10 ms·

Girls and Computers

230 points by taylorbuley 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
hzy 15y ago
I'm not sure if I can see the correlation between the story being told and the fact that the author is female. It seems to be briefly mentioned in the first and last paragraphs.
- kmm 15y ago
  I assumed the point was that it doesn't matter. Kids get interested in computers regardless of their gender. But you're right, it probably isn't the most descriptive title.
  - rmurphey3 15y ago
    Yes, the point of the post was that it had a lot more to do with being a kid with a computer than with being male or female. The point of the title was that it was a story of ... a girl and her computers :)
    - Dylan16807 15y ago
      'Girls' has a very different meaning from 'a girl'.
    - jacalata 15y ago
      The switch from 'a girl and her computers' to 'girls and computers' is a problem in itself (pop culture ref: http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/). Would you take a story of a boy and his first computer and call it 'boys and computers'? Why is one girl representative of the group?
- joe_the_user 15y ago
  The argument of the article is that when computers were new, they were new to everyone of either genders whereas at present gender-based expectations can take over in expectations and decisions about who would play or work with computers. "In some ways, it is like the very ubiquity of technology has led us back to a world where socially normative gender roles take hold all over again"
  - bermanoid 15y ago
    It's a nice story, but it sounds just-so to me. Probably because most women that grew up in the 80s did not in significant numbers show the same fascination with computers that the author did. In fact, the current state of the mid-to-senior level job market reflects the interest level from exactly that time period, and it's just as lopsided in favor of men as it's ever been.
    - parfe 15y ago
      "In 1967, when Cosmo’s “The Computer Girls” article ran, 11 percent of computer science majors were women. In the late 1970s, the percentage of women in the field approached and exceeded the same figure we are applauding today: 25 percent. The portion of women earning computer science degrees continued to rise steadily, reaching its peak — 37 percent — in 1984. Then, over the next two decades, women left computer science in droves — just as their numbers were increasing steadily across all other science, technology, engineering, and math fields. By 2006, the portion of women in computer science had dropped to 20 percent." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-programming-was-womens-work/2011/08/24/gIQAdixGgJ_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-program... The Computer Science/Tech/IT industry created an unwelcoming environment for women; the women left. A random sampling of how IT can be hostile to women: I sat one empty seat away from a long-haired friend in a Computer Architecture class with around 15 students attending lectures in a room with theater style seating and the entrances to the rear. Plenty of room to spread out. On a regular basis, guys would enter from the rear and sit directly next to my long haired friend. No empty seat between. Only after sitting down did these guys realize the woman they just sat next to was actually a goateed dude. These creepers would then get up and quietly leave the classroom horribly embarrassed. This happened for half a semester until enough of these guys learned. I can't imagine how a woman would feel if she had her personal space invaded on a regular basis when clearly there was plenty of room to spread out. Then if a woman gets to the professional world she gets invited to a hackathon where the women will be serving drinks to the men. Or she sits near the front door and visitors assume she is a secretary. Or she "gets" to run the party planning committee. Those experiences add up over time and make life unpleasant.
- novalis 15y ago
  I saw it as a female who loved computers since she was little sort of correlation.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  > I'm not sure if I can see the correlation between the story being told and the fact that the author is female. I saw a quip the other day that was along the lines of "Hacker News posters consistently make the mistake of assuming that, because a post shows up on Hacker News, the author is somehow 'making a big deal out of it'". The "correlation" is that the author, after a spate of sexism stories regarding women in tech, got to thinking about how she got started as a woman in tech, and wrote a blog post sharing the story. It's a slice of a story of someone's life, nothing more, nothing less. Don't try to read too much into it looking for larger correlations and grand overarching Big Deal Points.
  - kiiski 15y ago
    You're probably right, but the post is titled "Girls and Computers", which kind of seems to imply some deep, and general, theorizing about girls and computers.
    - msbarnett 15y ago
      > You're probably right, but the post is titled "Girls and Computers", which kind of seems to imply some deep, and general, theorizing about girls and computers. Or that she's been spending some time thinking about "girls and computers" after the news stories about girls and computers and it made her think of her own story. That's how I read it, anyways. Obsessing about the "deeper meaning" of a 3 word title and whether or not it is the best description of the content seems a bit pointless.
      - Strallus 15y ago
        Article titles should match their content.
