Baldur BjarnasonMar 12, 2024

Putting together the blog post collection has meant trying to find old links in the Wayback Machine

One was this one by the legendary Kathy Sierra in 2004. It’s both inspiring and depressing, because we all know what happened in the intervening two decades

“A Computer Book Author’s Manifesto” https://web.archive.org/web/20120118171954/http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/ksmanifesto.html

A Computer Book Author's Manifesto - O'Reilly Media

Kathy Sierra, a co-creator of O'Reilly's Head First series, shares her thoughts about the state of the computer book industry, along with some ideas about what can be done to improve the situation.

Show threadBaldur BjarnasonMar 12, 2024

In case you don’t know what happened.

1. Kathy was driven off the internet by a nazi and the entirety of tech sided with the literal nazi
2. The computer book market collapsed to a fraction of its former size
3. Software quality collapsed
4. Kathy returned to the internet a decade later, only to be driven off again because tech again prefered to side with literal nazis over women cooties.
5. Dev education turned into an industry of shilling and grift
6. Generative models are nuking what’s left

Show threadOld Ain't DeadMay 19, 2024
@baldur The horrible thing is women aren't treated any better by the internet/social media now than when Kathy was the target. She was eloquent in expressing what was wrong with it at the time and it still applies.
Show threadBaldur Bjarnason
@OldAintDead Yeah. It’s honestly depressing just how much it still applies.
May 19, 2024 at 12:28pmWeb