Slashdot Mirror
America's Former CTO Remembers Historic Coders (bard.edu)
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In her Bard College commencement speech, ex-Google VP and former U.S. CTO Megan Smith revealed to graduates that she gave President Obama a computing history lesson on the same day he learned to code in 2014. "I walked into the Oval Office to do coding with President Obama, and, interestingly, Prince William had just stepped out," Smith explained (YouTube). "They had just had a meeting. I said to President Obama, you know what you and I are about to do is related to Prince William, and he said, how's that. Well, the Prince's wife Kate, her mother and grandmother were codebreakers at Bletchley Park, where they cracked the Nazi Enigma codes...." [Presumably Smith meant to say Kate's great-aunt, not mother — Carole Middleton wasn't born until 1955.]
To be fair to the President, Smith once confessed to not knowing much about computing history herself, explaining in a 2012 Official Google Blog post that she and other visiting tech luminaries were embarrassingly clueless about who Ada Lovelace was in a 2011 visit to England. "Last year, a group of us were lucky enough to visit the U.K. Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, as part of the Silicon Valley Comes to the U.K. initiative," Smith wrote. "While there, we asked about some of the paintings on the wall. When we got to a large portrait of a regally dressed woman, our host said 'and of course, that's Lady Lovelace'... You can imagine our surprise when we learned she was considered by some to be the world's first computer programmer -- having published the first algorithm intended for use on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine." One imagines Smith might also have been surprised to learn that many programmers older than Smith were already very aware of Lady Ada at that time thanks to the Department of Defense, who tried in vain to make Ada a household name for decades, but had little success popularizing the Ada programming language, which was named after Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace.
To be fair to the President, Smith once confessed to not knowing much about computing history herself, explaining in a 2012 Official Google Blog post that she and other visiting tech luminaries were embarrassingly clueless about who Ada Lovelace was in a 2011 visit to England. "Last year, a group of us were lucky enough to visit the U.K. Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, as part of the Silicon Valley Comes to the U.K. initiative," Smith wrote. "While there, we asked about some of the paintings on the wall. When we got to a large portrait of a regally dressed woman, our host said 'and of course, that's Lady Lovelace'... You can imagine our surprise when we learned she was considered by some to be the world's first computer programmer -- having published the first algorithm intended for use on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine." One imagines Smith might also have been surprised to learn that many programmers older than Smith were already very aware of Lady Ada at that time thanks to the Department of Defense, who tried in vain to make Ada a household name for decades, but had little success popularizing the Ada programming language, which was named after Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace.
More like “quick to blame others” for her lack of knowledge.
Here’s what her blog post actually said: ”So much of world history leaves out or minimizes the contributions of women, and so “of course” most of us had no idea who she was.”
Good grief - I went to college in the 80s, and I knew who Ada Lovelace was. How much you want to bet Smith didn’t know about Bletchley Park in 2011, either?
In any case I’m sure Ms. Smith considers herself an expert in the field now, having likely spent several hours reading Wikipedia after her “embarrassingly clueless” European tour.
#DeleteChrome
I'm curious. Do any of you know if President Trump has learned to code? And if so, in which language would he work?
Since he's considered by many to be the highest-IQ president ever, I assume this would have been an easy task for him.
I know many very high IQ people who don't know the first thing about coding. Many scientists and college professors don't know even the basics, and some of the ones that do think making a spreadsheet equation is coding.
There's lots of easy tasks that people just don't get around to learning, or who don't find an immediate need for. I don't repair my own vehicle, for instance, even though many of the people at my local hackerspace think nothing of replacing brakes or fixing a blown head gasket.
To them, it's straightforward and anyone can do it. "Howcome you never learned to do this?"
It's the same with other skills like home wiring and plumbing. Many people shy away from doing electronics, while engineers at Hackaday can make complex electronics boards but can't program a microcontroller.
(Programming a microcontroller is easy! Howcome you never learned to do it?)
I grew up helping my dad wire homes professionally, so electronics - even high-voltage electronics (that can kill) - doesn't scare me.
That's also a skill everyone should have - right?
(Home wiring is easy! Howcome you never learned to do it?)
Trump has a lot of life accomplishments, so I don't think calling him down for not having learned coding is a particularly fruitful avenue for insults.