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  • Boris Schapiraborisschapira@framapiaf.org
    Oct 8, 2026, 5:25 AM

    "When I first came up with the term [Software Engineering], no one had heard of it before, at least in our world. It was an ongoing joke for a long time. They liked to kid me about my radical ideas. It was a memorable day when one of the most respected hardware gurus explained to everyone in a meeting that he agreed with me that the process of building software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just like with hardware."

    #RIP #margarethamilton

    Official photo of Hamilton for NASA, 1989
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Replies

  • Boris Schapiraborisschapira@framapiaf.org
    Oct 8, 2026, 5:29 AM

    Also, folks: it's possible to talk about a great woman of science without systematically using a photo of her when she was young.

    Margaret Hamilton spent her whole life in science, coined the term 'software engineering,' and led a company that essentially pioneered software quality assurance.

    She was far more than a cute young woman looking overwhelmed by the height of her own code — which is impressive in itself, but I'm tired of women always being reduced to their twenties.

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  • HeliographHeliograph@mastodon.au
    Oct 8, 2026, 6:39 AM

    @borisschapira I wished she had piled that code up again a few decades later... bit like the Beatles went back to that crossing

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  • SecondUniverse (she/her/they)SecondUniverse@autistics.life
    Oct 8, 2026, 8:49 AM

    @borisschapira I know what you mean, but at the same time, the Moon lander code was her crowning achievement.

    On the other hand, the standard photo of Albert Einstein is the "ancient wild-haired guru" photo, not a photo of him as a younger man when he made his major breakthroughs. So, yeah, I guess I do agree with you.

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  • Ted Lemonabhayakara@mastodon.nl
    Oct 8, 2026, 11:59 AM

    @borisschapira

    In our professional lives we are going to encounter members of the opposite (or appropriate) sex toward whom we will develop, for want of a better word, crushes. The fact that this is never spoken of other than in a sort of prurient nudge nudge wink wink way is seriously problematic.

    One of the great things about that picture is that we get a chance to have that reaction in a context where the brilliance is evident, so that we wind up actually admiring this attractive women not for her looks but for her geek cred. This gives a model other than "desire object" with which to relate to women we happen to find attractive. That cognitive dissonance is a very good thing.

    Plus, actual young women also see this picture, and having a role model they can relate to is good.

    And, she was still quite adorable at 70.

    I can honestly say that I never saw that picture and thought "I wonder if she'd date me." I always thought some variation of "I bet she would be amazing to work with."

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  • Roger Mexicorogermexico@mas.to
    Oct 8, 2026, 12:41 PM

    @borisschapira
    This is interesting to me. Because I spend more time than I should looking for pictures of scientists when they were young, for my classes.

    Textbooks typically have portraits of them as old people usually after an honour of some kind.

    It's important to me that they see that great contributions are made by the young as well and they have a role to play. The greats had profound insights when they were undergraduates.

    For the ageism part we have the amazing Brenda Milner.
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_M

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  • Patrick H. Laukepatrick_h_lauke@mastodon.social
    Oct 8, 2026, 2:36 PM

    @borisschapira if that photo was somehow irrelevant, i'd agree. but this is exactly related to the monumental achievement that most news/articles directly mention when talking about her. they're not just using it to find a "cute young woman" photo of her. c'mon, this skirts the line of "i really WANT to find something to rant about"

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  • Greg Titusgregtitus@social.coop
    Oct 8, 2026, 3:51 PM

    @borisschapira "Looking overwhelmed" is really not what I see in the famous photo. It's pride and humor.

    (Also, this is very nitpicky but she was 32 or 33 in it.)

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  • Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPETimWardCam@c.im
    Oct 8, 2026, 11:56 AM

    @thirstybear @borisschapira @samir You can do it if you like, and I got one job on the basis of the C Eng - the technical director said that the only thing between me and the other candidate was that I had it and the other didn't.

    But whilst some employers are happy to hire self-taught "coders" to hack stuff together any old how the market for qualified professional software engineers will be limited to those shops who, voluntarily, actually want to do things properly.

    It's not like some other disciplines, or some other countries, where to call yourself "engineer", and/or to do a particular job, you need to have the qualifications and regulation. So at that level it indeed hasn't caught on.

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