It wasn't always this way. Where did we make that left turn into experienced, table-flipping talent leaving the industry and the culture of brogramming scaring new talent away?
Women who have come to technology since the late '80s have never seen anything different — how sad is that. I’m fortunate to have first-hand experience that it has not always been this way.
Check this out:
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This is a picture of a young woman, about 24 years old, working as a programmer at IBM in 1984.
This young woman loves programming and often ate Lorna Doones with coffee for lunch (and sometimes dinner). She also wore a dress or skirt and suit jacket to work every day and served as the technical team lead to an eight-person programming team.
Yes, that’s a microfiche reader on the credenza, and I had to use it…
Oh yeah, that’s me. Over 30 years ago. And I still love programming.
My team was terrific, we solved problems together, and I was responsible for the largest and most complex portion of the code. I was a woman, and they weren't; it was no big deal. They all wore button-down shirts and ties. We had great fun, joked around, and on occasion, I wore the ‘Magic Moose’ on my head (we were working on a system called ‘CDF MAGIC’). We…