Firstly, there're less women in programming and computing worls.
Secondly, OOP does better than structure programming, especially when your application grow big.

oh yes she was...

aida augusta byron..
countess of lovelace...

I'm a female programmer. I have a BSc Computer Science degree and have now started my first job..

I was hired to be a java developer and i'm the only female developer on the team, but no1 wants to give me any coding work to do!

they constantly give me documentation and sometimes a bit of debugging. If I ask to be involved in the coding, the response is just, well, there's work that has to be done, but nothing that u know how to do...
rather reverse engineer some ERD's..
I don't know how they know that I "don't know how to do anything, because I've never been given the chance to prove myself..

I completed my degree, and did quite well at university, but i don;t think i'm gonna be able to have a career as a programmer if i'm not taken seriously.

It will be partly due to you being fresh on the job, where people get scared of the newcomer breaking code, thats normal to an extent, but yes, they probably are having trouble fitting you into their stereotype of a competent developer and that sucks! And if you complain you'll be "the female with the attitude problem"..

Start a blog or something and post up some of your creations as you make them, maybe some HOWTOs, articles etc. The right people will notice eventually. I love it when people do that, I'm constantly pinching stuff of people's blogs

hmm good idea. Then see if you get head hunted by a rival company. Then you will be taken much more seriously. Yeah start putting some neat programmes on the web. Make all sorts of stuff either games or applications that are useful like converters, anti viruses anything. Then get advertisers to sponsor you, put their links on your website and make a good amount of money. When your company sees you doing well and the programmes you have made you will get trusted more and if ur site isn't popular u will have gr8er respect in your job. If it gets really popular you will be able to be self employed. Its called a win win situation :-p

>but no1 wants to give me any coding work to do!
When I get a rookies on my team, I'll assign work that familiarizes them with our programmers, our processes, and the products we work on. But I typically won't give them an immediate coding assignment because I can't expect them to write good code without an understanding of how the product works. If you don't know the code base, can you really be confident in your ability to add or modify features?

>they constantly give me documentation and sometimes a bit of debugging
Sounds like you're seeing imagined insults. Documentation familiarizes you with the product and debugging familiarizes you with the code. Not to mention that both of these jobs are absolutely critical, so I don't see what you're complaining about. If they trust you enough to do documentation and debugging, you should be happy.

Now, if you're still doing documentation and a bit of debugging after several months, then I'd start to question your manager about why you haven't been asked to do any coding.

Being able to write documentation is PURE GOLD. A rare and underrated skill you definitely want to cultivate, that many employees will value you for, don't fret!

Narue has it right. New developers that do not have a significant amount of relative work experience are not just thrown into coding generally. Perhaps if there is a small piece of functionality that would not affect other dependencies within the code base, they may be assigned work on those, but debugging and documentation is by far the safest way for newcomers to gain an understanding of the code without risk to the development. Most real-world projects are orders of magnitude more complex than the typical projects and assignments that new developers have worked on. Getting a handle on that does take some time and it must be worked into without jeopardizing the productivity of the team and introducing problems.

... and having a blog is not going to change that.

thanks for all the suggestions

well, it's just been 3 weeks and to be honest, I don't understand everything that's going on in the code...so as u say narue, debugging and docs will do me good

perhaps I was being way too sensitive...
Yesterday, i read a quote, "it's not about how much u do, it's about how much love u put into the doing"
And i think if i really put effort into the little tasks i have, I'll learn a lot and hopefully be able to start doing some coding soon...

I do not know if I am topic sway but there are some real hardcore Java programmers who will use Java for ALL PURPOSES!!!! They will die for Java so as to speak. In fact for every new IT project initiation they will strongly propose Java as the programming language due to the large number of framework and libraries and classes that are so in abundance!!!!

