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Re: How to get one interested in programming!

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* Patricia Shanahan, on 30.06.2011 15:58:
> On 6/30/2011 1:39 AM, Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet wrote:
> ...
>> There are mental differences between males and females. To wit, very few
>> programmers (or mathematicians, or physicists, or ...) are females.
>> Whatever the cause -- my personal theory has to do with how the brain
>> forms models of things, for females more purely associative models that
>> cannot easily be "run" or "evolved" -- it means that you *probably* have
>> an uphill battle.
>>
>> I think the key must be to adapt your approach to the individual at
>> hand. Use examples that at least in some aspects touch on things that
>> she's interested in. Familiarity may be crucial (you state that she's
>> scared by "think language books"), so perhaps start with web pages and
>> such, and a bit of JavaScript.
>>
>> Perhaps then Python and turtle graphics.
>>
>> Be patient, and be flexible. Remember the statistics about female
>> programmers. Depending on the individual, what you're trying *may* be an
>> unnatural act.
> ...
>
> Programming is an unnatural act for everyone. Cave men didn't do any
> more programming than cave women. It is always a learned skill, not an
> instinct, or even something like natural languages for which we have a
> built-in learning skill.
>
> When I got my first programming job, in 1970, many programmers were
> women. Indeed, some of the best programmers I've ever met, including
> Grace Hopper, were female. I would not have wanted to be the person to
> try to tell her that her brain structure might be inherently unsuited
> for programming.

Grace would probably never confuse the individual with the statistics. So I 
think she'd have no problem with the stats, being an admiral. It's part of what 
characterizes highly successful people, that they have no problem accepting 
reality, and don't cling to stats when they're presented with an individual.

It is the same phenomenon as in racism and as in what you might call the 
sillyness of "inverse racism", by which I mean the inability to accept stats 
because they could be argued by the feeble-minded to support racism etc.

For example, the stats tell you that almost all rapists are men. Still, 
presented with an individual man you can very soon dispense with the /a priori/ 
stats-based probability of having a rapist at hand. You can then use more 
refined probabilities based on interaction with the individual.

This is not a frivoluous example, by the way.

In Norway, the "inverse racism" I alluded to has for the last five years 
suppressed mention that 100% (with /no/ exception, not a single one) of all 
attack rapes in Oslo have been done by non-Western people. In particular, of 
Northern African origin, with a very high HIV infection rate. When the police 
this year did release the stats, the politics that followed (given that it would 
be irresponsible to not advice females to use sound judgment) were almost 
comical, with about 20 male members of parliament joining in a statement that a 
rape is not the fault of the victim  --  as if anyone had argued that.


> The programming-as-a-boy-thing nonsense only appeared after it became
> apparent that programming was important and a good career choice. Women
> were considered fine at it when it was a small, esoteric, and not
> particularly well paid field.

I have very good reasons to think it's not a value-set that is imposed on 
females, but rather a result of females freely choosing other professions.

E.g. at the Norwegian Technical University in Trondheim (NTNU), there have been 
at least two programs aimed at attracting females to programming.

The percentage of females in the profession is nevertheless abysmally low. I 
don't know how low. But e.g. in the Facebook group "C++ Enthusiasts" there are 
some 50 or 60 males and one female. In the Oslo C++ User Group there are 
likewise just a handful of females, I think three or four, out of 93 members.


> Early exposure to programming is no more necessary than being male. I
> didn't write my first program until I was almost 18, and only did enough
> programming to decide I liked it before getting my first programming
> job. I worked in the computer industry, as a programmer and computer
> architect, for over 30 years. I have both a master's degree and a
> doctorate in computer science, and was an inventor on half a dozen
> computer design patents.
>
> I agree with rossum's practical advice, for anyone, male or female,
> wanting to pick up programming. Work from existing interests.

Ah, then you agree with me,

   "I think the key must be to adapt your approach to the individual at hand.
    Use examples that at least in some aspects touch on things that she's
    interested in."

But I find it interesting that you mention rossum instead of me as the person 
that you believe that you agree with.

Which implies that somehow, in your mind, I've not argued what you agree with, 
but instead, as you percieve it, I've argued something different.

I think this mis-identification of my position states very loudly that you were 
not reading objectively.


   ---


And probably, that means that my writing now is utterly futile, for chances are 
that you'll be reading it in the same way, not registering what's really said.

Oh well.


> Separate
> learning to represent tasks in terms of smaller tasks from learning the
> syntax of a language.
>
> Above all, tell her that she can do it, not that she can't. The
> teacher's belief that the student can learn is important for learning
> anything.

Almost agree. I wouldn't tell her that should could do it. I would just assume 
it, and let that show.

That's not hypothetical, by the way.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf

-- 
blog at <url: http://alfps.wordpress.com>

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Thread

How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-06-29 22:49 -0700
  Re: How to get one interested in programming! "Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet" <alf.p.steinbach+usenet@gmail.com> - 2011-06-30 10:39 +0200
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-06-30 06:58 -0700
      Re: How to get one interested in programming! "Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet" <alf.p.steinbach+usenet@gmail.com> - 2011-06-30 23:17 +0200
      Re: How to get one interested in programming! blmblm@myrealbox.com <blmblm.myrealbox@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 19:28 +0000
      Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 01:09 -0700
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-01 00:45 -0700
  Re: How to get one interested in programming! rossum <rossum48@coldmail.com> - 2011-06-30 10:18 +0100
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-01 00:49 -0700
      Re: How to get one interested in programming! Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-07-01 05:19 -0700
        Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 01:26 -0700
          Re: How to get one interested in programming! Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-07-03 06:38 -0700
            Re: How to get one interested in programming! Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-07-03 09:03 -0700
              Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 12:29 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! Joe Wright <joewwright@comcast.net> - 2011-07-03 20:04 -0400
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! "James" <no@spam.invalid> - 2011-07-03 17:06 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 22:17 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-07 04:31 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! "James" <no@spam.invalid> - 2011-07-11 22:23 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-12 00:32 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! "Chris M. Thomasson" <cristom@charter.net> - 2011-07-12 00:50 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-13 00:36 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! "Chris M. Thomasson" <cristom@charter.net> - 2011-07-12 00:52 -0700
                Re: How to get one interested in programming! blmblm@myrealbox.com <blmblm.myrealbox@gmail.com> - 2011-07-12 23:39 +0000
      Re: How to get one interested in programming! "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2011-07-02 11:46 +0100
        Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 01:27 -0700
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 00:51 -0700
  Re: How to get one interested in programming! Sherm Pendley <sherm.pendley@gmail.com> - 2011-06-30 09:52 -0400
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 00:50 -0700
  Re: How to get one interested in programming! Jongware <jongware@no-spam.plz> - 2011-06-30 17:05 +0200
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 01:16 -0700
  Re: How to get one interested in programming! JJ <jaejunks@googlemail.com> - 2011-07-01 02:31 +0700
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 01:20 -0700
  Re: How to get one interested in programming! Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-07-03 12:02 +0200
    Re: How to get one interested in programming! vaib <vaibhavpanghal@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 12:07 -0700

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