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1984 – When women stopped coding

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Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#71

Post by mattlutze »

purpled_haze wrote: post #6

I have daughters and was not able to get them interested in any computer unless it involves games or social media. But the boys they hang out with are the same way- games only, for the most part. While I played a lot of games on my computer as a youth, I also spent a lot of time trying to program games. Today, I'm a developer. Because of kids' fascination with their phones and tablets, and because programming isn't a…

In a similar way that some parents will fruitlessly try to coax their children into being the sports starts they want/wanted to be, for some children the "digging about in the computer" bug just won't catch. I hope it won't be too disappointing for you... there's a whole world of experiences to explore with your daughters!

I'm on the older edge or in the early middle of the Millennial generation, depending who defines the generation. As such I grew up and grew into technology just as we were getting really immersive operating system UI/UX. I remember fondly the green screen, text-based, 5.25" floppy games we had in elementary school, as well as the immersive film-like experiences today.

Chemistry sets were kinda boring, Couldn't have cared less about my Dad's Erector sets, much to his disappointment. I built a few model cars and a F-14 over a span of 6 months, then those lived in a box never to be heard from again.

And even in the computer... hacking around in the depths of my parents' computers was never the fun thing. But getting into web development was super cool, because it was raw, new, etc. Even as I look around, the companies I find exciting are more often web software vice native OS. I'm learning to appreciate embedded systems and very low level machine management, but it still doesn't have that spark like hacking about in GeoCities did...

What's the raw, new, interesting tech today? I don't wonder if part of it is figuring out what might be the new version of playing with hobby boards or experimenting in system drivers. Even for me, getting a diode wired up to light up as a kid was super boring. But wiring up an iOS app might be super interesting now.

Or, maybe your girls would rather be lawyers or vets or oil rig mechanics. I hear that's part of the fun of parenting :)

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#72

Post by vlehto »

arien wrote: post #21
cuillevel3 wrote: post #8

I don't think it's about absolute numbers, women did not stop coding. It's just more men starting to code, which makes the share of women smaller.

I was thinking along the same lines (personal computers = more boys interested in CS). Then I found this in the comments section of the article: http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n134/im_thatoneguy/CSDegr... Interesting that there was a dip of both males and females around 1984. So I'm not so sure of the statement above anymore. However, around the year 2000 there's this peak where males do outnumber females by a gr…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_cras...

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#73

Post by kyllo »

anjanb wrote: post #55

A lot of indian women are taking to coding/programming career. Currently, the estimate of number of women programmers in india is about 1,00,000. They are expected to grow to 2,00,00 in less than 10 years.

I think it's becoming a fairly popular career for women in China as well.

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#74

Post by pcunite »

Ras_ wrote: post #66
lordnacho wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, that reminds me of the 90s. You used to have this situation where certain games required a certain memory configuration (640K / extended memory). So the first thing I did that ever resembled programming was a boot script that would give you a menu of which game you wanted to play. It would say "1) Beneath a Steel Sky 2) Dune 2 " etc. And they it would prompt you to put the right CDROM in.

Freeing up memory for some games, good memories. I think my most vivid learning experience was when I managed to delete autoexec.bat.

lol, I think I did this too! Sixteen floppies later, Windows 95(a) was back to life.

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#75

Post by beachstartup »

mattlutze wrote: post #71
purpled_haze wrote: post #6

I have daughters and was not able to get them interested in any computer unless it involves games or social media. But the boys they hang out with are the same way- games only, for the most part. While I played a lot of games on my computer as a youth, I also spent a lot of time trying to program games. Today, I'm a developer. Because of kids' fascination with their phones and tablets, and because programming isn't a…

In a similar way that some parents will fruitlessly try to coax their children into being the sports starts they want/wanted to be, for some children the "digging about in the computer" bug just won't catch. I hope it won't be too disappointing for you... there's a whole world of experiences to explore with your daughters! I'm on the older edge or in the early middle of the Millennial generation, depending who define…

my parents tried hard (real, real hard) to get me to play tennis and piano, and refused to let me spend as much time on the computer as i wanted to. guess which i did at 2 in the morning while they were asleep? guess which i dropped like a bad habit as soon as i left the house? and this was in the 90s, when dot com mania was at its height.

