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From: rccall@dartvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Hackers
Message-ID: <1823@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Jun-84 01:49:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.1823
Posted: Mon Jun 11 01:49:43 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jun-84 02:31:44 EDT
References: <183@hopd3.UUCP>
Organization: Dartmouth College
Lines: 39


>  ...  I think that you are making a *very* seroius assumption that all women
> (or all anyone else, for that matter) who work in a computer science field
> are hackers or talk endlessly about computers.  I work with them, however, I
> don't even own one of the beastly things.  Yet.  Just because I am a computer
> scientist dosen't mean that I don't enjoy other subjects as well.  Most of
> my close friends are musicians and journalists who don't know a thing about
> computers (I met them while working on campus for a political science (!)
> organization), and we get along quite well.  Don't lump us all into the same
> category.
> 

I didn't read the original article (i.e. the one being responded to in
the above excerpt), so I hope I'm not simply re-stating what it said.
There is a grain (maybe even a teaspoon or two) of salt in the
statement that people (not just women) who work in computer
science talk endlessly about computers.  I'm not trying to lump
them all into one category, and I realize that there are computer
scientists who have other interests; nevertheless, I have
noticed that in general, computer scientists talk a LOT about
computers -- to the point of being very boring and sometimes
quite sickening.  It seems that whenever I'm in a group of
people including a couple of "computer people", the topic of
conversation always drifts to computers, much to the disappoinment
of the others in the group.  When computer people are present,
it seems, all roads lead to ROM [sorry...].
 
It is only natural that people in the same field want to talk
about their work; but the computer people that I know take it
to an extreme.  I don't notice that sort of thing happening
to people in different fields, and I often wonder whether I
simply notice it more because I hang around with a lot of
computer enthusiasts.  Does anyone out there understand
what I'm talking about, and is there anyone who does notice
the same kind of enthusiasm among people in other fields?

By the way, I am a "computer person" myself; and yes, the
phrase "computer person" does rub me the wrong way.  I just
can't think of a better phrase right now.