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There are two good reasons why Grace Hoppen should not be used as an example. 1. You are (likely) not Grace Hopper. 2. Computer science was, in a way, much ea

There are two good reasons why Grace Hoppen should not be used as an example. 1. You are (likely) not Grace Hopper. 2. Computer science was, in a way, much easier back then. At least very different. Listen to the Brian Kernighan being interviewed by Lex Fridman; he keeps repeating that you didn't have to be as awesome back in his days, using himself as an example. Saying "If Grace hopper can do it, then so can I" is like saying "If John Carmack can repeatedly write a AAA game (basically) by himself then so can I"[1]. Not only are you not John Carmack, but this is also not the 1990s. Hell, "throwing triangles at the problem" is just not as hard as it used to be. Marie Curie got the Nobel prize in two disciplines. That's amazing. But doing it in 2022 would be 100x as amazing, making it basically undoable. [1] Simplifying a lot. I'm aware of the story but I think my point is valid still, since it's "true enough" when measuring Carmack's coding impact.

travisporter 4y ago
But (1) is suggesting only a woman at that age with those life experiences could have done what she did. I don’t see why that has to be empirically true
- knorker 4y ago
  It's not how I meant it. She had the experience, education, skill, and drive to succeed when she was put in the right place at the right time. I was with (1) mostly referring to education, skill, and drive. But also If you were a PhD in math in 1934 and wanted to switch to computers, then you were not "competing" with a bunch of people who'd been doing computers since they were 5, because nobody had. Parent post said she went to computers in ~1945, which is just two years after "I think there's a world market for maybe five computers". None of that is transferrable to just anybody's career change decision. With (1) I could have also said that Ricky Gervais went into comedy at close to 40 years old. But you're not Ricky Gervais, so it's not likely to work out for you. It's partly a lottery win, too, where you don't need certain life experiences to win.
- fn-mote 4y ago
petercooper 4y ago
I totally agree, hence my preface. I don't believe that to be inspired by great people and their situations means one has to expect to repeat their feats in full. I'm not a Chinese military general but I have been inspired by Sun Tzu ;-) That she contributed so much with such energy from her 40s through to her 80s inspires me to not see my age as a downside. Am I ever going to be 1/100th as smart or consequential as Hopper? Ha, of course not!
atdrummond 4y ago
The good news is Quake was an exception to game develop experiences (in many ways!), not the rule. So the mindset “If Carmack can make Quake, then I can QA Subway Surfers for iOS” seems imminently reasonable.
- knorker 4y ago
  Not just Quake, though. I remember it as first there was Wolfenstein 3D, and people went crazy not believing their eyes. Then they learn about the technology, and go "ok, well that's cool, but can't do real 3D". Then that cycle repeats for Doom. And then Quake, except this time it really was 3D. Quake didn't even really have load times! Ok, so these people can be inspirations. But probably should not be used as an example that should be expected to be followable.
ghaff 4y ago
Even beyond Grace Hopper being an outlier, software/computer science is probably something of an outlier more broadly. You can find a ton of people in their 50s through 70s today who ended up in some flavor of computers and software even though they barely touched a (non-typewriter) keyboard until college or even later. But at least part of the reason they were able to do so was that a lot of computer science was still relatively young and, even if you majored in CS undergrad, what you got was probably more of a mix of math and electrical engineering than what a lot of people learn today. (Or, for that matter, what a lot of programs expect someone to already know before showing up to their first CS class. And then, on the other side, a lot of people jumped onto the first dot-com bubble when a front-end web designer didn't really need to know much. (And arguably the situation is somewhat in play today--at least for the time being--with bootcamps etc.) Which is a long-winded way of saying, I'm not sure how applicable the situation in the software industry is applicable to technical fields more broadly.

travisporter 4y ago

But (1) is suggesting only a woman at that age with those life experiences could have done what she did. I don’t see why that has to be empirically true

knorker 4y ago
It's not how I meant it. She had the experience, education, skill, and drive to succeed when she was put in the right place at the right time. I was with (1) mostly referring to education, skill, and drive. But also If you were a PhD in math in 1934 and wanted to switch to computers, then you were not "competing" with a bunch of people who'd been doing computers since they were 5, because nobody had. Parent post said she went to computers in ~1945, which is just two years after "I think there's a world market for maybe five computers". None of that is transferrable to just anybody's career change decision. With (1) I could have also said that Ricky Gervais went into comedy at close to 40 years old. But you're not Ricky Gervais, so it's not likely to work out for you. It's partly a lottery win, too, where you don't need certain life experiences to win.
fn-mote 4y ago

petercooper 4y ago

I totally agree, hence my preface. I don't believe that to be inspired by great people and their situations means one has to expect to repeat their feats in full. I'm not a Chinese military general but I have been inspired by Sun Tzu ;-) That she contributed so much with such energy from her 40s through to her 80s inspires me to not see my age as a downside. Am I ever going to be 1/100th as smart or consequential as Hopper? Ha, of course not!

atdrummond 4y ago

The good news is Quake was an exception to game develop experiences (in many ways!), not the rule. So the mindset “If Carmack can make Quake, then I can QA Subway Surfers for iOS” seems imminently reasonable.

knorker 4y ago
Not just Quake, though. I remember it as first there was Wolfenstein 3D, and people went crazy not believing their eyes. Then they learn about the technology, and go "ok, well that's cool, but can't do real 3D". Then that cycle repeats for Doom. And then Quake, except this time it really was 3D. Quake didn't even really have load times! Ok, so these people can be inspirations. But probably should not be used as an example that should be expected to be followable.

ghaff 4y ago

Even beyond Grace Hopper being an outlier, software/computer science is probably something of an outlier more broadly. You can find a ton of people in their 50s through 70s today who ended up in some flavor of computers and software even though they barely touched a (non-typewriter) keyboard until college or even later. But at least part of the reason they were able to do so was that a lot of computer science was still relatively young and, even if you majored in CS undergrad, what you got was probably more of a mix of math and electrical engineering than what a lot of people learn today. (Or, for that matter, what a lot of programs expect someone to already know before showing up to their first CS class. And then, on the other side, a lot of people jumped onto the first dot-com bubble when a front-end web designer didn't really need to know much. (And arguably the situation is somewhat in play today--at least for the time being--with bootcamps etc.) Which is a long-winded way of saying, I'm not sure how applicable the situation in the software industry is applicable to technical fields more broadly.