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The author may not realize this, but in the 1960s the word "programmer" did not have the meaning it does now. Software development was done by two different ty

by pg 17y ago

The author may not realize this, but in the 1960s the word "programmer" did not have the meaning it does now. Software development was done by two different types of people working together: "systems analysts" who designed it, and "programmers" who translated their designs into code. What the systems analyst produced was very precise; it was pretty much a program written in a higher-level language than was then available. The programmer's job was to translate this program into Fortran or Cobol. So it's not only the female programmers of the 1960s who have disappeared, but the male ones as well. The word "programmer" still exists, but the job it described in the 1960s has mostly gone away. The female programmers weren't replaced by men, but by compilers.

scott_s 17y ago
My grandfather worked on a UNIVAC I that the Navy owned in the early '50s. We still have the manuals from it (binders of them - they are amazing). While looking through them on Thanksgiving, I found a reference to "automatic programming" in a marketing brochure. I knew it didn't mean what the term would imply now (to me, programs generated through some machine learning process). My best guess was that it referred to the compiler which would generate machine instructions from the assembly instructions. So I think the idea that "programming" was the lowest-level act feasible to instruct the machine what to do predated even the '60s. edit: I should have read the paper more carefully. The author directly addresses pg's points on page 10 by referencing the exact document I just did. His distinction is between "coders" and "programmers."
- lmkg 17y ago
  If I recall, FORTRAN was originally described by IBM as an automatic code-generation program, not as a programming language. Probably because languages didn't exist at the time, and (as usual) no one had any idea what they had just created. It's actually kinda trippy to think of it this way, but they basically designed the compiler first and the language spec came about as a documentation of its function, rather than the other way around.
  - enf 17y ago
    The original paper published about it was called "The Fortran Automatic Coding System". They did realize, though, that they had created a language as well as a compiler: "It has two components: the FORTRAN language, in which programs are written, and the translator or executive routine for the 704 which effects the translation of FORTRAN language programs into 704 programs."
  - pg 17y ago
    In fact the name stands for "Formula Translation," because the math expressions were where the compiler had to work the hardest. The rest of the language was practically assembly language with syntax.
deleted 17y ago
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zb 17y ago
He seems to hint at some awareness of this in Part II, but doesn't really address it explicitly. It seems more likely to me that the transition was due to existing (but very real) discrimination in the higher-status jobs combined with automation (in the form of compilers) of the highly feminised lower-status jobs. The author's thesis, if I understand correctly, is that there was some sort of new discrimination that drove women out of the industry. I'm more inclined to think that there was never any particular shortage of discrimination.
InclinedPlane 17y ago
The same phenomenon occurred in regards to the word "calculator". At one point it meant a person (someone who would operate a mechanical 10-key calculator or such-like) then it became inextricably tied to automated machinery capable of computation. I wonder what terms today will be similarly affected in the future. Driver? Pilot? Soldier (though I hope not)?
- scott_s 17y ago
  "Computer" used to be a person as well.

by pg 17y ago

scott_s 17y ago

My grandfather worked on a UNIVAC I that the Navy owned in the early '50s. We still have the manuals from it (binders of them - they are amazing). While looking through them on Thanksgiving, I found a reference to "automatic programming" in a marketing brochure. I knew it didn't mean what the term would imply now (to me, programs generated through some machine learning process). My best guess was that it referred to the compiler which would generate machine instructions from the assembly instructions. So I think the idea that "programming" was the lowest-level act feasible to instruct the machine what to do predated even the '60s. edit: I should have read the paper more carefully. The author directly addresses pg's points on page 10 by referencing the exact document I just did. His distinction is between "coders" and "programmers."

lmkg 17y ago
If I recall, FORTRAN was originally described by IBM as an automatic code-generation program, not as a programming language. Probably because languages didn't exist at the time, and (as usual) no one had any idea what they had just created. It's actually kinda trippy to think of it this way, but they basically designed the compiler first and the language spec came about as a documentation of its function, rather than the other way around.
- enf 17y ago
  The original paper published about it was called "The Fortran Automatic Coding System". They did realize, though, that they had created a language as well as a compiler: "It has two components: the FORTRAN language, in which programs are written, and the translator or executive routine for the 704 which effects the translation of FORTRAN language programs into 704 programs."
- pg 17y ago
  In fact the name stands for "Formula Translation," because the math expressions were where the compiler had to work the hardest. The rest of the language was practically assembly language with syntax.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

zb 17y ago

He seems to hint at some awareness of this in Part II, but doesn't really address it explicitly. It seems more likely to me that the transition was due to existing (but very real) discrimination in the higher-status jobs combined with automation (in the form of compilers) of the highly feminised lower-status jobs. The author's thesis, if I understand correctly, is that there was some sort of new discrimination that drove women out of the industry. I'm more inclined to think that there was never any particular shortage of discrimination.

InclinedPlane 17y ago

The same phenomenon occurred in regards to the word "calculator". At one point it meant a person (someone who would operate a mechanical 10-key calculator or such-like) then it became inextricably tied to automated machinery capable of computation. I wonder what terms today will be similarly affected in the future. Driver? Pilot? Soldier (though I hope not)?

scott_s 17y ago
"Computer" used to be a person as well.