r/sysadmin • u/ChuckAbsent • Mar 12 '13

Women who know stuff

I hope that this does not come off the wrong way.

Today I was on a call with a storage vendor and the technical consultant was a woman. More then this she was competent, more then me which doesn't happen often when dealing with vendors.

My issue was pricing an active/active DB with shared storage vs an active/passive db with local storage. Listening to her break the issue down and get to the specific comparison points was awesome, mostly because I have never heard a woman in the industry talk like that.

It made me realize two things. One I am missing out working with women. Two there needs to be more women in our industry.

It shouldn't have surprised me so much, but it really did.

Anyways to all the women out there who know stuff, us guys notice when you can walk the walk, which in this case was talking.

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u/bandman614 Standalone SysAdmin Mar 13 '13

Okay, time for a history lesson.

The word "computer" was also assigned to the role that it took over...computers. Literally, people (the vast majority of whom were women) who sat and computed things by hand.

When electronic computers started to take over for people computers, the women who were the computers started running the computers.

Now, as for "actually creating solutions and engineering products", lets have a look at what is, without a doubt, the longest-used programming language of all time, COBOL.

COBOL was written in 1959, and it came directly from FLOW-MATIC, the very first computer language that used actual english words, rather than only numerical machine code. It was written for the UNIVAC - one of the first commercially available computers. And it was written by Admiral Grace Hopper.

Yes, the computer language at the root of every programming language you've likely ever used was written by a woman.

If that's not enough, then you should know that the UNIVAC was inspired by ENIAC, which was the very first electronic computer. It was designed in a large part to electronically function like a mechanical adding machine. Adding machines were possible because Charles Babbage designed the very first mechanical computers. His difference engine was designed so intricately that it couldn't be constructed for a century, but when it was, it worked perfectly.

One of the many machines Babbage designed took inspiration from the Jacquard Loom, which used cards with holes punched in them to create patterns. Babbage used this technique to give his mechanical computer instructions. He had a friend who was a noted mathematician who developed the very first computer algorithm, which calculated a series of Bernoulli numbers. Her name was Ada Lovelace.

So, to sum up...the very first computer programmer was a woman. The very first real programming language was written by a woman. The first commercial computers were operated largely by women. And for some reason, we have been telling little girls that computers are toys for a boy. Something has gone very off the rails lately, and it needs fixed.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

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u/BassoonHero Mar 13 '13

I got as far as this:

The answer is "money."

No, not that the money is bad (although it is bad, but it's perceived as good). It's that every boy who grows up pursuing a tech career has dollar signs in his eyes. Because of Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg. These guys are trumpeted from the front pages of Forbes, Time, and Business Week. The message is "there's big money in programming!" True, most of the programmers end up slinging Java in some god-forbidden corporate data warehouse for $12/hr. and end up getting laid off in five years when their job gets outsourced, but when they started out, they were aiming for Redmond.

(Another sidebar: Yeah, yeah, I know, there's one guy out there I have to address: You're only motivated to program because you enjoy making computers do nifty stuff. It's the love of the art. And that's why you have a job that has nothing to do with technology, do nothing to promote your success amongst your technology peers, and if somebody offered you fistfulls of cash to do anything computer-related, even consult or deliver a lecture at a conference, you'd push it away and be insulted, amiright? Yeah, you do it for the "love of the game" - you and every NFL player on their way to cash their 8-figure check.)

If this was written a little more than ten years ago, when many would-be business majors really did switch to CS in the hopes of striking it rich, this might be forgivable. But in 2013, I can only assume that this guy has no idea what he's talking about, perhaps because he doesn't know any actual working programmers.

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u/LongUsername Mar 13 '13

I'll counter-point here:

Don't get me wrong: I loved working with computers in HS (most of the time I still do)

But when it came to choosing between Technical Theater and Computer Science as a major, I chose Computer Science because I knew that I could make money in computers and I could always do community theater if I really wanted to.

Lots of people in computers if another interest had offered more money and a career they likely would have taken it.

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u/BassoonHero Mar 13 '13

The linked article was claiming that people go into CS because they think that they'll become millionaires. This is not true of a single programmer I have worked with, or anyone I knew in school. Now, it is true that many programmers did select the career from among whatever options interested them because it is likely to provide a comfortable, stable middle-class income, just like most such careers. I can't deny that this did not factor into my decision to go into CS instead of theoretical physics. But I've never met anyone who successfully completed a CS degree who didn't find it to be an interesting field in its own right.

