
Ask HN: Stories about women who helped you to become a better programmer? - alando46
Today is International Women&#x27;s Day. Who has stories about women who helped them to become a better programmer?
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markwaldron
In college, we had to do a senior project in order to graduate. For CS, this
consisted of building something and writing a 15-30pg paper about what you
built and the technologies it uses. The other people in my class all chose to
build things using technologies they were taught in our CS classes and how no
problem finding professors to consent to their project and be their mentor
during the process. I wanted something challenging, though. I wanted to build
an iOS app using Objective-C (pre-swift), which was not something taught at my
college.

After I came up with the app idea, I went around to the different professors I
had classes with (some male, some female) and not one wanted to sign off on
the project. Some simply said no, some tried to talk me into doing the same
app in HTML5 or another language that we covered in class. I spoke to one of
my peers and they referred me to a teacher I had never taken a class with. I
went to her, expecting to be rejected, but instead, she happily agreed to sign
off on the project. The one condition was that I TA her CS2 class the next
semester in Python. I told her I never used Python before and she said: "Well
you have 3 months to learn enough to TA the class". With her guidance, I
learned enough Python to TA. With her guidance, I learned enough Objective-C
to build the App. With her guidance, I graduated. This one professor taught me
to push my limits and not let anyone hold back my pursuits of knowledge, and
for that, I am extremely grateful.

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williamkennedy
I would not have been able to learn code without my girlfriend's support. I
started teaching myself how to code in 2013 and got a job in June 2015.
Although I mostly learned code in my spare time after work, my girlfriend
offered massive support, encouragement and motivation. She didn't raise
eyebrows when I spent money on books, online courses or spent my time
practicing.

There was never any arguments about what I was trying to do (which at the
time, I thought was impossible). She worked towards her career goals and I
worked on mine.

It would be more macho to say I taught myself Software Development and did it
all by myself but the truth is I would not have the job I have now without
her.

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legostormtroopr
Hands down, my mum and my grand mother.

My mum was a self-professed luddite - as in the traditional term where she
hates technology. However, knew I was good at maths and could see how
computing was going to be a big part of the future. So she'd buy me every book
on computing she came across in second-hand book stores. It didn't matter what
they were on, she'd get them for me (still does too). So back in the pre-
internet days and even before I had my own computer I'd read and re-read them
constantly. And I'd try my hand at writing programs on paper and tracing them
out in my head.

My grandmother bought a brand new Commodore 64 because she could afford it,
and played some games but not much else. She did however show me how to run
BASIC. So whenever I went over she'd let me on there, and I'd transcribe my
programs into the computer and finally get a chance to run them and see if my
thinking was right.

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AnimalMuppet
First, there was my mother. She was a programmer back the days when opcodes
were programmed in _octal_. She thought life was great when she got an
_assembler_. She had one CPU she worked on where the instruction set could be
changed with patch cords! Then she moved on to neural net programming. (That
is, she became a stay-at-home mom and raised my brother and I, which I'm
pretty sure was a harder task than programming.) She had a master's degree in
math. Growing up, she helped with learning to think in a mathematical way -
not so much by "teaching", but just by life.

The second was my first manager, Mary Deyo. During the interview, she said "I
don't see very many computer classes on your transcript". It's true. I majored
in math and physics, and was largely self-taught in computers. I figured that
was the end of my job prospects there. But she had a masters in math (like my
mother), and was largely self-taught in computers. She hired me despite my
(lack of) transcript. My whole career (probably) comes from her taking a
chance on me.

------
karmajunkie
I credit women with almost every significant step in my career progression.

* My first official programming teacher was a woman at my high school who was kind enough to accept me and two friends into her class two years early. She also encouraged me to apply to a college-level programming competition, which gave me both a sense of humility in knowing how much more I had to learn, and whetted my appetite to learn more. She also let me spend class time on software that did my calculus homework :)

* I landed my first professional job thanks to the encouragement of Dr. Mary Dayne Gregg and her class in COBOL, which got my foot in the door of a large company doing Y2K fixes. I can't say it was my favorite gig, but she prepared me well for my first job.

* My wife: not a programmer but as an ardent and patient feminist she's helped me be less of a pain in the ass for my coworkers.

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jeff_petersen
I have 2. One was a computer teacher in elementary school, she started a
computer club for a handful of nerdy kids to do some BASIC programming. We
never had enough time for it to stick, really, so it was just something to
mess around with. Nonetheless, a good fun start.

Next was a high school teacher. She taught Java. The class was excruciatingly
boring and we were essentially being taught to the test. She was not a
programmer and pretty much just recited from the textbook. How did that help
me become a better programmer? Since the class was trivial and she wasn't much
of a disciplinarian I had 45 free minutes a day to mess around on my own in
Python.

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mattbgates
In college, I had a crush on a girl.. I believed she was my soul mate.
Unfortunately, long story short, after years of trying to get her, even dated
for a short stint, it just didn't work out. She was so much into her own life
and on this path that would -- almost prevent her from having any boyfriends
for as long as I've known her -- she is so goal-oriented and focused, that
just seems to be her priorities -- but for some reason, I will always have
that feeling that she was my soul mate. Anyways, she continues to be and
remain an inspiration for me to want to be a better person. I still think of
her. We talk seldom, maybe once or twice a year just to update each other, but
unfortunately, probably just best for both of us.. there's like this intense
interest there but it won't go anywhere because she is so independent and
wants to live that "freestyle life" without being in any committed
relationship. Whereas she is an extrovert, I'm more introverted. Guess it was
just meant to be that way.

