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From: tomr@drilex.UUCP (Tom Revay)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: programming and gender
Message-ID: <2137@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 29-Jun-87 19:45:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.2137
Posted: Mon Jun 29 19:45:16 1987
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You bring up some interesting points.  First of all, some qualifications:  I
have been very close to a woman engineer for about seven years now, and I'm
a CS major myself.  I've noticed some fundimental differences between us on
programming, and I tend to attribute them more to our educational and
professional backgrounds, rather than our genders.  You observe, correctly
in my mind, that engineers have different approaches than programmers.  In
the case of my friend, I was surprised at her use of what I considered 
"inelegant" code, when she was learning Pascal a few years ago.  I felt that
her formatting was poor, her grasp of programming and data structures was
sketchy, and her understanding of Booleans ... well, one way NOT to use
them is to say IF sentinel = TRUE THEN dosomething; ... you get the idea.

But where was she coming from?  Fortran 77!  Now, I must admit a prejudice
here, after having a terrific Compiler teacher from Wang Labs (a PL/M
junkie), who referred to Fortran as "one of the dead tongues ...."  So
her inability to write Pascal might be attributable to her exposure to
some of the ancient customs of a forgotten time ....

Anyway ... the differences you observe seem more likely to have arisen from
education and profession, rather than gender.  And as for psychology (and
this oughta throw some gasoline on the flames ...) -- psychology provides
some explanations for some people.  It helps some folks get a handle on
the world.  And some people feel more in control of their lives after they
read their morning horoscope.  And some people go to palm readers.  And
some do tarot ....
......................Tom Revay