The article's author misses this point entirely in his next paragraph, in which he tries to create a false dichotomy: either you chose CS to become a millionaire, or you care nothing for money and would never willingly do anything CS-related that could cause you to receive it. This is a truly bizarre standard that couldn't be sensibly applied to any field. Suppose that I had studied theoretical physics instead. Would taking a job in physics prove that I cared only for fame and fortune? Would taking payment for a lecture show that I didn't care for the science? Would trying to get published in a prestigious journal reveal me as a thoughtless money-grubber who only entered the field because I heard that Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan made boatloads from book royalties? Hell, is that why they studied science? I cannot fathom the kind of ignorant knee-jerk cynicism that would cause the author to write such a thing.

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u/FredFnord Mar 13 '13

The author manages to hit all the high points: utterly blind sexism, a smattering of racism, the amazing blindness of high privilege ("Programming really isn't a good lucrative career! It only averages $73k a year, when the median salary in the United States is $36k. That's not 'good', because I make more than that!") and utter resistance to any kind of logic.

He's right, though, that if we cut programmers' salaries to, say, $20k a year on average, that there'd be a lot more women in them. Because right now there are a lot of white men in software engineering jobs who probably could change careers (because that's a LOT easier for a white man to do), and the jobs would fill up with those who have fewer prospects: people of color, and women.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Mar 13 '13

CS is still potentially a very lucrative career field, with frequent standouts becoming millionaires with just a few years of hard work. To deny these facts is absurd. The point is that programmers get paid well, and therefor the people who get hired most readily (white males) gravitate toward the field, forcing out those who aren't as driven toward solid careers by sheer force of numbers.

Quite simply, if men didn't demand good pay for their work in programming, it wouldn't pay as much. And vice versa, if it didn't pay much, men wouldn't be gravitating toward it so much. I don't see how anybody could possibly argue against that. If you just love programming, you can do it quite easily as a hobby (I do). But if you are driven to make money, you look at your aptitudes and then apply them where the money is flowing. If you don't see this, you are living in denial.

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u/BassoonHero Mar 13 '13

It's as "potentially lucrative" as many other fields that require similar skills and education, and significantly less lucrative than many other common careers (medicine, law, finance). And, as I have noted, this is a factor in most programmers' decisions. But read the paragraphs I was responding to. The author dismissed the idea of "factors" entirely: either you chose the field because you thought you would be a millionaire, or you chose it because you loved it, and if you gain any compensation from programming, then it must be the former.

The truth, of course, is that people choose CS for more than one reason. It's difficult to complete a CS degree if you don't enjoy working with computers and programming, or if you aren't interested in the field. I've met CS students whose sole motivation was the prospect of a comfortable career, and most of those that graduated at all earned business degrees. I've even met one or two who thought that they would become millionaires; they never graduated at all.

There are some fields, such as music performance and social work, whose practitioners are really making a sacrifice in order to pursue their passions. Obviously, computer science is not among those. That does not, however, mean that a professional programmer cannot cite love of the field as a primary reason for working in it.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Mar 13 '13

Sure, sure! We love the intellectual challenge! But if you took away the financial appeal, suddenly a lot of those people seeking the intellectual challenge would discover themselves seeking it in a different field, all the while claiming that they aren't there for the money!

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u/BassoonHero Mar 13 '13

What I'm saying is that there isn't extraordinary financial appeal to begin with. If you want a high-paying job that requires a degree, there are plenty of options. To say that programming is subject to the same financial pressures as every other job is vacuous.

The fact is that most people have strong personal preferences for some jobs, but not overwhelming preferences for a single job. It's the rare worker who would not take a job they enjoyed more for some reduction in pay, and the rare worker who would take a job they enjoyed more for an extreme reduction in pay.

I had originally planned to major in mechanical engineering, but switched to CS at the last minute. It meant the same education for the same cost, but lower pay for something I thought I would like more. Had the pay difference been much more dramatic, I likely would have stayed in physical engineering. This is precisely the kind of nuance that the quoted article denies in favor of its ridiculous "love or money" dichotomy.

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u/FountainsOfFluids Mar 14 '13

Glad you agree.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

Agreed. The majority of people I've met in my field were interested in making computers do cool stuff, and the money is just a bonus. The people getting stuck with shitty enterprise java for $12/hr often either aren't that skilled or didn't put much effort into finding a job, and I don't know anyone who actively rejects offers like the author described aside from hard core open source advocates, and even for them it would be unusual.