Mustachify.me! Now you too can be normal manpeople!
Problem solved! You will no longer distract and enrage men on the internet with your female face. ]]>
OSGCC was absolutely amazing this year. The games made for it were all impressive. We had a kinect game, a tablet game, a vimscript game, and even a Dart game. The source for all of the games will be available on github and you can learn more about previous competitions on the osgcc website. ]]>
source: CRA Taulbee Survey
source: 2010 Census
Updated: Changed graphs for consistent coloring and data to make it easier to compare. Added a bar chart to make the differences clearer. ]]>
- Frances E Allen [1]
The lack of women in computing is generally an issue that universities have taken a great interest in. Many of them have outreach programs for high school aged women and other minorities in the computing field. However, every single one of us in the community can take ownership of this issue and do something to improve it. Making computer science pink won't increase the number of women, instead, we need to build up support and encouragement for all students.
1. Encourage others to embrace any interest in computing they may have
It's important that we encourage others with any sort of interest in the field to embrace it and learn. It's also important to keep in mind that we shouldn't isolate this encouragement to just young students, but older students as well who are looking for new ways of thinking. Speak to the pervasiveness of this technology. Share your love of your field with someone else. Dismantle the image of the programmer coding alone in the dark [2].
2. Contribute to projects that help learners
Learning to program can be a daunting task and the first exposure can greatly effect how anyone feels about the computing field on the whole [3]. However, programmers have been working on projects in order to make it a little bit easier for everyone. These projects require all the help they can get if they are to successfully educate. Not just from fellow programmers to help write the code and fix bugs, but from writers and artists who can help make the information easy to read and clearly designed. Hackety Hack is an amazing project used by young and old learners alike, but it needs the assistance of the community in order succeed.
3. Mentor
Mentors need to step up and help the new generation of learners on their way. Assist a student with a project, or peer program a project with a student. "Becoming a Computer Scientist" laments the lack of female mentors for incoming students [4], but there is no reason why anyone in the community cannot mentor another student. The community needs more role models for learners and less "rockstar" developers. Coding should not be a lonesome experience. It's easier to learn and keep learning when you have a support system behind you driving you forward.
4. Create a culture that makes people want to stay
One people are actually involved in the field we need to take steps in order to keep them there. The programming culture should remain open to all people. We should embrace new people and not shun someone because they haven't been programming since age 5. We should spend less time infighting and more time supporting each-others' goals. We need to focus in on equality and move past previous mistakes.
The community must take ownership of the problem if we wish to resolve it. We must encourage people to enter the computing field and be there to support them once that interest develops. Fellow programmers need to step up and be there to help students push themselves. Discussing the issue will not solve the issue. We must take action in order to resolve the problem.
Updated: 8.24.2011 17:39
Sources
1. Coders at Work by Peter Seibel
2. Who's the Scientist?
3. The Litter Coder's Predicament by whytheluckystiff
4. Amy Pearl, Martha E. Pollack, Eve Riskin, Becky Thomas, Elizabeth Wolf, and Alice Wu. 2002. Becoming a computer scientist. SIGCSE Bull. 34, 2 (June 2002), 135-143. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/543812.543847
5. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
6. Vanessa Hurst: Why Software Developers Rock ]]>
The lack of women in the computing fields is something that is surprisingly controversial. I've dug through countless websites and threads following the discussion of this issue and found many arguments, shockingly, against treating this as a problem that needs to be solved. Instead, many of the arguments would rather dismiss any problem rather than attempt to fix the status quo. The very notion is a fairly dangerous one when it comes to under-representation in any field. I realize that the anonymous nature of the Internet and the existence of trolls causes some parties to say things that they don't really believe or wouldn't say otherwise, but I do notice arguments that seem common and widespread enough to silence. I refer to the majority of these arguments as non-arguments since they neither exist in reality nor are founded on any actual data.
1. "There is no lack of women in the computing fields" 
It's a simple matter of examining the hard data to understand just how much of a non-argument these statements are. The actual percentage of women in the computing fields in 2009 was 25%, while the total percent of the professional workforce was 58% [1]. These numbers are not improving nearly as quickly in computer science as all of the other STEM fields and actually has been declining since 1985[2]. In 2010 only 13.8% of the bachelor degrees in computer science were awarded to women, which is surprisingly an increase from the previous year[3].
2. "If more women wanted to be in the computing fields they would be"
This is based on the belief that men and women each have their own distinct places in society. However, numerous studies have been done to show that these apparent differences are the result of social constructs rather than that of brain function differences. Primarily, one of the major concerns in computer science is the supposed lack of female mathematical abilities. Data suggests that male and female mathematical performance is equivalent [4]. Dr. Justin Baley has a great paper on the perceived differences between men and women and how these are social constructs more than they are biological ones [5]. "Despite decades of searching for differences, the evidence does not support large or even moderate gender differences, much less a 'different worlds' analogy" (Bailey, 4). The most convincing data point in support of women actually wanting to become computer scientists happens to be the fact that simply by revamping the CS program at Harvey Mudd College the female enrollment in CS is now 42% well over the 14% seen elsewhere [18].
