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It's a damn shame that ENIAC's programmers and those that followed them get no greater mention in the annals of history than the footnote that "computers before

It's a damn shame that ENIAC's programmers and those that followed them get no greater mention in the annals of history than the footnote that "computers before 1945 were women". I had a really good CSSE education, yet until recently, if you asked me to name a notable female computer scientist, Countess Lovelace or Grace Hopper would be the only person to come to mind, and I would be a little hazy on their accomplishments to boot (then, I would have said something about Hopper creating COBOL when her work was really quite a bit more fundamental and wide ranging than that, and as for Lady Lovelace, even now without peeking at Wikipedia, I think she had something to do with the math surrounding Babbage's engines and couldn't be more specific). It took a recent Imgur posting to become aware of people like Margaret Hamilton, who _led_ some absolutely astounding work for the Apollo Program. I'm sure there are other women of whom I'm ignorant that are every bit as important to modern computer science and software engineering as luminaries such as Turing or von Neumann. If some kind of history of the profession is to be included (and I think it should), there should at least be some mention of them during one's CSSE education.

amyjess 12y ago
You can also add a couple more in somewhat more modern times: * Lynn Conway, who co-launched the Mead & Conway revolution that made VLSI feasible for the first time * Sophie Wilson, who developed the ARM architecture
- xenophonf 12y ago
  No kidding. I somehow forgot about Radia Perlman, too.
- kazinator 12y ago
  Did you cherry pick these examples to some ironic purpose? Sophie Wilson was "born Roger Wilson" (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson). "While struggling with life in a male role, Conway had been married to a woman and had two children." (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway)
  - xenophonf 12y ago
    How's that ironic? They identify themselves as women and they're notable scientists/engineers.
  - amyjess 12y ago
    Trans women are women.
    - kazinator 12y ago
      Of course, I don't disagree with you, but think of it from, say, this angle: "Hey, class full of young women with university aspirations! Don't be put off from entering science and engineering fields. Look, there are even famous women in tech such as X, Y and Z which are behind some technology that you probably use, like the instruction language understood by the chips in most tablets and cell phones. Oh, they were born men and even had wives and kids, but don't let details like Y chromosomes and functioning penises be a distraction from this forcefully convincing rhetoric which I painstakingly prepared last night in my hotel room, on the backs of these two crumpled restaurant receipts. I'm confident that you can identify with them as human beings with struggles in their lives---just like you!" My point is that certain kinds of examples can detract from a thesis, by drawing focus to some other thesis or factors that may be perceived as confounding or whatever.

amyjess 12y ago

You can also add a couple more in somewhat more modern times: * Lynn Conway, who co-launched the Mead & Conway revolution that made VLSI feasible for the first time * Sophie Wilson, who developed the ARM architecture

xenophonf 12y ago
No kidding. I somehow forgot about Radia Perlman, too.
kazinator 12y ago
Did you cherry pick these examples to some ironic purpose? Sophie Wilson was "born Roger Wilson" (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson). "While struggling with life in a male role, Conway had been married to a woman and had two children." (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway)
- xenophonf 12y ago
  How's that ironic? They identify themselves as women and they're notable scientists/engineers.
- amyjess 12y ago
  Trans women are women.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    Of course, I don't disagree with you, but think of it from, say, this angle: "Hey, class full of young women with university aspirations! Don't be put off from entering science and engineering fields. Look, there are even famous women in tech such as X, Y and Z which are behind some technology that you probably use, like the instruction language understood by the chips in most tablets and cell phones. Oh, they were born men and even had wives and kids, but don't let details like Y chromosomes and functioning penises be a distraction from this forcefully convincing rhetoric which I painstakingly prepared last night in my hotel room, on the backs of these two crumpled restaurant receipts. I'm confident that you can identify with them as human beings with struggles in their lives---just like you!" My point is that certain kinds of examples can detract from a thesis, by drawing focus to some other thesis or factors that may be perceived as confounding or whatever.