I wrote a post just about a year ago on how “Hackers and Hombrewers are NOT Pirates.” Like most of what I post to the web, it serves little more than to remind me later of the evolution of my thoughts on particularly relevant research interests. Like beer. Recently however, there has been a resurgence of commentary/thought on the decline of computer science programs. Though I now consider myself primarily a “historically inclined cultural anthropologist who studies cooperative work, with game development and the game industry as my primary lens,” I began my secondary education as a computer science and mathematics major with women’s studies and sociology as the instruments that later led me to graduate school.
What follows is my analysis of recent reports on how, “Lack of Programming Skills Puts U.S. Security at Risk,” and the “gender gap in perception of computer science,” [the actual report] are a product of a continual assault on the “hacker,” “the tinkerer,” and “hobbyist” more generally in our culture. To which I first say, “serves us right, what you reap, you sow.” Having gotten that off my chest, I’ll attempt to be a bit more constructive with what follows… Continue reading »