Then... years later, I had gotten this programming job and met the woman of my
dreams, who also worked in the office, and it did take her a few months to get
me to notice her. She didn't give up and we went out and things just worked
out well. She keeps pushing me and inspires me and encourages me to be the
best I can be. Still together and in our 7th year... I've created a few
websites, started up a freelance business, and currently working on starting
up a business, and she is also learning virtual reality programming, augmented
reality programming, so she is just as encouraged and inspired by me as I am
by her. I support her in anything she does -- I've seen her come up with
ideas, invest some money, and even invested some money with her, only for her
to lose interest, but she keeps going at it. I think she definitely found her
calling with virtual reality.. she is so obsessed with it.

I'm sure I'd still be doing my thing without her, but having a woman there to
support my dreams and be someone to talk to helps a lot.

~~~
meric
Thanks for the read, I'm glad you are in a great relationship. ..Why mention
the first woman though? She doesn't seem to have help you with programming...

~~~
mattbgates
The first girl I mentioned because for a time, she was a huge part of my life.
She had become my best friend and we confided in each other. I always aspired
to be a better man because of her. I always saw her going for what she wanted
and she never let anything stand in her way. I never saw her give up and still
to this day, she keeps going. She graduated with her Masters Degree and
continues to be that inspiration for me to want to continue achieving all my
own goals in life. It was one of those situations where: I'd rather her in my
life than not at all, hence why we speak to each other just a few times a year
and don't try to make anything more of it. Because our goals in life were so
different, despite the fact that there had been chemistry, she continued on
with her dreams and I knew I could not stand in her way. It has kept me going
just the same. I think before these two women, I didn't really have any
direction. I just did things to do them. Now I think I do them with a deeper
purpose.

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Isamu
Ages ago I was working with codes, writing error detection and correction, and
also writing programs to find the probability of undetected error for a given
code. I wanted to read the literature for myself and write my own code in
order to understand what was going on.

I was inspired to find some of the very smart people whose methods and books I
used, assuming they were men, were in fact women. Jesse MacWilliams worked at
Bell Labs and developed the MacWilliams identity (which made my life easier
for computing the properties of a cyclic code.) Vera Pless is another that
worked in coding theory and authored some classic texts.

These are some of the women whose works I relied on and who were inspirational
during a formative period in my career, where I was trying to level-up and
gain deeper insights.

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douche
I wouldn't be a programmer today if my high school chemistry teacher hadn't
offered an elective in QBasic programming and basic CS as well. Or if she
hadn't let me take that class six times over, feeding me more programming
books and going to bat to get the school to let me take the AP test.

Thanks, Mrs. P!

------
spcelzrd
A day late, but I'll join in.

Company I worked at hired a woman to join our team of almost all men at a
small consultancy. People who had worked with her before all said she was an
excellent developer, and she was. I worked very closely with her for the next
three years. She had a different perspective than the rest of the team. More
formal. More thoughtful than just crank out some code and move on to the next
task. She taught me things I never knew I didn't know.

------
Mz
I only know how to write any code at all because a female friend asked to
publish a thing I had written, created a small site for my writing and later
gifted me the code when it grew too time consuming for her to manage for me.
(But, I am a woman, so I don't know how much people here will feel that
"counts.")

~~~
alando46
Of course it counts!!

------
zafka
My first programming teacher was a delightful lady who encouraged me when I
added all sorts of frills to my turbo Pascal assignments. I also acquired my
first kitten from her. (my girlfriend convinced me that my pig needed a
friend)

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durbin
My mom was a court transcriptionist so that she could work from home and take
care of my brother and I. Even though we hovered around the poverty line I had
24/7 computer access from the age of seven.

~~~
durbin
Also, my friend's mom, Ms. Akans, cosigned my loan for my first computer when
I went to college.

------
soneca
My wife is paying for my education.

I quit my last job and decided to take a time to learn to code and become a
software developer. I am a full-time student since last November. My wife is
paying all the bills (the education _per se_ is free, as I am using
freeCodeCamp, and free online tutorials and documentation).

------
hooksfordays
My first experience with programming was my 7th grade teacher, a woman who
inspired me so thoroughly, I still try to make regular visits to see her when
I'm in town (10 years later). She had my class use Adobe Flash to create
animations for some of our projects, and for presentations, if we were so
inclined. Doing so required a knowledge of ActionScript to start and stop the
animation, and that was the first I had ever heard of programming.

From there, she pointed me towards a camp offered by our school to improve my
animating skills, but the senior student leading the program happened to be
quite efficient at ActionScript. Most of the other students in the camp were
beginners, so while they learned to animate, I learned more extensive
ActionScript, and that had me hooked.

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framebit
This is a stale thread now, but I have to share this.

At my first programming job (certainly not my first job, but first in
technology) I had a female manager who was incredible. She and I were the only
women in the group with 15 or so men.

She was highly respected by everyone in the group for her leadership and
technical expertise, and she managed to juggle leading her team with being a
great mom to her kids. She showed me that as a woman there was nothing
standing in the way of my career, and that down the road balancing family
priorities was possible.

I'm grateful everyday for her example and the lessons she unwittingly taught
me. Hopefully one day I'll be as awesome as she is!

------
vlindos
My wife me a better programmer and yet better person. She is HR (in the ICT
area) and we are together for 12 years. She was always joking me that I am
mediocre or average when I was actually at this level. However, this was a
constant powerful reminder to become better, so eventually, I did. Everyone -
find your motivation to be better.

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michalpt
Without my mum I probably wouldn’t be programming today. When I was 9-10 years
old she gave me a Commodore 64 + printed BASIC book. I remember when I created
my first "real" program = number guessing game. In that moment, my beloved
programming journey started. Then few years later I switch to Pascal and so on
:)

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andrei_says_
Sandi Metz. Never met her but her talks and books are amongst the biggest
influences in my relationship to designing and testing software.

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d--b
Great topic no answer :(

