" Out of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life. " by Ellen Ullman (1995)
This series a short stories captures some of Ellen's experiences and observations about working in computing. It touches on both her struggles of being a woman in computing and quite humorous observations about computing. I'd consider it a good "further reading" to the 💬 #share-your-work@2025-02-16.
It's the closest thing to programming poetry that I've ever seen. It puts in words so many things that I thought were impossible to describe... It's very personal but also grounded in reality. Hopeful and sad. Beautiful!
Wow. That's brilliant. Here's Ellen more recently, IRL so to speak: youtube.com/watch?v=PT7LYfKYxKU
I wish I even had the detailed memory to write like that, never mind being able to write like that. I agree with all the sentiments she raises. "Closer to the machine" as almost a cult (of boys able to misbehave).
I'll also link to Dr. Amy Ko whose lab is doing a lot of interesting research (and has perhaps the best-summarized academic web page I've ever seen 👏), is also working¹ on an accessible and polyglot language (wordplay.dev), and has a lot to say about CS culture and inclusivity.
This passage from ¹ stood out to me as echoing Dr. Hermans' talk:
... But not all of that struggle is necessary, or good. And that’s generally where I part with the culture of computer science. So much of computer science as a discipline and a community glamorizes extraneous complexity ...
Interesting read. I have seen similar subcultures in theoretical physics, where the analog of "close to the machine" is "close to the fundamental laws of the universe". There are some very nerdy people in there, but they are neither dominant nor a social norm. Others respect and admire them, but don't seek to become like them.
@Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin I remember an announcement of Wordplay by @Amy Ko in this Slack. Search for "wordplay" on akkartik.name/archives/foc/share-your-work/index.html.
Hi thread! I'm here. And Wordplay is still very much active; I have an unruly community of teachers, youth, and other students who work on it, wresting with questions about programming languages and justice.
Thanks for the update @Amy Ko! I haven't done much with Wordplay because my own focus is on different topics, but I very much support its goals and I am happy to hear that there are communities actively working on them.