(dropping the "Hi guys!" I think... :-)

jennyw <jennyw at dangerousideas.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 10:39:56AM +0100, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:
> > But sadly there are VERY few women on this list (and thus I guess in the
> > Squeak community). I find that somewhat strange.
> 
> Strange. One of the things I thought was interesting about Squeak was that 
> two of the core developers are women.  When I was programming in Smalltalk 
> (about 10 years ago) I remember seeing women's names, like Adele Goldberg 
> and Rebecca Wirfs-Brock(sp?).  I have always been under the impression 
> there are more women involved in Smalltalk than many other languages.
> 
> Jen

Yes, I agree. Smalltalk seems to appeal to women more than other
languages - perhaps because it can be very "problem focused" and keep
the technical details hidden. My first employer was a 25 people
"subcompany" within a large consulting firm here in Sweden. They are
specialized in OO and among the Smalltalkers there where quite a few
women. But every other place I have worked at since then have had very
few women doing programming.

I have always gotten the impression that there are more women
programming in the US compared to Sweden. At the Royal Institute of
Technology where I studied CS there where about 8 women out of about 120
students in our class. And unfortunately most of them quit within 2
years... And they really try to attract girls - the CS students go out
into schools and do presentations, they have "only girls" days where
girls can visit and get a feeling for how it is to study there etc.,
seemingly to no avail. I mean, even "machine technology" attracts more
girls...

The situation might unfortunately be special in Sweden, but I don't know
why. There is even a consulting firm with only women -
http://www.berit.se/ - I have a friend who work there and I was actually
there and did a "Powerpointish" presentation on OO with a BookMorph.

Oh well, I hope Squeak can make a difference!

regards, Göran