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Coding Fun

Clive Thompson's Coders:  The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World makes for absolutely wonderful reading. Given my background in technology, I might me closer to the topic than those from other fields but Thompson's writing would be accessible to them to. I love how he explains what attracts a person to coding and what it takes to thrive in that line of work. And because the conditions for success are so specific, it naturally promotes a pre-dominant "type". 

He also traces the rise and fall of women in the coding over the decades - while I was aware of most the data points he mentions, had not quite connected the dots to see how the surrounding culture of gaming, chatting with strangers on bulletin boards and such would naturally put the business of into unsuitable territory for young girls while their brothers could get away with potentially "bad" behavior. 

I think it helps a great deal that Thompson has a programming background, he lived and breathed the world he writes about. Yet, being a journalist he brings an outside-in perspective and that is where his writing truly shines. 
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