newsflash: parents live vicariously through their kids and project all sorts of desires onto them, and it almost never turns out well (i went through a real trouble period that i attribute to their parenting style). seems like a lot of people just forget this once they have children.

it must be biological because you can't explain it otherwise - these are smart people that do this. my parents are both highly educated with graduate degrees. (or.. maybe that explains it)

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#76

Post by ekianjo »

lordnacho wrote: post #47
skoczymroczny wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean CONFIG.SYS :)

Oh man, that reminds me of the 90s. You used to have this situation where certain games required a certain memory configuration (640K / extended memory). So the first thing I did that ever resembled programming was a boot script that would give you a menu of which game you wanted to play. It would say "1) Beneath a Steel Sky 2) Dune 2 " etc. And they it would prompt you to put the right CDROM in.

> Oh man, that reminds me of the 90s. You used to have this situation where certain games required a certain memory configuration (640K / extended memory).

Origin games often requires that kind of things... but they were the best games of all on MS-DOS PCs! I remember the time when most people wanted to buy a PC because of Wing Commander.

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#77

Post by vlehto »

decode wrote: post #63
chongli wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your intuition around the 5-7 years lag time would seem to line up pretty damn well with the beginning of the computer revolution in the late 70s. What's the problem, exactly?

I agree. Both the TRS-80 (which was specifically mentioned in the audio version of the article) and the Apple II were released in 1977.

>By 1982, an estimated 621,000 home computers were in American households, at an average sales price of US$530.

In a country of 220 million people. If we assume about 4 people could access a single computer, then 1,1% of population had access.

So it seems commercials of Apple II and TRS-80 was the thing that compelled women to stay out of the field. Or alternatively getting your hands on dads TRS-80 was incredibly compelling experience to almost every boy out there.

Edit: this stuff then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05M80HHNB6s

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#78

Post by grandDesigns »

Because women are smarter. I notice that graph compares Computer Science ($50K-$150K/year), to Medical School ($150K--$1M), Law School ($120K--$1M), and Physical Sciences (???).

Women see the writing on the wall on High School: Med/Law School offer a clear career path to the upper middle class, while CS offers a muddy path at a middle class life.

They also see "rich" old Doctors and Lawyers. They have never seen a "rich" old programmer, because they don't exist. Programmers are washed out by 50, while Doctors are in their prime at 50.

Data: I am an 80's kid. All the smart girls knew to go to med/law school. All the nerdy guys like me wasted time learning 6502 assembly. We are all doing OK, but the women make 2 to 3 times as much as the men.

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#79

Post by crusso »

And these toys were marketed almost entirely to men and boys.

That's a pretty bad correlation-is-not-causation slip there. Marketing efforts, especially in new markets tend to take the path of least resistance. If they were marketing to males, it was most likely because males were showing an early interest in those products and likely to be the quickest way to grow marketshare.

My personal experience was that I didn't need anything marketed to me. The K-Mart in my town had a couple of running new computers on an aisle where a friend walked up to them and typed: 10 PRINT "I AM THE GREATEST!" 20 GOTO 10

I was immediately fascinated and wanted one.

Re: 1984 – When women stopped coding

#80

Post by skoczymroczny »

lordnacho wrote: post #47
skoczymroczny wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean CONFIG.SYS :)

Oh man, that reminds me of the 90s. You used to have this situation where certain games required a certain memory configuration (640K / extended memory). So the first thing I did that ever resembled programming was a boot script that would give you a menu of which game you wanted to play. It would say "1) Beneath a Steel Sky 2) Dune 2 " etc. And they it would prompt you to put the right CDROM in.

Yes, those were the times. Using choice for menus, configuration for games that need a lot of conventional memory, putting drivers in HMA (High Memory Area) just to save those few kilobytes. Using QEMM to access XMS/EMS. Also, sound card drivers configuration was a pain. Good times :)
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