Women’s role in the development of Computer Science as a discipline
After reading most of “Broad Band” by Claire. L. Evans, I learned about women’s large role in the history of computers and the internet. First, I learned how women were accidentally placed at the forefront of computer science because computing and programming were originally viewed as secretarial, feminine jobs. Additionally, women were put in these roles because they could be paid less than men for the same work. However, as the importance of computation and then programming were realized, women were pushed out of the field; their accomplishments were largely unmentioned. Learning about the all-women teams of programmers that greatly advanced computer science who were then ignored bothered me. I imagined my mother or sisters going unappreciated in their careers and made me think everyone who uses a computer should have to read Broad Band. Currently, the computer science discpline is male-dominated and most people assume it has always been male-dominated. The role that women like Grace Hopper played in creating computers and the internet, as we know it, is unreplacable. Much of what I knew about the development of Computer Science as a discipline came from a intro to philosophy class I took over intercession; specifically the AI unit our professor taught. In that class we read the Turing Paper and Searle’s response, the Chinese Box Arguement, and these two papers made me think that men had always been at the forefront of computer science. I will say though that Ada Lovelace: collaborater of Charles Babbage, is mentioned with an admonishing tone in the Turing Paper, but only so Turing can refute her. Otherwise, I was left completely ignorant of women’s role in Computer Science.
The development of the internet
The general history of computer science and the internet was also a mystery to me before taking Lit and Lit Study in the Digital Age. I did not realize the affect the countercultural movement had on the development of the internet.Although it makes sense that a cultural movement emphasizing a collectivist lifestyle would create networks of communication to help others in their community. It was interesting to learn about the tech-commune in San Fransisco that created their own network of communication, using computers, between social service groups in the area. While the internet is largely commercialized now, in the beginning it was supported by the government and academia, e.g, “.net”, “.edu”, “.gov”. I was very surprised to learn that the internet as we know it, was first viewed as a flawed, antequated approach to networking. The internet we rely on today uses one way links, that if changed at all become unusable.
Computer Software and how to navigate my computer
I have also learned how computers are organzied and how they store information. I grew up familiar with computer hardware, e.g, cpu, gpu, ram, ssd, etc, but knew nothing about software or coding. This course has taught me how to navigate my computer through the terminal line. I know how to create files manually and edit them using Visual Studio Code. The way that computers store information also was beyond my understanding before taking this course. Computers store information hierarchically, “users/michaelcrowley/journal/my-blog-post”. The name of the file is also its location, which reminds me of how libraries are organized by number: each respective genre to its own number. As someone who grew up enjoying video games: the product of massive coding projects, it is really interesting to advance my own understanding of computers.