[Techtalk] Programming languages for women

Erin Mulder meara99 at yahoo.com
Mon Mar 4 14:03:07 EST 2002


re: helpful and open programming communities

I have to throw Java into this mix as a great language for
beginners (of all genders).

- Pretty easy to get up and going on any platform
- Great tutorials online
- Open and enthusiastic community
- Code is very portable (any example source you find
    will almost always run okay on your machine as well)
- Lots of basic algorithms/structures are built right in
- Lots of free/open-source IDEs to work with
- Lots of recent open-source code to look at
- GUI libraries are easy to learn and work with
- Runtime errors are easy to decipher
- Non-cryptic naming conventions
- Very readable code (good type safety, etc.)
- No memory management required
- Easy error/exception handling

Furthermore, it's becoming the language of choice for
many introductory classes at universities, so there are
plenty of online lessons available.

Cheers,
Erin

----- Original Message -----
From: "jennyw" <jennyw at dangerousideas.com>
To: <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2002 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Programming languages for women


>
> From: "Malin Blomqvist" <malin.blomqvist at home.se>
> > I want to start by saying that I don't think woman-friendly
> > is really the right thing to call it. Rather new-to-
> > computer-and-abit-afraid-people-friendly. Or something :) I
>
> Yes, that's probably a better way of putting it. I guess I say
> woman-friendly because I think that women and girls are discouraged from
> getting into tech. stuff, which is an additional barrier to overcome.
>
> > I can't help but think of Perl. Perl can today be used for
>
> And I was thinking that Perl might be the last language you want to show
> beginners! ;-) Perl's cryptic syntax and free-form nature makes it easy to
> start writing scripts; it also makes it hard to understand other people's
> scripts, or even your own after a while (especially if they're
complicated).
> Of course, it is possible to write easy to understand Perl scripts, I just

> don't think the language encourages it. I was thinking that if I were to
> write a program that I wanted others to be able to participate in the
> crafting of without much computer experience, Perl might not be such a
good
> choice.
>
> Python is kind of nice because it does blocks by indentation. This does
tend
> to make it look more uniform and easier to read. It's syntax is also a bit
> more friendly than Perl's. I don't have a lot of knowledge of Ruby, but
Ruby
> also seems to be pretty easy to read with little training.
>
> The last part of my question was about programming communities. Maybe my
> experiences haven't been typical, but I've found that there is a kind of
> machismo that accompanies C and C++ programmers. They put down other
> languages, even if it's clear that something is easier to implement in a
> higher-level language. Of course, the C and C++ programmers I've worked
with
> have been Windows programmers, so 'nix C/C++ programmers might be totally
> different. One of the managers, when I pointed a bug out to him, expressed
> his anger by saying his engineer was sucking his $%^. Anyway, I was taken
> aback, to say the least. Also, I remember holes punched in walls, temper
> tantrums, and a lot of yelling.
>
> PowerBuilder programmers I've worked had their own issues. I was in IT at
> the time and not software engineering, so I had a bit of distance, but
there
> are things you just can't not notice. Some of the programmers couldn't
even
> tell you what "object-oriented" meant (well, they knew about
"inheritance")
> but they still had big egos and were very territorial (probably because
they
> didn't want anyone to examine their code). I hope this isn't common for PB
> programmers, but we kept hiring new ones, and often they were more of the
> same. There were also a few really excellent programmers, too, but they
were
> in the minority.
>
> The SmallTalk programmers I've known have had a better understanding of OO
> than other programmers I've worked with (probably for obvious reasons).
> They've also tended to have lives. While there will always be macho
> programmers, SmallTalkers seem a bit more laid back from my experience.
>
> The Perl programmers I've worked with have either known their stuff or
> really haven't. I've seem some pretty rotten Perl code. But for the most
> part, I've found that, unless someone is trying to fit into a job that's
too
> big for them, Perl programmers are pretty cool. Haven't had contact with
> many Python programmers and haven't met any Ruby programmers in person.
>
> Jen
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Techtalk mailing list
> Techtalk at linuxchix.org
> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/techtalk


_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com




More information about the Techtalk mailing list