wapd (10/22/82)
The following is a quote from the "Careers" section of the New York Times, 10/17/82. It is from a Dr. Galanter of the Children's Computer School. "Computers can be programmed to provide different formats arriving at the same solution to problems. Many formats chosen by programmers - mostly men - have been chosen to conform to men's talents and skills. There is no reason why computers can't be programmed with women's skills. Women would then excel." Is the thrust of this that today's programming languages are male-oriented and that females would prefer some other languages ? Or is a "format" the overall structure of a program, and men and women tend to solve the same problem in different ways ? Has anyone noticed anything to support either of these interpretations ? That is, do women in general prefer Pascal to C (pick any two languages with roughly the same capabilities for roughly the same applications) ? Do women in general write programs more modularly, or more concurrently, or more something-or-other than men ? Is the whole quote way off base ? Bill Dietrich houxj!wapd
heliotis (11/01/82)
(sorry, I just read this) What bothers me is the phrase "... Women would *then* excell.", as if they are having problems doing so currently. Jim Heliotis