Feminist Programming Languages
m.hastac.org
m.hastac.org
It's been discussed and linked around here many times, eg, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6893756
My view, for what its worth, is that she's asking good and valuable questions. We do have different programming paradigms, and those paradigms do shape how we solve problems, and even what problems we can solve, and it is very possible that a different viewpoint could stumble on a very different paradigm. There's a long history of outsiders making valuable contributions to programming and computer science.
...that being said, I rather doubt she's going to get far. The odds of someone doing a bit of research and coming up with something like functional programming or lambda calculus (which as I understand it is more or less what she wants to do) is effectively nil, no matter who you are. But I wish her the best of luck.
> The idea came about while discussing normative and feminist subject object theory. I realized that object oriented programmed reifies normative subject object theory. This led me to wonder what a feminist programming language would look like, one that might allow you to create entanglements (Karen Barad Posthumanist Performativity).
Somebody please tell me, is this like the Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, or is it serious?
This is actually a sincere question. My first reaction was that this must be a parody. What in the world would it mean to code using any kind of ideology? "I believe strongly in this principle, therefore my code is correct!" That's what it sounds like to me.
But maybe there is something I missed entirely. If so, please enlighten me!
It is a deconstructivist line of reasoning that has crossovers into other Postmodernist theory and philosophy such as Foucault’s.
The comments, which are worth reading, even brought up Sapir / Whorf as an analogous subject.
While feminist theory may have a contribution to make, it's not at the level the author is talking about.
The author refers to core language paradigms: functional, object oriented, and so on. But these are hard engineering trade offs, not malleable social theories. Language designers will continue to actively explore the design space, and they may look to many sources for inspiration, including feminism, but that's a long way from being able to say, "This programming language has a core feminist paradigm."
I think, if feminist theory has a place in programming language design, it's in the human aspects. The user interface, the surface syntax, and so on.
(It was just a joke. Please don't hurt me.)