Cookbooks and Recipes: Men, Women, and Programming...

Disclaimer: I think that everyone who chooses to be a programmer has to be (at least) a little bit crazy - whether male or female. But I think we are missing out by not having more female programmers - so if you are female and so inclined then I at least would welcome you. Also, I have a strange sense of humor.

So... Now that we've settled that...

I got to listen to Kirrily Robert speak at ApacheCon last week. She gave a keynote about women in open source and technology called 'Standing Out In the Crowd'. And it struck me that there are numerous books on programming that include the words 'cookbook' or 'recipe' in their titles.

Now, I love to cook - so I don't mean to imply that cooking is in any way a 'womanly' pursuit or task. But, there are many that think of it that way.

Anyway - one of the ideas that are presented as justification for the fact that there are few females in programming is that somehow the 'pink brain' is not suited to mathematics.

I will not even bother arguing whether or not this is true (Kirrily cited a study that determined that there was a slight difference). Regardless of any difference that may exist - it does not matter. I have been a programmer for over two decades and with the exception of a very small number of projects - there has been very very little math that was involved.

What is involved (as far as I am concerned) is understanding a problem and then teaching a computer to go through the steps to solve it.

So, how good a programmer you are is determined by:

1. How well you can wrap your head around a problem.
2. How well you can learn a particular language's syntax.
3. How well you can break the solution of the problem into a sequence of steps.
4. How well you can codify those steps in the language's syntax.

Most of the time, not much math.

Some languages may lend themselves to solving particular types of problems better or more 'elegantly'. But I have never heard of a language (human or computer) that is somehow easier to learn based on which gender you are.

Sometimes, boolean algebra can be used to make solutions 'prettier'. But most of the programmers that I have worked with never studied boolean algebra - male or female.

Hopefully, math will stop being used as justification for saying or thinking that 'women can't program'. And instead, the idea that programming is really teaching gains more mindshare.

Not every person who decides to be a programmer is cut out for it. There is a certain amount of insanity necessary to be good at it because you are effectively trying to teach a machine to solve a problem by describing the solution in a language that is not natural for you -or- the computer. And the computer is not going to go out of it's way to bridge that gap. That is all up to you!

There is nothing that I can see that makes males more suited to programming than females. And empathy (seeing a situation from the point of view of the other 'person') is often thought of as being a trait that is stronger in females. So, if there is a natural advantage held by anyone - it might be by women.

So, if you have an interest in foreign languages and in teaching completely empty-headed students who will force to you explain every single step in excruciating detail - then programming might be for you.

There may be a very good reason why there aren't more female programmers.

They are smarter than us.