I really enjoyed @Felienne's narrative about narratives about Computer Science yesterday. She applied some of the ideas presented in the Glaciers, Gender and Science paper (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0309132515623368) to her experiences in the Computer Science / Programming Languages communities. She's also starting a reading club to brainstorm the meaning (and the name?) of the field of "Computer Science".

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In a slack discussion about sexism and gender equity in the sciences, my colleague accidentally typed "scientits" instead of "scientists".

I still think about this daily and I still want a T-shirt with that word.

When I started my pre-Master in Computer Science, I had no experience with programming, command lines, git, Linux, ssh, ...

The pre-Master consisted of Bachelor-level courses from all three Bachelor years. Hence, from day 1, I had to be able to program at the level of a 3rd year Bachelor student, in multiple programming languages.

Unsurprisingly, this was a steep learning curve for me. Being surrounded by people who had been writing code since they were 8 years old contributed massively to my sense of insecurity and anxiety. Being surrounded by mostly men, who in some cases really felt the need to put me in my place whenever I showed any sign of competence, really didn't help me feel better.

This has kinda stayed with me. Even though I sometimes encountered people who were way more clumsy than I was in working with these tools, I still felt massive imposter syndrome.

Just now, a software developer sat next to me as I typed commands into my terminal. Afterwards, he remarked that I clearly know my way around the command line.

I wouldn't say that I'm healed now, but this for sure felt like a win.

Why can't just one single good work thing happen to me without a guy finding it necessary to remind me that my purpose in life is to be fucked by men, and that I'm not even good enough for that?

Like... just why?

Something positive happened and now I feel like shit.

Happy Birthday to American computer programmer Jean Bartik, born in Gentry County, Missouri, #OnThisDay in 1924. Barik was one of the six women who were the original programmers of the ENIAC computer.

Learn all about the ENIAC programmers on Unsung History!

: unsunghistorypodcast.com/ENIAC

John von Neumann’s wife, Klára Dán, asked him to put a picture of an elephant in his book “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior”. He complied, hiding one in plain sight in a set theoretic diagram.

There’s reason to believe Klára’s code was the first modern-style code ever to run on a computer.

You can dive into Klára’s life and work by listening to season 2 of “Lost Women of Science” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e1-the-grasshopper/id1590670779?i=1000555799822