<story><title>When Women Stopped Coding</title><url>http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>orionhenry</author><text>Gaming has been a hell of a gateway drug for programming.</text></item><item><author>jiggy2011</author><text>When I studied CS , only a small minority arrived with programming skills, a much larger number came with knowledge of gaming and by extension computer building because it was much easier to afford a PC required for the newest games if you could build it yourself.</text></item><item><author>nathan_long</author><text>This story makes a compelling case that women stopped programming because&lt;p&gt;- 1. Computers started being sold as consumer products
- 2. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys
- 3. Boys played with computers and learned about them, while girls were made to feel that computers weren&amp;#x27;t for them
- 3. Men showed up to college with more computer experience
- 4. Women felt they must not be &amp;quot;naturally good&amp;quot; at computers, based on how men already knew more&lt;p&gt;While I think people sometimes exaggerate how much of gender differences come from society, advertising, etc, the facts of women&amp;#x27;s history in programming are clear, and I think the cause is well-argued here.&lt;p&gt;We need to fix the perception that women aren&amp;#x27;t welcome to program. We&amp;#x27;re missing out on talented developers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>filereaper</author><text>I concur.&lt;p&gt;I got into programming because I couldn&amp;#x27;t complete a level in a game, and I resorted to cheat-codes and hacks.&lt;p&gt;First it was the missing-no hack in Pokemon, then getting the console for &amp;quot;sv_cheats 1&amp;#x2F;god&amp;#x2F;impulse 101&amp;#x2F;noclip&amp;quot; for Half-Life and then rules.ini for the Red Alert series.&lt;p&gt;Hand hacking rules.ini for Red-Alert made a massive impression, any of the game&amp;#x27;s dynamics could be altered, you could spew out units for $1, bolt a tesla-coil on a tank etc...&lt;p&gt;Cheats and trainers got me to look into the workings of a computer program, plus the midi music from trainers is addictive :)</text></comment>
<story><title>When Women Stopped Coding</title><url>http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>orionhenry</author><text>Gaming has been a hell of a gateway drug for programming.</text></item><item><author>jiggy2011</author><text>When I studied CS , only a small minority arrived with programming skills, a much larger number came with knowledge of gaming and by extension computer building because it was much easier to afford a PC required for the newest games if you could build it yourself.</text></item><item><author>nathan_long</author><text>This story makes a compelling case that women stopped programming because&lt;p&gt;- 1. Computers started being sold as consumer products
- 2. They were marketed almost exclusively to boys
- 3. Boys played with computers and learned about them, while girls were made to feel that computers weren&amp;#x27;t for them
- 3. Men showed up to college with more computer experience
- 4. Women felt they must not be &amp;quot;naturally good&amp;quot; at computers, based on how men already knew more&lt;p&gt;While I think people sometimes exaggerate how much of gender differences come from society, advertising, etc, the facts of women&amp;#x27;s history in programming are clear, and I think the cause is well-argued here.&lt;p&gt;We need to fix the perception that women aren&amp;#x27;t welcome to program. We&amp;#x27;re missing out on talented developers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>panic</author><text>UNIX itself started because Ken Thompson wanted to port his game Space Travel to the PDP-7: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/spacetravel.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cm.bell-labs.com&amp;#x2F;who&amp;#x2F;dmr&amp;#x2F;spacetravel.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>