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A new generation of developers
By Aino Vonge Corry | May 12, 2009
Attending JAOO Brisbane this year, one of my “must-see”s was Pamela Fox on Google AppEngine. And she did not disappoint me. First we get the useful hints offered by the entertaining demo of Googles AppEngine, where she builds the Best Website Ever with frames, marquee tags, animated gifs, web ring, and everything else you would be missing from the 90′ties. There are warnings for the old relational database folks about BigTable, which is non-relational and does not do joins.
But on top of that, she delivered a recipe for how to make your daughters into developers;
Force them to code!
Pamela was forced to code Java by her father, or else, there would be no allowance. And it worked, apparently. Well not the Java coding part of it, because when she left home….she left Java behind. She can see the fun of coding and the power in it, because she was introduced to it in a very motivating way.
They say you get inspired at conferences, and my daughters will see just how inspired I am when I return home 
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:23 am
forcing people to code.. whatever happened to chicks who taught themselves??
June 8th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I don’t know what happened to them, please tell me? From where I am (PC member for software conferences) they are almost invisible.
So I am thinking, one way to get them started is to force them to see the fun and power that lies in it. Like forcing them to play an instrument, when they are children. Sometimes it provides them with a task they will enjoy the rest of their lives.
July 8th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
That’s a terrible idea. Just because it worked on her doesn’t mean it’s universal. Forcing kids to anything is a bad idea. Especialy when it’s coding. And when it’s forced on girls.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
The way I see it, it did work once on a bright girl, which is a good sign
Plus, most CS women I know didn’t know they wanted to enter CS (maybe it is my age showing) because they didn’t think they would like to become nerds. But when they were “forced” to code (because of math studies and the like) they discovered that they liked it.
And I promise I will not force my girls with whips and cages, but giving them an incentive to start coding cannot be a bad thing?
July 8th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Heya–
I’m the one that was ‘forced’ to code, and let me clarify, as I likely dramatized it for the presentation effect.
I started coding in HTML and Perl, and I loved it. But, I loved alot of other things, too. I’ve always had a diverse array of interests. So, to make sure I’d stay coding, my dad would bribe me to code.
We did the same thing for my sister with reading, and it worked a charm (we bribed her with troll dolls, as they were all the rage). She became a great reader and writer.
It’s more that you see a spark, and you make sure it doesn’t go away.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:42 am
I would hope to inspire rather than “force” my hypothetical kids into doing nerdy stuff. Rather like how Richard Feynman’s father would inspire his son into science by taking him on walks and trying to understand the word like a scientist.
September 7th, 2009 at 8:46 am
I like this idea
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:04 am
I’m all for forcing kids to do things. Wait, that came out wrong. What I -meant- to say is that children – and probably most adults for that matter – will very often choose “no” when confronted with something new and outside their comfort zone. This is definitely an “oldschool” aspect of parenting, but my Grandmother, and to a lesser extent my mother, never allowed me to refuse a new food. As a result, I now have wildly varied tastes, a foundation of memorable experience, and a huge pet peeve having to do with picky eaters – not those who genuinely dislike something, but those grown *ss people you meet who say things like, “I don’t eat broccoli” when they’ve barely eaten any, let alone all the various recipes for it, or “I don’t eat any kind of seafood”, as if they had any idea of -all- the various kinds of seafood there are out there.
March 29th, 2010 at 12:53 am
Similar situation happend to me. a friend of mine wanted me to do some appliction, very simple application for kids. It was very important to involve young people in this. But where to find kids-programmers? I had to find some solution by the 2nd day of the next month. Solution was found – neighbours had children! I decided to force them to do some coding when they were at home
December 21st, 2010 at 10:22 pm
That’s a terrible idea. Just because it worked on her doesn’t mean it’s universal. Forcing kids to anything is a bad idea. Especialy when it’s coding. And when it’s forced on girls.