
My mom is a programmer, raging against the machine - kqr2
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/08/i-had-no-idea-my-mom.html
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kqr2
Since mother's day is around the corner, just curious, how many of you have
mothers who are/were programmers?

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lionheart
My mother is a programmer, quite frankly the best programmer I have ever met.
But she doesn't like computers and says she longs for the old days when she
would write out her program on a piece of paper, hand it to the technicians
and get a print out of the results a day later.

~~~
asimjalis
I am curious: does she edit her programs on Windows or Mac? The reason I ask
is that I felt the same way until recently.

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lionheart
Windows. Although I doubt using a Mac would change her mind, even if I could
convince her to switch.

It's kind of ironic, but she is completely like the clueless mothers everybody
else complains about when it comes to technology. She needs help installing
anything and I had to even set up her iPod for her.

However, she is a phenomenal programmer because of her logical thought
processes. She never planned on becoming a programmer, she wanted to be a
mathematician and that is what her degree is in. When she graduated, there was
a position for an "applied mathematician" and she was hired. Applied
mathematics turned out to be programming and so that's what she became.

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silencio
i've always been surprised how much like simple programming knitting and
weaving and similar crafts are. most of my friends go WTF at my knitting
because it's so incongruous with the rest of my interests, until i
explain/show them how patterns read like loops and things :)

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Tichy
I have often wondered if there are decent web sites for knitting patterns and
stuff like that, or if it is all mostly print magazines.

~~~
silencio
ravelry.com is a fantastic social network that has a db of patterns. they
don't keep most of them on the site itself - just the fact that the pattern
exists and where to find it, what kind of yarns are recommended along with
what kind of needles, projects of the same pattern done by other members with
however much information they care to include - although some designers do
sell their patterns on the site. See
[http://img.skitch.com/20090509-fuy92fx7e5rykfgu377tgyg3wt.jp...](http://img.skitch.com/20090509-fuy92fx7e5rykfgu377tgyg3wt.jpg)
for an example.

unfortunately, a lot of the nicer patterns are from print magazines, but there
are some exceptions to the rule - knitty.com for one is all online. It's
unfortunate more magazines don't sell their patterns online as well, because
sometimes it becomes impossible to find the pattern when it's not been printed
and you can't find anyone to sell it to you.

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buugs
No but she is the one who bought me dos sesame street games and taught me how
to use them, as well as email in the early 90s and I'm sure I never would have
used a computer other than as word processor and for email without her early
start

