Slashdot Mirror
Happy Ada Lovelace Day (findingada.com)
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a time to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM fields. Several publications have put together lists of notable women to commemorate the day, such as tech pioneers, robotics experts, and historical engineers and scientists. Other are taking the opportunity to keep pushing against the elements of tech culture that remain sexist. From the BBC:
On Ada Lovelace Day, four female engineers from around the world share their experiences of working in male-dominated professions. When Isis Anchalee's employer OneLogin asked her to take part in its recruitment campaign, she didn't rush to consult the selfie-loving Kardashian sisters for styling tips. "I was wearing very minimal make-up. I didn't brush my hair that day," she said. But the resulting image of Ms Anchalee created a social media storm when it appeared on Bart, the San Francisco metro. Lots of people questioned whether she really was an engineer. "It was not just limited to women — it resonates with every single person who doesn't fit with what the stereotype should look like," she said.
"My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me," said Sovita Dahal of her decision to pursue a career in technology. "I was going against traditional things. In my schooldays I was fascinated by electronic equipment like motors, transformers and LED lights. Later on this enthusiasm became my passion and ultimately my career," she said.
"My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me," said Sovita Dahal of her decision to pursue a career in technology. "I was going against traditional things. In my schooldays I was fascinated by electronic equipment like motors, transformers and LED lights. Later on this enthusiasm became my passion and ultimately my career," she said.
Read these carefully. The woman in Nepal describes her problems as "My parents, my brother, my community, all were against me... Nepalese women are still expected to marry at the age of about 21, go to live with their husbands and raise a family"
The others have "problems" such as "Lots of people questioned whether she really was an engineer" which made the woman feel "helpless", "pictures of topless women in the cabins", and a woman from China who described no problems at all by SJ standards (she says that women and men think differently, which is a no-no).
The article is trying to conflate an actual problem that results in actual discrimination but did not happen in the West, with non-problems, in an attempt to equate them. It's more SJ clickbait.
If we want to treat people as equals, perhaps we shouldn't think of each other as belonging to arbitrary groups.
She did far more for computer science than Ada Lovelace, and she did far more at defying social gender norms than Ada Lovelace.
If anyone should be celebrated for breaking social barriers AND important contributions at the same time, it should be her, not Lovelace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Church's lambda calculus did not run on a real machine at the time. Neither did LISP at the time of its invention. Based on what's known of the analytical engine, Ada Lovelace's programs would have run correctly.
Very much early computer science was not done on actual computers, especially in the 1950s in mainland Europe. I remember going to a talk by Dijkstra shortly before his death where he talked about this a bit. Things were so wiped out after the war that no one could afford a computer. So they did stuff on paper.
But by your measure, you've just dismissed Dijkstra's early years as nothing more than a software architect.
SJW n. One who posts facts.