Fran Allen Wins Turing Award

shoemortgage writes "The Association for Computing Machinery has named Frances E. Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. Allen,74, is the first woman to receive the Turing Award in the 41 years of its history. She retired from IBM in 2002."

Comments

Re:So, has the black guy won yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow...flamebait indeed...how disgusting that the first handful of comments are immediately debasing the award winner as a token.

Why do you feel Allen's selection is so obviously inappropriate/undeserved on the merits that prima facie she's a 'token'?

I work in academia - computer science - and I'm not oblivious to the fact that there's a fair bit of 'affirmative action' for women and non-asian minorities to try to 'correct' the 'problem' of under-representation. Without diverting the conversation onto that issue, please share why you feel Allen is egregiously undeserving?

Re:Never heard of her before

[Helios1182]

There are very few famous computer scientists, and unless you are an academic or researcher in a given area of CS you don't necessarily know who the important people are. There are people like Dijkstra, Knuth, Rivest, Turing, etc. that almost everyone in CS has heard of, but it is a very limited number. The following is a list of all previous winners, all of whom have done a lot for the field, but I bet even on Slashdot the majority only know of the contributions of a few on the list. 2006 Allen, Frances E 2005 Naur, Peter 2004 Cerf, Vinton G. 2004 Kahn, Robert E. 2003 Kay, Alan 2002 Adleman, Leonard M. 2002 Rivest, Ronald L. 2002 Shamir, Adi 2001 Dahl, Ole-Johan 2001 Nygaard, Kristen 2000 Yao, Andrew Chi-Chih 1999 Brooks, Frederick P. 1998 Gray, James 1997 Engelbart, Douglas 1996 Pnueli, Amir 1995 Blum, Manuel 1994 Feigenbaum, Edward 1994 Reddy, Raj 1993 Hartmanis, Juris 1993 Stearns, Richard E. 1992 Lampson, Butler W. 1991 Milner, Robin 1990 Corbato, Fernando J. 1989 Kahan, William (Velvel) 1988 Sutherland, Ivan 1987 Cocke, John 1986 Hopcroft, John 1986 Tarjan, Robert 1985 Karp, Richard M. 1984 Wirth, Niklaus 1983 Ritchie, Dennis M. 1983 Thompson, Ken 1982 Cook, Stephen A. 1981 Codd, Edgar F. 1980 Hoare, C. Antony R. 1979 Iverson, Kenneth E. 1978 Floyd, Robert W 1977 Backus, John 1976 Rabin, Michael O. 1976 Scott, Dana S. 1975 Newell, Allen 1975 Simon, Herbert A. 1974 Knuth, Donald E. 1973 Bachman, Charles W. 1972 Dijkstra, E. W. 1971 McCarthy, John 1970 Wilkinson, J. H. 1969 Minsky, Marvin 1968 Hamming, Richard 1967 Wilkes, Maurice V 1966 Perlis, A. J.

Re:Rare Women

[Xeger]

Hmm. Can you think of anything about engineering that makes it undemocratic?

I follow your premise that childbirth isn't democratic -- it's a biological reality that only women bear children, and all women are affected by the biological and chemical side-effects of their ability to bear children.

However -- try as I might, I can't think of a single sex-specific talent or skill in the field of engineering. Are you claiming that males are biologically better at math, logic, spatial relationships, that sort of thing? I admit it's a tempting explanation for the lack of women in engineering fields. But I humbly invite you to consider that the ratio of of woman/man engineers is 5% greater today than it was 20 years ago; 10% greater than 40 years ago; and 100 years ago, women basically didn't engage in technical pursuits (except for rare, anomalous cases) and most technical schools didn't admit women.
(source for recent data)

So: if "engineering ability" is sex-linked, what is the explanation for the recent, dramatic rise in technical women? Is there some kind of genetic mutation occurring? One possible explanation is that women have some latent "engineering ability," though not enough to compete with men; in this case, we should expect the ratio of women/man engineers to converge on an equilibrium point somewhere below 50%.

Is there such an equilibrium point? Are women really less technically-oriented than men? As a rational person, I must admit it's a possibility. However, given that the proportion of women engineers has been trending steadily upward for the past 100 years, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to stabilize anytime soon. Personally, I think that in the 100-year timeframe, as old cultures and mores adapt to changing circumstances, we will see it approach 50%.

Re:Not only have I not heard of Fran Allen but...

[Anonymous Coward]

the computing field has been male-dominated since its inception

Ada Lovelace

Re:Rare Women

[NittanyTuring]

But I humbly invite you to consider that the ratio of of woman/man engineers is 5% greater today than it was 20 years ago; 10% greater than 40 years ago; and 100 years ago, women basically didn't engage in technical pursuits (except for rare, anomalous cases) and most technical schools didn't admit women. The term "computer" was first used as job title for people who would do manual calculations; this position was usually held by women. 60 years ago, when electronic computers were invented, programming was a 100% female-dominated field. All the programmers of the ENIAC were women. It was, in fact, seen as unmanly. As soon as programming began to be perceived as challenging and worthwhile, the whole thing turned inside out.

Re:Rare Women

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

But I humbly invite you to consider that the ratio of of woman/man engineers is 5% greater today than it was 20 years ago; 10% greater than 40 years ago; and 100 years ago, women basically didn't engage in technical pursuits (except for rare, anomalous cases) and most technical schools didn't admit women.

Here is an invalid form of argument: We have a sequence of statements, A, B, C, ... ,Y, Z. We also have B=>A, C=>B, D=>C, ..., Z=>Y. We know A, B, C, ..., Y are true. Therefore Z is true.

In order to aid my consideration, could you point out where your argument differs from this?

I also ask you to consider this: suppose that at birth, more men than women have brains suitable for learning the tasks involved in engineering. In the past, humans, who are prone to rampant generalisations, have observed this, and as a result have concluded as a result that all women are incapable of engineering. As a result, women were systematically excluded from careers in engineering. With this hypothesis we'd expect to see (1) a reduced number of women in engineering in the past, (2) an increase in the number of women as the generalisation is corrected, and (3) a ceiling to the proportion of women who work in engineering that falls below 50%.

I know mathematics better than engineering so let me switch to that subject. I've seen no evidence today that women are selected against in the field of mathematics. I've never met a single mathematician who had the slightest desire to keep women out of mathematics. Just about every mathematician I have ever met has an interest in increasing the number of female mathematicians. So I certainly don't buy any conspiracy theory about women being kept out of mathematics. (But I do think the evidence is absolutely clear that women were selected against in the past.) As a result, I find it hard to imagine any mechanism for keeping women out of mathematics other than the ability or inclination of women themselves. On the other hand, maybe my imagination is lacking and you can help stimulate it.