[Techtalk] Programming languages for women

[Raven, corporate courtesan]

Heya --

Quoth Ms. Piglet (Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 12:07:05PM -0600):
> I contemplate situation, realize what has just happened....meanwhile
> he's saying, "Okay, you're a programmer now....the rest is just
> details."
> 
> Unfortunately, most folks don't have a mentor (spouse or not) who will nudge
> them far enough to hit that discovery......

	There is something to be said for mindset being the problem a
lot of the time.  When I first started compiling programs rather than
using a package manager, if there was an error that didn't appear to be
related to the options I'd passed configure, I'd get the nearest
programmer and ask them.  Makefiles terrified me.  Even after I'd
started using C, I didn't poke into the compile-time errors because I
didn't see how my "Hello world" experience would help me figure out why
gnome-libs wouldn't compile.

	Just as an experiment, one night I tried thinking, "I am a
programmer."  I was surprised to find that 60% of the errors I'd been
seeing were things I could fix.  Simple things, like an option needing
to be changed in the Makefile, or the program looking in the wrong place
for a library.  So just by thinking that I might have the skillset to do
the necessary troubleshooting, I was able to.  I still can't fix all the
compile-time errors, but I can get most of them.  [grin]

Cheers,
Raven

"I am so very girly."
  -- RavenBlack, on 'feminine' and 'masculine' traits