Yes we are and it’s because women bring a diversity to programming in many ways. The primary impact is HFE or Human Factor Engineers, these are people who look at how best to do the flow of the program so it’s more natural, requires zero or very little programming, reduces ergo strain, the list goes on.
I managed a group of about 70, 40% of which were female, and 3/4 of the HFE were women.
Also in testing, I think women programmers test better than men because they look at it from different angles, so you get better quality software.
If you are producing a software product that customers buy, you absolutely want women on your staff. They will consistently give you a better perspective of what prospective customers want than by having an all male staff.
Agreed, and I would also suggest that the optimal distribution of employment in society is ability to need. It’s possible that some women with high ability avoid or leave the field due to diversity-related issues and create openings that less able men take.
Harvey Mudd puts their best lecturers in the Intro CS. One thing I certainly took away from college was that a good professor can make any class and subject fascinating and mind blowing. And then they made that first CS class a core requirement for every student. And I don’t know how much this helps, but I see that their intro class starts with functional programming – so students who already knew how to program before college are probably not as far ahead of the other students in that paradigm as they would be a regular first CS class.
I had no idea! But based on the variety of font colors and sizes on that site, we clearly must take it seriously.
I used to spend a fair amount of time reading conspiracy sites for fun. It doesn’t matter what their politics or backgrounds are, whatever they say about their chosen “theory” ends up sounding pretty much the same as every other one.
They want to be made “martyrs,” but just not literal ones (for the most part).
I understand pacifism pretty well. I even believe it works in the long term and often with less loss of life than eschewing it. However, for me it comes down to those “board room meetings” about the Prime Directive in Star Trek. Do you let lives get sacrificed by not fighting back with (non-lethal) violence for the greater good (like Picard might do), or do you use violence to push back and make a more immediate difference while knowing that it could cost you more long-term (like Kirk might do). Strategy says the former, but my personal sense of morality and responsibility to those around me says the latter. It’s a weird internal conflict, I have to say.
edit - please forgive the horrible, tortured metaphor, but that’s how it’s played across my mind, lol
