6 ms·

This narrative has been questioned as a bit of feel-good manipulation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299394

This narrative has been questioned as a bit of feel-good manipulation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945

parker_mountain 3y ago
For what it's worth, this narrative has been floating around for a minute, and conveniently ignores _how_ she became a junior programmer. Go look it up :) suddenly "brought on as a jr" becomes less an indictment of her skills, and more an indictment of NASA management undervaluing a woman.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Just tell us _how_ instead of making us guess? I tried to find the answer but given your exclusion I guess rumours of sexual relations?
  - parker_mountain 3y ago
    Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point? Also, why would you assume "sexual relations"? That's just crass.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Many times a "you know *giggle*" implies something sex.
- defrost 3y ago
  BA in mathematics, followed by four years cutting code in non linear dynamics at MIT Lincoln Lab and Cambridge Research Laboratories. With that background why would hiring Hamilton as a junior at the Draper Laboratory be an indictment of NASA managaement?
  - Sterm 3y ago
    Because the majority of programmes today are uneducated.
    - Grum9 3y ago
      [dead]
  - parker_mountain 3y ago
    Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point?
    - defrost 3y ago
      Ahhh .. you should have expanded upon that. FWiW I did a pure applied mathematics degree + half an actual engineering course (it got too easy so I transfered to math as they were letting students work directly on control systems for robots rather than rote bookwork). Four years after graduation, with four years coding experience on things both numerical and symbolic I transferred into a geophysics position developing software for signal aquistion (from sat, sea, air, and ground units), processing, projection, interpretation (this was before Keyhole + google maps | google earth so the group was also writing their own world scale mapping software (late 80s | early 90s)). Long story short, I had similar experience levels to Hamiliton at that time and I was very definitely a Jr on the team as everybody else had way more eperience than I did. I guess such things are relative.
didntcheck 3y ago
It's frustrating how often this happens. Exaggerating someone's achievements isn't helpful, it's undermining them and others like them, as now people will rationally be more sceptical of similar claims The story of Ada Lovelace seems to get more fantastic every time I hear it. Even Turing himself, who has no shortage of actual achievements, has his role in the Enigma cracking overstated at the expense of other cryptanalysts, especially those from other countries
- jadamson 3y ago
  I only recently read about the contribution of Polish mathematicians in breaking Enigma. Fairly sure that wasn't mentioned when I visited Bletchley Park Museum as a kid. Ada Lovelace might not have been the "first programmer", but she was at least talented, a visionary, and an interesting character.
- wrp 3y ago
  An ironic thing about the Lovelace story is that while the popular impression of her is quite twisted, the real story is just as interesting. Stephen Wolfram wrote a nice article a while back, after he spent effort to consult primary sources to try to grasp the reality behind the myth. As for the Poles who were actually the first to crack the Enigma code, they aren't alone among Polish mathematicians being ignored in the West. My top example of a Polish mathematician who unjustly lacks fame would be Helena Rasiowa.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
If it was really so controversial, you'd expect to at least find traces at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... (or in the archive at) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)/Archive_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... It seems that no one has so much as questioned the narrative on Wikipedia. And the only source we have questioning it is a nitter/twitter thread (above). Which is not saying that the questioner is wrong per-se, -it could be a niche of a niche thing-, but eh.

This narrative has been questioned as a bit of feel-good manipulation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993945

parker_mountain 3y ago

For what it's worth, this narrative has been floating around for a minute, and conveniently ignores _how_ she became a junior programmer. Go look it up :) suddenly "brought on as a jr" becomes less an indictment of her skills, and more an indictment of NASA management undervaluing a woman.

rightbyte 3y ago
Just tell us _how_ instead of making us guess? I tried to find the answer but given your exclusion I guess rumours of sexual relations?
- parker_mountain 3y ago
  Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point? Also, why would you assume "sexual relations"? That's just crass.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Many times a "you know *giggle*" implies something sex.
defrost 3y ago
BA in mathematics, followed by four years cutting code in non linear dynamics at MIT Lincoln Lab and Cambridge Research Laboratories. With that background why would hiring Hamilton as a junior at the Draper Laboratory be an indictment of NASA managaement?
- Sterm 3y ago
  Because the majority of programmes today are uneducated.
  - Grum9 3y ago
    [dead]
- parker_mountain 3y ago
  Because she was clearly operating at a level above jr at that point?
  - defrost 3y ago
    Ahhh .. you should have expanded upon that. FWiW I did a pure applied mathematics degree + half an actual engineering course (it got too easy so I transfered to math as they were letting students work directly on control systems for robots rather than rote bookwork). Four years after graduation, with four years coding experience on things both numerical and symbolic I transferred into a geophysics position developing software for signal aquistion (from sat, sea, air, and ground units), processing, projection, interpretation (this was before Keyhole + google maps | google earth so the group was also writing their own world scale mapping software (late 80s | early 90s)). Long story short, I had similar experience levels to Hamiliton at that time and I was very definitely a Jr on the team as everybody else had way more eperience than I did. I guess such things are relative.

didntcheck 3y ago

It's frustrating how often this happens. Exaggerating someone's achievements isn't helpful, it's undermining them and others like them, as now people will rationally be more sceptical of similar claims The story of Ada Lovelace seems to get more fantastic every time I hear it. Even Turing himself, who has no shortage of actual achievements, has his role in the Enigma cracking overstated at the expense of other cryptanalysts, especially those from other countries

jadamson 3y ago
I only recently read about the contribution of Polish mathematicians in breaking Enigma. Fairly sure that wasn't mentioned when I visited Bletchley Park Museum as a kid. Ada Lovelace might not have been the "first programmer", but she was at least talented, a visionary, and an interesting character.
wrp 3y ago
An ironic thing about the Lovelace story is that while the popular impression of her is quite twisted, the real story is just as interesting. Stephen Wolfram wrote a nice article a while back, after he spent effort to consult primary sources to try to grasp the reality behind the myth. As for the Poles who were actually the first to crack the Enigma code, they aren't alone among Polish mathematicians being ignored in the West. My top example of a Polish mathematician who unjustly lacks fame would be Helena Rasiowa.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

If it was really so controversial, you'd expect to at least find traces at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... (or in the archive at) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)/Archive_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Margaret_Hamilton_(softwa... It seems that no one has so much as questioned the narrative on Wikipedia. And the only source we have questioning it is a nitter/twitter thread (above). Which is not saying that the questioner is wrong per-se, -it could be a niche of a niche thing-, but eh.