        msbarnett 15y ago
        I'm not convinced it doesn't, but either way, this is pedantry of the most unproductive sort.
    - 15y ago
- Tichy 15y ago
  I think that is kind of the point.
- roguecoder 15y ago
  It's a woman's story. The fact that gender isn't relevant is the point. So many people in "the software/start up/tech community" continue to make it relevant by shoehorning human sexuality onto things that should be about the joy of technology, of making things happen, of being real live sorcerers.
mml 15y ago
It's interesting to me how little difference there is between her experience and my own (male) early experience with computers. Though on second thought, it's not at all surprising.
- roguecoder 15y ago
  I think we have a tendency to assume "people like us" are, well, people like us. Some things are more universal than we think.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
The thing that stands out in many of these stories are these three points: * Accessible price point, * Instantly usable to write code, * a place to go when the capabilities ran out. It is very challenging to reliably buy this today. When my daughter wanted a computer a gave her a VAX 4000/VLC, it had BASIC, C, FORTRAN, and COBOL installed and could run adventure. I got it for free from a junk pile. I'm going to try and fix that. [edited for formatting]
- leftnode 15y ago
  You could probably easily buy a computer with Linux on it today from Ebay for around $100. Installing Linux means you have a wealth of ways to instantly write code (gcc, g++, ruby, python, php, perl, and a browser where you can write Javascript) and there are plenty of places to go when it's capabilities run out. I think it's even easier to buy all of this today. Or, have I totally misunderstood what you've said?
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    Or, have I totally misunderstood what you've said? Sort of. Do your experiment (build a linux box) and put it in front of a kid with no exposure to computers (other than as appliances) try this with kids from 6 to 16. As you get toward 16 you will start getting better engagement, most will figure its too confusing and stop. I've run the experiment with Arduinio, even with its pretty straight forward GUI there is still some serious complexities around the notion of compiling, downloading, driver compatibility, etc etc. One of the things I will do with a RasberryPi is look at building an embedded BASIC box. Hook a keyboard to it, plug it into a TV's HDMI port and turn it on. Blammo, BASIC prompt. (If I can swing it it would be a Python prompt but I digress). Type in the code (using BASIC syntax sorry) 100 CLEAR 110 DRAW(100, 100, 200, 100, "WHITE") 120 DRAW(200, 100, 200, 200, "WHITE") 130 DRAW(100, 200, 200, 200, "WHITE") 140 DRAW(100, 100, 100, 200, "WHITE") 150 FOR I = 100 TO 200 STEP 10 160 FOR K = 200 TO 100 STEP -10 170 DRAW(I, K, K, I, "BLUE") 180 DRAW(K, I, I, K, "GREEN") 190 NEXT K 200 NEXT I 210 END Type run, and blammo, drawing pictures on a screen. Why pictures? Being able to draw graphics is a compelling thing for folks, they like to do it, it touches their inner finger painting. It compels them to think about 'steps' and 'math' and stuff. Doing graphics in Linux is a PITA. The notion of a system which throws away everything except a way to explore through programming, and has access to all of the capabilities of that system, is key. The programming needs to be accessible. I could be K&R C as easily as BASIC but it would need a very simple build environment (code for NOT gcc). Something that with a manual of no more than a couple of hundred pages, can engage a student to explore it with programming. They don't know what programming is so complaining about types (for example) just demotivates them.
Akram 15y ago
I guess Children of Tech savvy parents become hackers...
Joeri 15y ago
I doubt it will be possible to recapture the golden age of early PC's and their ability to get kids programming. The computing landscape has changed, and educational practices must change with it. We have to assume kids will have ipads as their first computer and treat them accordingly. Kids these days are web users first and foremost. You have to let them cross the gap between visiting sites and creating sites. There's plenty of opportunity for sites that let kids create stuff in javascript and share it with their friends. What's so different from animating a canvas using javascript and animating a tv screen using basic?
hetman 15y ago
A lot of the responses here seeking a modern alternative to this experience seem to be focusing on hardware. In a way that's not surprising but I think it's a bit of a shame. That's because I think we have a platform today that can rival the ease and immediate feedback of those early computers: the web browser. There are probably a couple things needed to complete the picture. 1) A nice basic library that can serve as an immediate stepping stone to the UI. There's probably some out there already that are very beginner friendly. 2) Some kind of REPL/IDE like browser extension to make it easy to dive in right away. Something a bit easier for kids to wrap their head around than the developer tools of today, but also incorporating a basic editor so they can edit in place, save files etc. I'm not really sure about the form of (2) or how vital it is, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
- jbattle 15y ago
  I'd second this suggestion. Another great 'feature' of this platform is that it's trivially easy for the learner to share his/her creations with friends.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

