Hacker News Reader

Comment by lccerina | Hacker News Reader

Not a single woman? No Barbara Liskov - Programming with abstract data types? No Grace Hopper - The education of a computer? No Frances Allen - Program optimization?

View on HN

Should the work of women be on that list for the sole reason that they are women? There are many more men who have written papers far influential than the ones you've mentioned yet they didn't make the list. If you believe in equality, then you have to believe that the work of people who happen to be women can compete on their own merit. The absence of women in that list isn't necessarily evidence of bias as implied in your remark.

> papers far influential than the ones you've mentioned

Citation needed

Don't act in bad faith, the entirety of this thread is filled with examples.

I'd put Liskov's Programming with abstract data types up against any of them. Fran Allen's work was so fundamental it's hard to find compiler stuff that doesn't build on her work.

> Don't act in bad faith

This sounds like projection to me

You asked for "citations", the thread is literally filled with references to them. How is it not bad faith to have to prove to you things that you can easily check for yourself?

You misunderstood the request. Your original comment was claiming that there were many papers far more influential than any of the papers named that were by women. I was requesting evidence of this influence. In response you say that what, all of the references filling this thread are more influential than say Liskov or Allen? If not all, which ones?

The original comment you were responding to was pointing out that none of the papers listed were by women, and suggested several that were that are undeniably influential. Perhaps you think they aren't because you haven't read them, or presumably even heard of them?

I don’t think representation needs to be a thing for a personal list on a blog. Government? Absolutely. Corporate? maybe. That said, of course there have been many critical female contributions in the field. However, it’s also a numbers game since CS academia has been very gender/sex lopsided to this day. So production would represent that (sad) reality.

Did you just assume their gender?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com