The 15 Most Important Women in Tech History(maximumpc.com)
maximumpc.com
The 15 Most Important Women in Tech History
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/15_most_important_women_tech_history
17 comments
I'm glad Sophie Wilson gets due credit for designing the Acorn and ARM instruction set. That instruction set is incredibly wide spread when you think about where ARM devices are used nowadays. The article does not mention that most of that work was done as "Roger Wilson" before his/her sex change operation.
Roberta Williams designed my childhood. Now I need to go find a way to play Quest for Glory on OSX...
Roberta Williams doesn't get enough credit. Shigeru Miyamoto is often credited with being the first non-programmer video game designer; while his influence should not be diminished, Roberta probably has a better claim to that title.
Why the video game focus?
There are some giant omissions. Barbara Liskov comes to mind.
I would also argue with the definition of "tech". Hedy Lamarr certainly was doing tech when she invented spread spectrum communications. Not to mention that if you wander slightly farther afield, you'll find the first person to win two Nobel awards, Marie Curie.
There are some giant omissions. Barbara Liskov comes to mind.
I would also argue with the definition of "tech". Hedy Lamarr certainly was doing tech when she invented spread spectrum communications. Not to mention that if you wander slightly farther afield, you'll find the first person to win two Nobel awards, Marie Curie.
Betty Jennings Bartik is my great aunt and she's a fount of knowledge. I love hearing stories from her about her days as a "computer." I'm glad to see that someone took the time to research the contributions of these fine women.
alright this is probably the most unscientific statement, but from my personal perspective, Ada Lovelace is a really cool name, just putting it out there
Lists like this invariably end with Ada Lovelace.
Lists like this should begin and end with Ada Lovelace.
The fact that Ada did computer programming before she had a machine to program on should be promoted as an important piece of information for programmers and leaders to consider when they think about security.
Any computer program that can run is basically just an expression in a kind of very fussy and boggy discrete math. It might be a pain in the butt, but eventually someone would be able to figure it out, even if all the only resources they had were the code, a pen, some paper, and a lot of time.
If you want to do something like DRM, then you have to take Ada's feat and its implications into account. The key is that many forms of computer security are best considered as manpower issues involving two opposing and competing forces. The way computer software gets online patches nowadays halfway acknowledges this, but this fact is still poorly misunderstood by many people, resulting in recurring reddit posts like this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/e8xw2/why_does_ad...
In particular, there is a lot of commonsense knowledge that has been applied to opposing pools of manpower which has been around for centuries which security people have seemingly forgotten about, yet which is highly applicable to the current state of software security. If you haven't guesssed, I'm talking about basic military tactics. What increases the effectiveness of your own manpower while diminishing the effectiveness of your opponent's manpower? Can you make large portions of your opponent's manpower irrelevant in certain contexts and exploit those opportunities? There are a lot of dirty tricks of the kind ancient generals played on their enemies which are applicable to the modern conflict of computer security.
Also, thinking about a larger, strategic context is also highly applicable to computer security. If an ancient general decided to conquer a region, he not only thought about how he could outmaneuver his enemies' forces, or how his soldiers could out-fight the enemy, the best of the ancient generals would give some thought to why his enemies would fight to begin with. Can you deny your enemy a pretext to recruit his forces in the first place? Is it possible to further your own aims and never give your enemy a reason to organize and fight? Is it possible to deny your enemy the resources to support their efforts?
It's time for a more sophisticated view of the security ratrace.
EDIT: Companies that implement DRM or security are usually involved in what amounts to asymmetric warfare -- and as they are unaccustomed to thinking about, they are the underdogs. What history teaches us, is that there are ways for the underdog to win.
Any computer program that can run is basically just an expression in a kind of very fussy and boggy discrete math. It might be a pain in the butt, but eventually someone would be able to figure it out, even if all the only resources they had were the code, a pen, some paper, and a lot of time.
If you want to do something like DRM, then you have to take Ada's feat and its implications into account. The key is that many forms of computer security are best considered as manpower issues involving two opposing and competing forces. The way computer software gets online patches nowadays halfway acknowledges this, but this fact is still poorly misunderstood by many people, resulting in recurring reddit posts like this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/e8xw2/why_does_ad...
In particular, there is a lot of commonsense knowledge that has been applied to opposing pools of manpower which has been around for centuries which security people have seemingly forgotten about, yet which is highly applicable to the current state of software security. If you haven't guesssed, I'm talking about basic military tactics. What increases the effectiveness of your own manpower while diminishing the effectiveness of your opponent's manpower? Can you make large portions of your opponent's manpower irrelevant in certain contexts and exploit those opportunities? There are a lot of dirty tricks of the kind ancient generals played on their enemies which are applicable to the modern conflict of computer security.
Also, thinking about a larger, strategic context is also highly applicable to computer security. If an ancient general decided to conquer a region, he not only thought about how he could outmaneuver his enemies' forces, or how his soldiers could out-fight the enemy, the best of the ancient generals would give some thought to why his enemies would fight to begin with. Can you deny your enemy a pretext to recruit his forces in the first place? Is it possible to further your own aims and never give your enemy a reason to organize and fight? Is it possible to deny your enemy the resources to support their efforts?
It's time for a more sophisticated view of the security ratrace.
EDIT: Companies that implement DRM or security are usually involved in what amounts to asymmetric warfare -- and as they are unaccustomed to thinking about, they are the underdogs. What history teaches us, is that there are ways for the underdog to win.
Susan Kare. Enough said.
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Should be a calendar.
To the disapproving downvoter:
And why not?? These people deserve to be celebrated; the print form of a calendar is perfect for display throughout the year, in a classroom, for instance.
I'd hope the list could be expanded to cover more than 15 women. How about Jeri Ellsworth (mentioned just under an hour ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2280297). And Wendy Carlos, with her pioneering work on synthesizers and electronic music.
Calendars aren't ALL about himbos and bimbos...
And why not?? These people deserve to be celebrated; the print form of a calendar is perfect for display throughout the year, in a classroom, for instance.
I'd hope the list could be expanded to cover more than 15 women. How about Jeri Ellsworth (mentioned just under an hour ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2280297). And Wendy Carlos, with her pioneering work on synthesizers and electronic music.
Calendars aren't ALL about himbos and bimbos...
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