03:58:16 GMT

I don't know if it's accurate to say that women have no inner logic, but I can tell you from experience that women have a much harder time understanding and writing code than men. I graduated a few years ago, so maybe modern programming logic is much different than what it was in the 1970s. There are more data structures than simple arrays now, so algorithms require a good deal of spatial reasoning. There are of course exceptions, I know some damn good female programmers, but not so many in general.

re: Programming is for Girls

Carlos — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 01:46:34 GMT

Women on software? Where?

Women on software are very rare, I think you are wrong. You do not have statistical data to base your statements.

re: Programming is for Girls

Brenda — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:54:06 GMT

I love the sound of crickets chirping when someone is asked to provide a scientific fact to a claim that women have no inner logic.

Classic.

re: Programming is for Girls

Dagmara — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:23:24 GMT

Concise, eloquent and right on the money!

re: Programming is for Girls

The Reason — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:45:08 GMT

Perhaps the reason why men were "after hours" in the school lab is not because they "didn't get it the first time" (well maybe some didn't) but its because as you said the hardware was expensive and the only way you could actually get to machine is in the lab, which proves a simple fact that most of innovation in computer world came from men.

re: Programming is for Girls

Stack Overflow — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:53:06 GMT

Excuse me, how come women have no inner logic, give me only 1 reason or scientific fact..

re: Programming is for Girls

Mark LD — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:46:40 GMT

I like the Grace Hopper quote. It's true programming is like cooking and I think that's why so many IT people like cooking.

I started in 1976, and there were a lot more women in IT (DP, as it was then). Partly, I think, because programming was seen as a clerical job, and partly because there were a lot of women in jobs that have disappeared (e.g. "Punch Girls").

Also, the current style of throwing code at a problem until it works wasn't possible then. We had to write our programs in one go, onto coding sheets. They went away to be punched, and then we had just two attempts to get the program to compile (otherwise we were in trouble). Once it compiled, it was expected to work. So, male or female, we all had to do a lot more thinking and planning then.

re: Programming is for Girls

Matt — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:55:04 GMT

Sometimes men get so engrossed by programming they ignored their assignments in order to work on their own software. I knew a ton of guys who got mediocre grades but were very intelligent and had ridiculous knowledge of... everything.

re: Programming is for Girls

Evelyn Rothman — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:10:30 GMT

WHOA!!!

Women/girls have no "inner logic"?????????

re: Programming is for Girls

Alessio Placitelli — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:30:55 GMT

Tom, I totally agree with you.