Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The focus of the topic is on the consultants, analysts, programmers,
operators, and other technical specialists who build software, and the
ways in which these specialists constructed for themselves a unique
occupational identity based on their control over the nascent technology
of electronic computing. Earlier in this topic these specialists were
referred to as computer people; from here on out, they will be called by
the name given to them by their contemporaries: namely, the “computer
boys.” This was in part a term of endearment, in part a disparagement,
and in either case, a fairly accurate representation of who these people
were: young, male, and technologically inclined. This is not to say that
there were not many female computer specialists. In fact, the computing
professions, at least in the early decades of commercial computing, were
surprisingly accepting of women. It was only later that the computing
occupations became highly masculinized. This topic tells a portion of
that story.
The topic traces the history of the computer boys as they struggled
to establish a role for themselves within traditional organizational, pro-
fessional, and academic hierarchies. It focuses on the tensions that
emerged between the craft-centered practices of vocational program-
mers, the increasingly theoretical agenda of academic computer science,
and the desire of corporate managers to control and routinize the process
of software development. It describes the ways in which confl icts within
the computing community played out in the development of professional
societies, programming languages, computer science curricula, and cor-
porate training and recruitment programs. Seen from this perspective,
what are dismissed as merely internal debates about the technical fea-
tures of programming languages, the inclusion of a specifi c course in a
computer science curriculum, or the imposition of software engineering
methodologies for managing development projects are revealed rather
as strategic moves in this negotiation over professional status and
identity.
A central theme of the topic is that computer specialists possessed
skills and abilities that transcended existing boundaries between scien-
tifi c, technical, and business expertise. As the electronic computer moved
out of the laboratory and into the marketplace, it became an increasingly
valuable source of professional and institutional power and authority.
In their role as mediators between the technical system (the computer)
and its social environment (existing structures and practices), computer
programmers played a crucial role in transforming the computer from
a scientifi c instrument into a powerful tool for corporate control and
