I did vote you down. In part because this has come up before and I frankly don't give a floating point about Abigail's (or anyone else's) gender. Ab's tone may be harsh, in a merlynesque sort of way, but the info is usually soundly based. Indeed, as a programmer, Abigail is worth listening to. (Granted, I don't always agree; but I do listen. To me, that is valuable, too.)

I will grant you that programming and geekdom have each been traditionally considered male sports, however, I have met a number of smart people in the business over the past fifteen years. Many men and many women. What's impressed me the most was not their gender, but what they'd been able to create using the same tools available to me. The way they've solved problems. And so on.

Yes, it's good to be inspired by people's achievements; however, it's very rare that a person's physical attributes are more commendable than their accomplishments. I believe it's dangerous to base inspiration on physical attributes. Certainly, appreciate their achievements...however, use care when basing that hope on anything else. Discrimination comes in many forms and not all of them are obvious.

I am not saying you were or are. I'm identifying, like a good programmer, a risk.

Let me put it this way. There are several monks that I have mental images of, ideas about what they look like, what they think, what they know, and (to some degree) who they are. It's common to wonder about the people behind the phosphors. It's also common, in my experience, to find that reality is far different than our idealism. To finish the point, I may have theories about the people behind the handles, but I am more than happy to be able to fit truthful images to my ideas, instead of fantastic ones.

One should certainly be idealistic and hopeful. However, you must temper that with a recognition and understanding that things may be very different than you hope. Expect that and you should be fine. However, please do not base your hope on any specific, physical, or tangible attribute--especially when dealing with something as difficult to interprete as online messages. Focus on the achievements and you'll be fine.

In other words, I believe your underlying idea is correct...if others can do it, then you can, too. I believe that very strenuously. However, I would rather you focused on actions, and not attributes. Learn the methods and live with the properties, if you will.

And the main reason your puppies aren't able to program is very simple: the Master Feline Domination Plan is working. ;-)

--f

P.S. FTR: Update (a year later): we I have two a cats and one dog.

I downvoted it and posted my parody not because you said anything wrong about there being few "high level" female programmers, nor for any of the related discussion, but because the subject text annoyed me.

A public node about someone else's choice of name, and subsequent discussion about this "discovery" smacks of gossip, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

But no harm intended by my parody post; I was simply trying to make a point with it.

Dogs are earth's most wonderful creatures. We humans were put on earth to serve them. I believe that my dachshunds would be master programmers except that their paws cannot manipulate the keyboards.

As for dogs on the computer, I came up with a doggie keyboard. It would look like a wrist-rest, being a large pad in front of the normal keyboard. Divided into 3 zones, decorated with spots, horizontal stripes, and diagonal stripes, respectivly. This appears distinct to the dog's visual system without "reading".

Now, you teach the dog to hit one of the three areas on cue. Given a sequence of hits, that's really traversing a menu system, isn't it? I have no doubt that some dogs, such as my former Austrialian Shepard, would go beyond simply doing it as a trick and would play with it for her own enjoyment.