230 points by taylorbuley 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

hzy 15y ago

I'm not sure if I can see the correlation between the story being told and the fact that the author is female. It seems to be briefly mentioned in the first and last paragraphs.

kmm 15y ago
I assumed the point was that it doesn't matter. Kids get interested in computers regardless of their gender. But you're right, it probably isn't the most descriptive title.
- rmurphey3 15y ago
  Yes, the point of the post was that it had a lot more to do with being a kid with a computer than with being male or female. The point of the title was that it was a story of ... a girl and her computers :)
  - Dylan16807 15y ago
    'Girls' has a very different meaning from 'a girl'.
  - jacalata 15y ago
    The switch from 'a girl and her computers' to 'girls and computers' is a problem in itself (pop culture ref: http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/). Would you take a story of a boy and his first computer and call it 'boys and computers'? Why is one girl representative of the group?
joe_the_user 15y ago
The argument of the article is that when computers were new, they were new to everyone of either genders whereas at present gender-based expectations can take over in expectations and decisions about who would play or work with computers. "In some ways, it is like the very ubiquity of technology has led us back to a world where socially normative gender roles take hold all over again"
- bermanoid 15y ago
  It's a nice story, but it sounds just-so to me. Probably because most women that grew up in the 80s did not in significant numbers show the same fascination with computers that the author did. In fact, the current state of the mid-to-senior level job market reflects the interest level from exactly that time period, and it's just as lopsided in favor of men as it's ever been.
  - parfe 15y ago
    "In 1967, when Cosmo’s “The Computer Girls” article ran, 11 percent of computer science majors were women. In the late 1970s, the percentage of women in the field approached and exceeded the same figure we are applauding today: 25 percent. The portion of women earning computer science degrees continued to rise steadily, reaching its peak — 37 percent — in 1984. Then, over the next two decades, women left computer science in droves — just as their numbers were increasing steadily across all other science, technology, engineering, and math fields. By 2006, the portion of women in computer science had dropped to 20 percent." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-programming-was-womens-work/2011/08/24/gIQAdixGgJ_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-computer-program... The Computer Science/Tech/IT industry created an unwelcoming environment for women; the women left. A random sampling of how IT can be hostile to women: I sat one empty seat away from a long-haired friend in a Computer Architecture class with around 15 students attending lectures in a room with theater style seating and the entrances to the rear. Plenty of room to spread out. On a regular basis, guys would enter from the rear and sit directly next to my long haired friend. No empty seat between. Only after sitting down did these guys realize the woman they just sat next to was actually a goateed dude. These creepers would then get up and quietly leave the classroom horribly embarrassed. This happened for half a semester until enough of these guys learned. I can't imagine how a woman would feel if she had her personal space invaded on a regular basis when clearly there was plenty of room to spread out. Then if a woman gets to the professional world she gets invited to a hackathon where the women will be serving drinks to the men. Or she sits near the front door and visitors assume she is a secretary. Or she "gets" to run the party planning committee. Those experiences add up over time and make life unpleasant.
novalis 15y ago
I saw it as a female who loved computers since she was little sort of correlation.
msbarnett 15y ago
> I'm not sure if I can see the correlation between the story being told and the fact that the author is female. I saw a quip the other day that was along the lines of "Hacker News posters consistently make the mistake of assuming that, because a post shows up on Hacker News, the author is somehow 'making a big deal out of it'". The "correlation" is that the author, after a spate of sexism stories regarding women in tech, got to thinking about how she got started as a woman in tech, and wrote a blog post sharing the story. It's a slice of a story of someone's life, nothing more, nothing less. Don't try to read too much into it looking for larger correlations and grand overarching Big Deal Points.
- kiiski 15y ago
  You're probably right, but the post is titled "Girls and Computers", which kind of seems to imply some deep, and general, theorizing about girls and computers.
  - msbarnett 15y ago
    > You're probably right, but the post is titled "Girls and Computers", which kind of seems to imply some deep, and general, theorizing about girls and computers. Or that she's been spending some time thinking about "girls and computers" after the news stories about girls and computers and it made her think of her own story. That's how I read it, anyways. Obsessing about the "deeper meaning" of a 3 word title and whether or not it is the best description of the content seems a bit pointless.
    - Strallus 15y ago
      Article titles should match their content.
      - msbarnett 15y ago
        I'm not convinced it doesn't, but either way, this is pedantry of the most unproductive sort.
  - 15y ago
Tichy 15y ago
I think that is kind of the point.
roguecoder 15y ago
It's a woman's story. The fact that gender isn't relevant is the point. So many people in "the software/start up/tech community" continue to make it relevant by shoehorning human sexuality onto things that should be about the joy of technology, of making things happen, of being real live sorcerers.