My personal take is we should NOT use a programming language and try to force use it to suit the project requirements. Instead it should be the project requirements that drive which language or technology to use isn't it? In this approach, one should then not just stick to Java faithfully for ALL projects. One should instead be well versed in various languages to better suit the project requirements.

In my working career, there are times when you need to support and enhance on existing systems that maybe written in Ada, Pascal or even assembly!!!! It is not so often you get to write new codes so as to speak. In fact enhancement can even be tougher than writing new programs cuz first you need to understand how the existing code flow and the structure and patterns that are deployed. Comments don't help as programmers are well known to be lazy writers. I am one I admit. In fact there are cases when comment say x += 2 but the actual code is x -= 2!!!! The final outcome is believe the code rather than the comment isn't it?

Lastly back to topic. Female programmers do exist but my personal view is they are generally stronger in project management and design and analysis. When I surf net for C++ standards, CORBA standards, Java etc stuff I saw more authors that are male. I am not gender discriminating but just stating what I meet and read in my working life.

C, C++, Java, Pascal are created by man BUT behind all these great men are their lady wives that stood by them as they pursue faithfully in their toy sacrificing precious bonding times. Without these understanding wives, I doubt C C++ Java and Pascal can be created for mass use today. For this I salute the women !!!!

Btw I value family life as I am happily married with two young daughters and an understanding wife who let me pursue what I like best and that is programming. Weekends are strictly bonding times with family so I take a break from programming unless there are new IT launch from company and I need to provide support.

to all female java buddies ,

do not discourage from the statement that 'There are less female java programmers in the industry' . That's the society problem and not a skill level or talnet problem , do you want to view the female persons that who are worlds no1 IT professionals .

for an example Raven Alder , a smart one in computer security , search for her in the google if you interested , ( hay search means , search her bio , books and not how to marry her ) . The persons like her are not very much interested to the family life and oppisite sex , Like me , that was not only for the femail but I'm talking here as a male . This is normally happens to more IT specilists , including me ( that doesn't say that I was an specilist OKY) , anyway the things are like ,
feel the oppsite sex as another category of human kind only .
when you working you are only direct at the work ( you are in a mission ) , and feels nothing
you feel the 'sex' life as a another only one thing in a human life but not the most important or a great thing . That doesn't say that we doen't have these hormones .
You does not likes your oppisite sex persion become smater than you !


probably if you have these things in your mind , you are a hacker , you have the hacker skills when you bron . You are the one . THen go ahead and be smart . Let no one to win . Wheter you may be male or female does not matter that thing . Its natural thing that feeling jelocy about the oppisite sex .

Let me be honest here
as a male I hate smart female who are interest in computing . But their life is not computing , they just like ordinary . But as a computing hobbist My life is computing . Most of the interested thing in my life is computing not the 'family life' . As usuall , the girls who
are at my batch are not very interested in computing , But I clearly know that Computing is not their life .


Like this if you are a female and your life is really computing , then you are really interested to the computing and hate the male onces that are only interested in sex and love . But you can feel them as they are something smart than me in computing also ( like I feels on my oppsite sex ) , anyway the answer is this , if you feel like this , think that you are the expert ! They may have skills but they only needs to have money from the computing , not the life sugar . But the thing real thing is they may have skills , but this
is not their life as ours . Then the skill level is a thing that needs some time as a cost . You
will be really expert than them with some time . That;s the nature , as a male I feel that the girls are more smart in computing ( This is a probably oppsite idea that in this form , isn't it ) , So girls , that who are like me , listen up , feeling like that is very natural .

WHo said here that he hate C , <<<< normally we cannot compare any language with one another , C may be bad for the application level programming , But C is the most better language for the Kernel programming . You just search how's the operating system kernel is written . But when you needs to mke a secure web applications , it's better to use Java , Java provides many security fetures that are built into the language . Shcuh as C++/C stack overflows are not in Java . But if you say C is worse and Java is the best , Think again . Please download a free book about java design parttens and read it to dead before you argue this idea .