3. "Lack of women in computing is not a problem"
"Becoming a Computer Scientist" (Amy Pearl et al.) does a fairly good job of addressing the real problem with the lack of women in computer science. From the perspective of the raw numbers the number of white men entering high education has been decreasing (the primary demographic for computer scientists) while the demand for computer scientists has been increasing [6]. The lack of women in computer science indicates that there is something at work preventing women from entering it [7]. Limiting the field to just men is rather detrimental; there is even data that shows that women on teams help improve performance [8]. If you restate the argument as "lack of women in computing is not a problem it's a symptom of bigger societal problems" we end up with a statement that we can use to help improve the situation rather than just ignore it.
4. "Patriarchy doesn't exist"
This argument comes about in many different forms, but it comes down to the idea that the existence of patriarchy in our society is completely false. "Patriarchy refers to any social system in which men are the dominate force. [...] Wherever women's choices are limited by the decision-making power of men, patriarchy exists." [9]. However, women only make up 17% of the senate and only about 22% of the house [10]. In the business world there are only 12 women running fortune 500 companies [11]. Additionally, The wage gap in the U.S. is still very real. "Women in the United States still earn only 78 cents on the dollar compared to men" [12]. Patriarchy is still alive and well in the U.S.
5. "There is nothing stopping women from being in computing fields"
There was a study that infers that the geek stereotype is what is driving women out of computer science [13]. I think that the geek culture itself that is pushing them out. Women are seen as "quota-fillers" rather than peers [14]. The cultural belief that women programmers are naturally worse than men discourages women from becoming a part of the programming community [15]. Additionally, a field already deficient of women should not participate in the defense of sexist remarks or actions [16]. The geek feminism wiki lists 96 other high profile incidents of sexism in the tech community [17]. Other STEM fields have trended positively to become a 50/50 split [2]. The fact that Computer Science has not shows that there are factors that discourage women from being introduced or contributing to the field.
There is no question anymore as to the existence of this problem. We as a community need to acknowledge it and move forward. The problem is not a simple one to solve and it is only together that we can begin to make progress. We cannot as a community continue the mistakes of the past if we are to hope for change. It is a time for mentors to step up and educate the next generation. Now is the time for us to unite and come up with solutions.
Photo Credit: Dr Case
Sources
1. NCWIT: By the Numbers
2. American Institute of Physics: Women in Selected Fields
3. CRA Taulbee Survey
4. Science Daily: No Gender Differences In Math Performance
5. Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth: Rethinking the Utility of the "Mars/Venus" Analogy By Justin P. Bailey, Ph.D.
6. Wanted Analytics: Computer Programmers Are in Demand - Employers Post 220,000 New Jobs over Past 30 Days
7. Amy Pearl, Martha E. Pollack, Eve Riskin, Becky Thomas, Elizabeth Wolf, and Alice Wu. 2002. Becoming a computer scientist. SIGCSE Bull. 34, 2 (June 2002), 135-143. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/543812.543847
8. Harvard Business Review: Defend Your Research: What Makes a Team Smarter? More Women
9. Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography: K-Z By Victoria Boynton, Jo Malin
10. Congressional Research Service: Women in the United States Congress: 1917-2011 By Jennifer E. Manning and Colleen J. Shogan
11. CNN Money: Fortune 500: Women CEOs
12. Center for American Progress: Wage Gap by the Numbers
13. MSNBC.com: Geeks drive girls out of computer science
14. Microaggressions: Guy at Linux Event
15. A Foo walks into a Bar...: Are women worse programmers than men?
16. OSnews: Richard Stallman's Possibly Sexist Remarks at GCDS
17. Geek Feminism Wiki: Incidents
18. The Number of Female Computer Science Majors Has Tripled at Harvey Mudd College - Thanks to This Woman
19. Male Programmer Priviledge Checklist
20. Gender News: Researcher reveals how "Computer Geeks" replaced "Computer Girls"
21. Reddit: The Importance of a Code Literate Culture Comments
22. Reddit: Where did all the female programmers go? Comments
23. Hacker News: The Computer girls (1967 issue of Cosmopolitan) Comments
24. Reddit: Too Few Women In Tech? Stop Blaming The Men. Comments
25. Seldo.com: Arrington is completely wrong about women in technology
26. Reddit: Arrington is completely wrong about women in technology Comments
27. A Campus Champion for Women in Computer Science
Updated 10.18.2011 ]]>
I decided to work on a simple visualization of the timeline of women's contributions to the world of computing. It's largely based on this wikipedia article, but it hopes to allow people to explore these women in a more interactive manner. Additionally, I noticed a complete lack of historical knowledge of computing among my students. Many of them could not even tell me who Alan Turing was which is rather shocking since he happens to be one of the more famous historical computer scientists.
