Ada Lovelace Day 2010

[tamaranth]

It's Ada Lovelace Day and despite not really being an IT professional any more, for a long time I was: and I'm somewhat ashamed to have lost my drive, to have stopped pushing, to have let myself be sidelined, to have not kept up. And now I've hope of getting back my joy in programming:

Rewind to the very early 80s, when I was doing O levels. (The old name for GCSEs). I could have one more O-level than I do: instead I opted for CSE Computer Studies, because the notion of computers fascinated me. I industriously coloured in ***punch cards*** with ***2B pencils*** and sent stacks of 'em off to the local college, from where they would be returned six weeks later with a compilation error. I wrote a project on potential computing applications in biology, which got 96%.

By the time I worked out that the high-achieving boys in my class had been entered for the O-level -- and I, with identical or higher grades, hadn't -- it was too late for me to fix that.

Fast-forward to paid employment: programming, sys admin, database design. Despite a slimy recruitment agent who thought I should be working in psychology (he didn't understand the term 'stress testing'); a manager (or three) who didn't believe me when I said I had no intention of quitting to have children; a job where after-hours culture involved strip clubs and excessive drinking; another job where it was felt reasonable for a client to ask me to make coffee for him and my male sidekick colleague.

After a while I realised I was being sidelined into business analysis, documentation, reporting. (Everyone knows that's what women are best at: not that nasty techy stuff about backups and checkpoints and table design and code optimisation.)

After a while I stopped fighting and went with the flow.

GAH.

That was the 90s. Things are getting better. Coding is not something you just do at work; not something you just do on mainframes; not so much of a boys' club. And to turn this post from being me-me-me to being a proper celebration of women in science and technology, I would like to celebrate, and thank, and advertise, and be grateful for the existence of the Archive of Our Own project.

The Archive of Our Own (AO3) is a non-commercial, non-profit, open-source, female-majority project, aiming to provide an archive for fanfiction and other transformative fanworks (more here), run by the Organization for Transformative Works.

My admiration for the project is only peripherally to do with fanfiction. Mostly it stems from the fact that the Archive is being conceived, designed, coded, maintained, administered, and used predominantly by women. It's a genuine community project, and that community includes volunteers from different countries, with vastly differing levels of experience and areas of expertise, all of whom are welcome and useful and part of the greater whole. The project's transformed people with no programming background into active coders; it's created a whole new community; and it's helped at least one jaded ex-programmer back towards something she used to enjoy very much, and is beginning to think she might again.

An excellent post on the OTW's blog about AO3 volunteers
Contact the OTW

Comments

[andrewducker]

I am very glad that there are now projects out there that are majority female. AO3 and DW are both fantastic examples to point to whenever issues of sexism come up.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[(Anonymous)]

Every Finding Ada post I've read has been so interesting, and so different. This was fascinating - what a great site - thank you!

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

I was a Novell network engineer in the 80s (and half the 90s, come to that), and I had a youngish lad who was my bag carrier, crawled under desks, etc. He learned very swiftly how to judge the steam out of my ears level and explain that in fact *I* was the brains, and he was the brawn of the operation.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

As Mr T almost said, I pity the fool who patronises you. Life's too short already without shortening it considerably more.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

I am sweetness and light. Truly. Although I can, and do, employ courtesy as a lethal weapon. It has been known to make grown men weep.