mml 15y ago

It's interesting to me how little difference there is between her experience and my own (male) early experience with computers. Though on second thought, it's not at all surprising.

roguecoder 15y ago
I think we have a tendency to assume "people like us" are, well, people like us. Some things are more universal than we think.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

The thing that stands out in many of these stories are these three points: * Accessible price point, * Instantly usable to write code, * a place to go when the capabilities ran out. It is very challenging to reliably buy this today. When my daughter wanted a computer a gave her a VAX 4000/VLC, it had BASIC, C, FORTRAN, and COBOL installed and could run adventure. I got it for free from a junk pile. I'm going to try and fix that. [edited for formatting]

leftnode 15y ago
You could probably easily buy a computer with Linux on it today from Ebay for around $100. Installing Linux means you have a wealth of ways to instantly write code (gcc, g++, ruby, python, php, perl, and a browser where you can write Javascript) and there are plenty of places to go when it's capabilities run out. I think it's even easier to buy all of this today. Or, have I totally misunderstood what you've said?
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  Or, have I totally misunderstood what you've said? Sort of. Do your experiment (build a linux box) and put it in front of a kid with no exposure to computers (other than as appliances) try this with kids from 6 to 16. As you get toward 16 you will start getting better engagement, most will figure its too confusing and stop. I've run the experiment with Arduinio, even with its pretty straight forward GUI there is still some serious complexities around the notion of compiling, downloading, driver compatibility, etc etc. One of the things I will do with a RasberryPi is look at building an embedded BASIC box. Hook a keyboard to it, plug it into a TV's HDMI port and turn it on. Blammo, BASIC prompt. (If I can swing it it would be a Python prompt but I digress). Type in the code (using BASIC syntax sorry) 100 CLEAR 110 DRAW(100, 100, 200, 100, "WHITE") 120 DRAW(200, 100, 200, 200, "WHITE") 130 DRAW(100, 200, 200, 200, "WHITE") 140 DRAW(100, 100, 100, 200, "WHITE") 150 FOR I = 100 TO 200 STEP 10 160 FOR K = 200 TO 100 STEP -10 170 DRAW(I, K, K, I, "BLUE") 180 DRAW(K, I, I, K, "GREEN") 190 NEXT K 200 NEXT I 210 END Type run, and blammo, drawing pictures on a screen. Why pictures? Being able to draw graphics is a compelling thing for folks, they like to do it, it touches their inner finger painting. It compels them to think about 'steps' and 'math' and stuff. Doing graphics in Linux is a PITA. The notion of a system which throws away everything except a way to explore through programming, and has access to all of the capabilities of that system, is key. The programming needs to be accessible. I could be K&R C as easily as BASIC but it would need a very simple build environment (code for NOT gcc). Something that with a manual of no more than a couple of hundred pages, can engage a student to explore it with programming. They don't know what programming is so complaining about types (for example) just demotivates them.

Akram 15y ago

I guess Children of Tech savvy parents become hackers...

Joeri 15y ago

I doubt it will be possible to recapture the golden age of early PC's and their ability to get kids programming. The computing landscape has changed, and educational practices must change with it. We have to assume kids will have ipads as their first computer and treat them accordingly. Kids these days are web users first and foremost. You have to let them cross the gap between visiting sites and creating sites. There's plenty of opportunity for sites that let kids create stuff in javascript and share it with their friends. What's so different from animating a canvas using javascript and animating a tv screen using basic?

hetman 15y ago

A lot of the responses here seeking a modern alternative to this experience seem to be focusing on hardware. In a way that's not surprising but I think it's a bit of a shame. That's because I think we have a platform today that can rival the ease and immediate feedback of those early computers: the web browser. There are probably a couple things needed to complete the picture. 1) A nice basic library that can serve as an immediate stepping stone to the UI. There's probably some out there already that are very beginner friendly. 2) Some kind of REPL/IDE like browser extension to make it easy to dive in right away. Something a bit easier for kids to wrap their head around than the developer tools of today, but also incorporating a basic editor so they can edit in place, save files etc. I'm not really sure about the form of (2) or how vital it is, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

jbattle 15y ago
I'd second this suggestion. Another great 'feature' of this platform is that it's trivially easy for the learner to share his/her creations with friends.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]