This project is available on github and you can view and interact with it here. If there are any important ladies I've missed out on feel free to submit a ticket or pull request. ]]>
1. the ability to read and write
2. the ability to use language proficiently
- World English Dictionary
When I speak of code literacy I am simply talking of the expansion of the idea of what we normally think of a literacy just expanded over to programming languages. Additionally, it's not simply a matter of using the language proficiently; it's a matter of being able to use computation as a result of this knowledge.It's important to keep in mind that this idea is completely separate from Donald Knuth's idea of "Literate Programming".
code literacy is:
the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and use rules that shape and reshape information in order to participate fully in the creation of new information.
- Ryan Betts (UX Mag)
]]>the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and use rules that shape and reshape information in order to participate fully in the creation of new information.
- Ryan Betts (UX Mag)
source: American Institute of Physics
"The fraction of women among bachelor's graduates increased this year in all three areas (CS, CE and I), though only 13.8 percent of bachelor's graduates in CS, 10.4 percent in CE, and 14.5 percent in I, were women."
source: CRA Taulbee Survey (2009-2010)
source: the evolving ultrasaurus
source: Grokcode
An updated version of the above chart using the most recent version of the wikipedia page used in the original. ]]>
Alice is based heavily on the storytelling metaphor. The idea is to take characters or objects and place them in a 3D world and manipulate their status in the world. Alice itself is written in Java which allows it to easily be run on many different platforms. Alice, however, has the issue of being rather slow to start up and being fairly slow to run. The slowness is even more of an issue in schools or for individual users who do not have the means to provide themselves with new hardware. The fundamental benefit is that it allows a student to learn logic in an environment that it is easy to observe what is happening; however, it seems to miss out on the idea of types and the normal flow of program structure. The sentences created in the tool can have such a complexity that there really is no real easy comparison in any widely used language.
Scratch operates more simply in a 2D world where each of the objects is an image that can be manipulated. I personally have experience teaching programming to young students using Scratch and it made it clear to me where it fails and succeeds. In Scratch the operations on the objects are the same for all of the objects in the program rather than object specific as it is in Alice. It has a "pen" tool which basically allows for Logo-like programs, however, they all are still operating on images that are moved around the screen. The language itself is rather simplistic, and as a consequence the "sentences" built from it are all very limited. There's a clear limit for what you are able to create using Scratch. The most valuable aspect of Scratch seems to be the ability to upload, download, and modify projects that other students have made on the website.
Truth will sooner come out of error than from confusion.
-Francis Bacon
Both languages are masking an inherent complexity of the programs being generated. Scratch is actually operating with threads to each of the objects that are being manipulated. This allows a student to run into the issue of a race condition before they have the knowledge to be able to understand what is actually happening. The lack of the ability to make mistakes reduces the ability to acquire knowledge. Neither tool seems to leverage existing communities or tools. Getting help with a Python or Ruby program is relatively easier than with a Scratch or Alice one. It seems both attempt to mask away any sort of complexity and can fail under certain conditions. Both seem to focus heavily on the visual learner and leave other learners without a solid footing.-Francis Bacon
There is no reason why new languages need to be created in order to teach programming. Scripting languages seem rather well equipped to do the job to teach programming. With the interactive shells provided with most scripting languages a student can quickly learn the results of a particular piece of code. You can jump into "Hello World" with one line of code and they have plenty of toolkits in order to allow learners to create meaningful programs. Syntax is fundamental to programming and ignoring it is rather problematic. Integration of version control into a user friendly environment can easily allow code to be shared within a community. Any tool can and should attempt to utilize as much existing code and communities as possible. Using an existing language allows the tool to grow to the level of the student while keeping them within a familiar environment. ]]>
There have been a lot of attempts in order to increase code literacy by fellow programmers. However, I think we need to first step back and examine why code literacy is important prior to attempting to create methods to educate.
All thought is a kind of computation.
- D. Hobbes
At the core learning to program is heavily about solving problems. Problem solving is something that is rather difficult to teach and programming provides a nice outlet for this. The necessary logic understanding for programming provides a way to express problems in an easier more approachable manner. Learning what an algorithm is and even writing an algorithm can demonstrate to a student the creative process for solving problems. Debugging a piece of code teaches the multiple ways in order to examine a problem in order to discover the root cause.- D. Hobbes
Programming provides an additional creative outlet for many people. Writing code is literally writing. You are creating sentences and the general flow of writing a program should be rather similar to that of writing anything else. From outlining the general flow prior to the writing process to the actual process of sitting down and fleshing out the entire piece where there is a point of entry, the central guts, and the end. Creating a program is simply an art with a different medium.
A programming language is like a natural, human language in that it favors certain metaphors, images, and ways of thinking.
- S. Papert (in "Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas", 1980
Learning an understanding of the technology that is ubiquitous in this modern world is increasingly important. Those with the knowledge of technology are better at using the technological tools than those without. An underlying knowledge of how the code is written that drives the world demystifies much of our technologies and makes it clearer what abilities and limitations such technologies have. - S. Papert (in "Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas", 1980
As it stands at the moment the code literate of our society are mostly white men, which means the majority of code written today is not representative of our society as a whole. People tend write code to solve problems that are important to themselves. It is essential that the code literate in our society not only grow in size but become more diverse. ]]>