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So true. People didn't give two shits about the ladies and doing the tiny useless portion of the world known as software they occupied 50 years ago - back then

So true. People didn't give two shits about the ladies and doing the tiny useless portion of the world known as software they occupied 50 years ago - back then it was less glamorous and less money involved. Yes, women used to dominate software development. Until the money and prestige started coming in, then men started dominating the profession. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programmin...

kamaal 9y ago
Not justifying anything. But wasn't early programming two distinct tasks? 1. Writing the Program(On Paper). 2. Feeding the program to the computer. People in 2. were called 'Programmers' because that is what they did literally- 'Program the machine'. Also early programming had all sorts strange situations where a large part of programming was actually getting results by plugging values in largish math formulas. So there were a range of people who did just that. Generating graphs, being the human equivalent of source control etc. The 2. part wasn't exactly a very glorifying role and was more like borderline stenographer. By some definition that is still true. Notice how many programmers there are who probably write MVP web apps for a living copying code from stackoverflow/internet, but there are also people doing all the real work thinking about stock markets, security, medical devices, writing compiler patches, building tools. I've always thought as coding as a mere ritual the real work always happens on the paper.
- AjithAntony 9y ago
  This was my understanding too. Women were given the the enormous and tedious task of transcribing programs onto punch cards and such. It required a large "typing pool", much like secretarial pools preparing letters dictated by others.
in3d 9y ago
The article you cite is fluff and doesn't support the statement that "women used to dominate software development." It mentions the "Computer Girls" article from the 1967 Cosmopolitan, but here is what's in it: "At one point the author speculates, seemingly without irony, about the “ the chances of meeting men in computer work. ”(The conclusion she comes to is that these are “ very good, ” as the field was currently “overrun” with men.)" http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/Ensmenger2010-MPM.pdf http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/Ensmenger2010-M... Apparently, the best guess is that between 11% to 50% of programmers were women back then. "Mandel suggests that one out of every nine working programmers was female. This is probably overly conservative. The exact percentage of female programmers is difficult to pin down with any accuracy—even figuring out the total number of programmers in this period is difficult—but other reliable contemporary observers suggest that it was closer to 30, or even 50, percent.3 The first government statistics on the programming profession do not appear until 1970, when it was calculated that 22.5 percent of all programmers were women—an estimate more than twice Mandel’s.4" "Of course, computing itself is a very broad term covering a multitude of occupational categories, including high - status jobs like computer programming and systems analysis as well as low - status jobs such as keypunch operator. Women tended to congregate in the lower end of the occupational pool in computing"
- linkregister 9y ago
  Thanks for providing this alternate perspective and invalidating my source. I will reconsider my position. Can you account for the significant amount of women computer scientists making ground-breaking discoveries? Grace Hopper, et. al. Were the outliers? I'm asking because I genuinely am unsure.
userpass 9y ago
>Until the money and prestige started coming in, then men started dominating the profession. But did they complain about sexism at that time? If it's possible for one side to suddenly "dominate" isn't that a sign that it should also go the other way?

kamaal 9y ago

Not justifying anything. But wasn't early programming two distinct tasks? 1. Writing the Program(On Paper). 2. Feeding the program to the computer. People in 2. were called 'Programmers' because that is what they did literally- 'Program the machine'. Also early programming had all sorts strange situations where a large part of programming was actually getting results by plugging values in largish math formulas. So there were a range of people who did just that. Generating graphs, being the human equivalent of source control etc. The 2. part wasn't exactly a very glorifying role and was more like borderline stenographer. By some definition that is still true. Notice how many programmers there are who probably write MVP web apps for a living copying code from stackoverflow/internet, but there are also people doing all the real work thinking about stock markets, security, medical devices, writing compiler patches, building tools. I've always thought as coding as a mere ritual the real work always happens on the paper.

AjithAntony 9y ago
This was my understanding too. Women were given the the enormous and tedious task of transcribing programs onto punch cards and such. It required a large "typing pool", much like secretarial pools preparing letters dictated by others.

in3d 9y ago

The article you cite is fluff and doesn't support the statement that "women used to dominate software development." It mentions the "Computer Girls" article from the 1967 Cosmopolitan, but here is what's in it: "At one point the author speculates, seemingly without irony, about the “ the chances of meeting men in computer work. ”(The conclusion she comes to is that these are “ very good, ” as the field was currently “overrun” with men.)" http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/Ensmenger2010-MPM.pdf http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/files/Ensmenger2010-M... Apparently, the best guess is that between 11% to 50% of programmers were women back then. "Mandel suggests that one out of every nine working programmers was female. This is probably overly conservative. The exact percentage of female programmers is difficult to pin down with any accuracy—even figuring out the total number of programmers in this period is difficult—but other reliable contemporary observers suggest that it was closer to 30, or even 50, percent.3 The first government statistics on the programming profession do not appear until 1970, when it was calculated that 22.5 percent of all programmers were women—an estimate more than twice Mandel’s.4" "Of course, computing itself is a very broad term covering a multitude of occupational categories, including high - status jobs like computer programming and systems analysis as well as low - status jobs such as keypunch operator. Women tended to congregate in the lower end of the occupational pool in computing"

linkregister 9y ago
Thanks for providing this alternate perspective and invalidating my source. I will reconsider my position. Can you account for the significant amount of women computer scientists making ground-breaking discoveries? Grace Hopper, et. al. Were the outliers? I'm asking because I genuinely am unsure.

userpass 9y ago

>Until the money and prestige started coming in, then men started dominating the profession. But did they complain about sexism at that time? If it's possible for one side to suddenly "dominate" isn't that a sign that it should also go the other way?