Thoughts On Parenthood In The Software Industry

I have been thinking some about parenthood in the software industry, in particular, of frameworks and technologies. Men that have been the driving force behind, invented, or founded a particular technology or framework, are often referred to as “The Father Of…”.

Is this really a fair and accurate metaphor?

The father usually gets away easy with the easy part (of just bootstrapping the whole process).

While it is the mother that:

has to carry the baby for nine months (product development)

has to do all the labor and go through all the pain in the delivery (shipping and release) process
usually has to do most of the maintenance

I would like to suggest switching to using the metaphor “The Mother Of…” (regardless of the sex of the subject).

Jonas Bonér 18 April 2006

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