From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,2b5dede40c8d97f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-12-12 19:28:40 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!pipex!uunet!gwu.edu!gwu.edu!not-for-mail From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Marketing Ada Date: 12 Dec 1994 22:18:04 -0500 Organization: George Washington University Message-ID: <3cj3pc$efi@felix.seas.gwu.edu> References: <3cflgt$h3q@news1.delphi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.164.9.3 Date: 1994-12-12T22:18:04-05:00 List-Id: In article <3cflgt$h3q@news1.delphi.com>, wrote: >Michael Feldman remarked that many women see C as 'macho'. That raises >the question of what are the demographic or personality similarities and >differences between current Ada and C* users. Seems to me that any >marketing campaign should have that sort of information. I think I'd better explain that remark a bit better. A female colleague gave me a copy of a set of free-firm responses to a question sent to the "systers" mailing list, which is an e-mail discussion group for women in computing. The question, as I recall, was mainly aimed at teachers, and was something like "do you think that C turns off your female students." I think the context was the never-ending discussion in CS education circles about whether C should be taught as a first language. The question, then, was whether C as the _intro language_ would effectively discourage females from entering CS. It was an interesting angle on the problem of righting the balance between men and women in CS; it had never occurred to me that this might be a factor. The results were free-form, untabulated, with the names and affiliations removed. It was clear from the wording that the messages came mostly from teachers and advanced students. To oversimplify the results, the split of opinion was roughly 50-50 on the issue. The responses ranged from "not a problem" to "the C hacker culture is a turnoff to women." The emphasis seemed to be in the C culture, not on the language. I don't want my remarks to be misquoted or taken out of context. I also don't intend any of this as flame bait; I'm just reporting on some stuff I read. This was an informal, e-mail survey, not a market study. That as many as half the respondents agreed with the premise "The C culture turns off many female students" was an interesting, if anecdotal, result. It served to strengthen my conviction that, whatever C is appropriate for, is is not an appropriate first language. But I "knew" that already. So what does this have to do with Ada? I have two close female colleagues who are part of our group teaching a lot of undergrad courses. One has taught Ada at CS2 level a number of times; the other has not. Neither one is an Ada evangelist, but neither is especially opposed. They are both quite outspoken, and if either one believed that the Ada culture was a turnoff to female students, I'd hear about it pretty fast. I have heard no such thing. Indeed, I've taught Ada many times at CS1 and CS2 levels, and find that, if anything, my female students (and my male ones) come to appreciate the robustness and portability of their Ada code, and really like the idea that Ada is in use in critical systems that affect their lives - commercial aviation especially, but also high-speed rail and other day-to-day domains. I have mostly my own and my colleagues' experience to go by, no "market study" or anything like that, but - whatever problems Ada faces in gaining wide acceptance - one we don't have to worry about much is the "turns off females" issue. If anyone in net-land is a systers member, you might ask that group to describe their perceptions of Ada, as a teaching language, and in general. The results would, I think, be very interesting. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ada on the World-Wide Web: http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Illegitimi non carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------