[Techtalk] Programming languages for women

[jennyw]

From: "Ms. Piglet" <listpig at earthlink.net>
> And I'm not sure there's no gender connection: math anxiety seems to be
more
> common in women, I'm sure because of frequent explicit or implicit
cultural
> input that says "girls can't do math....girls aren't good at math....it's
> unfeminine to be good at math...don't be smarter than a boy...."; it
stands
> to reason that the same type of cultural messages are out there about
> computers. (And engineering, for all that.)

Yes, this is one of the things I was thinking of when I asked. I guess,
ultimately, I'm wondering if choice of language for an open source (or any
type of) project would make it easier or more difficult to get women
(including current non-programmers) involved. I'm also wondering whether any
cultures that may or may not have grown up around programming languages
might make women feel more or less comfortable.

> Then one day, typing in a program, I stopped and stared at what I was
> typing, and said something akin to "Well, that's dumb.  Looks like what
this
> guy is trying to do is X, so why did he write the code this way?  Why
didn't
> he do Z?  That would be much simpler and more elegant....."

That's a great story!

In contrast, my little sister and I grew up in a house that had a computer
when we were in elementary school. Both of our parents were programmers. My
sister, being an overachiever, once wrote a program to animate Garfield
kicky Odie for her BASIC class in Jr. High. Needless to say, her teacher and
classmates were impressed! So, yeah, it does help when you get to learn in
an encouraging environment.

Jen