Are most programmers male?

[Steve Holden]

"Dilton McGowan II" <diltonm at pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:Up069.5406$cY.183055551 at newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
> > I agree. The lack of wemen in CS is totally unjustified. Most of
computer
> > science is about abstract logical thinking, which women like it. IMHO
the
> > problem is that the people's perception of this field is distorted.
> >
>
> It's important to note that to succeed, one must also be able to take
> abstract thought and produce tangible code, with even more tangible
results
> for the customer. Customers will not pay for abstract thinkers. Investors
> sometimes pay for code and customers always pay for results.
>

People will pay for programming. Generally speaking they don't confront a
problem and say "what we need here is a computer scientist". Sometimes this
is a great pity, as a computer scientist could tell them lots about the
limitations imposed by the structure of their problem, while a programmer
will just try programming :-)

Whatever, I don't like the implication that this somehow explains the gender
bias against women, which (IMO) is simply an extension of cultural gender
biases into computer science and programming. It differs from culture to
culture, but it seems fairly general in my (somewhat) limited experience.

can-i-be-glad-i'm-a-man-ly y'rs  - steve
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Steve Holden                                 http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming                http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/
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