1/ Naive standard history of computing ignores the role of women entirely beyond Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, Klari Von Neumann
-
-
Replying to @vgr
2/ Naive feminist revision suggests (but does not show) that women were the pioneers in the early decades, even more than men
1 reply 1 retweet 1 like -
Replying to @vgr
3/ The reality is more subtle: men *thought* they were giving women the boring punch-card grunt work and keeping the creative, hard stuff
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @vgr
4/ What really happened: men gave away more power than they realized or intended to. Computing was new; loci of challenges was not obvious
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @vgr
5/ The nominal work WAS tedious grunt work. But it was above data entry or typing levels. It was tedious and precise math.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @vgr
6/ The nominal work took math skills (diff equations etc.) women were thought to be poor at, but not ingenuity or creativity. Still a win.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @vgr
7/ But the real win was hidden creative work, tinkering, hacking where male architect types didn't even realize there were challenges.
1 reply 1 retweet 2 likes -
Replying to @vgr
8/ What's remarkable about the early women was not the grunt work they endured, but the hacking at the edge of hardware and software.
1 reply 2 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @vgr
9/ This involved troubleshooting, improvising etc. to keep early unreliable machines working. This was hidden proto-hacking.
1 reply 1 retweet 2 likes -
Replying to @vgr
10/ Men largely did the high level architecture of programs or built the machines. But women led (AFAICT) in gluing the two together.
1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
11/ 3 books Pioneer Programmer http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Programmer-Jennings-Computer-Changed/dp/1612480861/ … Recoding Gender: http://www.amazon.com/Recoding-Gender-Changing-Participation-Computing/dp/0262018063/ … Turing's Cathedral http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Universe/dp/1400075998/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414121695&sr=1-1&keywords=turing%27s+cathedral …
-
-
Replying to @vgr
12/ When zone of hidden creative potential became legible with interactive computing (early 60s), men moved in, took over hacking. FBI>cops.
0 replies 1 retweet 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.