Ok, starting a new blog post for this session, since I got a little wordy before.

So! Next session – teenage girls and technology, sesion run by Lynn Langit, Microsoft Developer Evangelist.

This is a topic that’s very close to my heart. I was that little girl who wanted to learn how to program and I first started “programming” in BASIC when I was 7. It wasn’t easy AT ALL. The programming books I was using weren’t even at all helpful, all I could do was copy code into the computer and try to figure out what it meant. Tutorials didn’t really  exist, after all, operating systems were being rev’d faster than the books could be written. I’d spend hours typing hundreds of lines into the computer to learn how to draw a pretty picture (or something), and lose it all as soon as the computer as rebooted. Not a great environment for learning.

So! Microsoft has a program called Kodu that runs on X-Box (and is being ported to be for academic purposes) to help kids learn programming using a visual interface to make a game. Call it the second incarnation of Alice, which I was amazed with yesterday. This program is targeted at kids 7 and up, is multiplayer (wowie), and teaches them the basics of using objects, textures, and so on.

Another program is called Small Basic, which is, well, small basic. Lynn is demoing it by moving a turtle across the screen (no joke – turtle!), which is so cute. The environment is nice and easy for kids to use, and HELPFUL, there’s documentation split on the screen with the code.

It is really exciting to hear about these efforts going on for geeky girls. Previously, people kind of just sat around telling girls they could get into tech. “Sure you can be in tech, nothing’s stopping you.”

Finally it’s about action!! SHOW girls what they can do, show them other people doing the same.

Next up, a session about WordPress! Maybe I’ll learn how to make this blog look a bit less, oh, “clearly designed by a non-designer,” and get over my php issues.

G’morning from the Computer Science Museum in Mountain View, where we’re all gathering for the second day of She’s Geeky. It looks like there is a completely different crowd of people here than yesterday, which should make things really interesting.

Session one – Open source. Really interesting, a lot of women talking about wanting to be more involved in open source, even voting software open (iiinteresting). It seems like a lot of us use it, but we’re not involved so much in the creation of it, although we’d like to be.

I’m certainly guilty of that, I use firefox, open office, gaim, I’m learning ruby, but I’ve done a lot more work in the open STANDARD world vs open SOFTWARE.

(ok, comical moment, session just moved next to us, telling us that “they couldn’t hear where they were, so they were moving over here.” soooo, they’re moving here and then we can’t hear? confuzzled)

Interesting conversation around the tendency for companies to release part of their code and call themselves “open source,” for example, AIM is partly open. PARTLY. Second Life is also partly open, you can grab their viewer code. But is that truly open??

Then again, where is the business model around open source? Back to the voting software concept, of course they couldn’t fully open their code. They could open part, then branch their own for the voting machines, but isn’t that extra development time on their part?

There is no perfect answer. You could maybe save development time by using plug and play modules, but I’ve personally seen project roadmaps blown out to all hell because the devs insisted on open source. You could also end up in a nasty position if you’re using proprietary code you can’t tweak.

From there, our conversation turned a bit more into what I suppose people would expect at a conference called “She’s Geeky” – what is it like for WOMEN in these situations. I believe I could, and probably should, write a huge blog entry on that topic, but since it’s time for the next session….that’s for later.