The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise, by Nathan Ensmenger. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press. $30
The social, technical and business dynamics of computing are as wide and varied as the professionals who participate in them. Trying to reconcile the relationship among these often competing cultures is what Nathan Ensmenger accomplishes with aplomb in the course of his 320 page study – which follows the history of computing in America in the post-World War II period until the early 1970s.
Ensmenger looks at the lot of computer programmers – who in early times were often women – and how managers sought to relegate them to subordinate levels on a company’s organizational scale. Managers, in Ensmenger’s words, “…came to fear and dislike computer programmers and other software specialists … The unprecedented degree of autonomy that corporate executives granted to computer technicians seemed a deliberate affront to the local authority of departmental managers.” Computer technicians were viewed by middle-managers as non-conformist threats to the order of a corporate structure; but because of computer companies’ reliance on them, were largely tolerated, if nothing more. Comparatively speaking, Scott Adams’ popular comic strip, “Dilbert” had nothing on the reality.
"Dilbert" courtesy, Scott Adams
One excerpt, from the periodical Personnel Journal, advised companies about programming personnel as follows:
“Look for those who like intellectual challenge rather than interpersonal relations or managerial decision-making … Do not consider the impulsive, the glad-hander or the ‘operator.’”
Ensmenger then looks at some of the generalizations that persisted in the minds of management and management consultants of this early period - such as the one personality characteristic of programmers that appeared to be universally recognized: a “disinterest in people.” This, along with other appraisals of programmers’ “innate and inarticulable” skill were the prevailing criteria for hiring practices within the industry. Personnel were selected “on the basis of their aptitude tests and personality profiles that emphasized mathematical ability and logical thinking over business knowledge or managerial savvy.” And as the management consultant Richard Brandon described it, the average programmer was often “egocentric, slightly neurotic, and he borders upon a limited schizophrenia.” And finally, in heaping stereotype upon stereotype, yet another consultant declared that programmers could be singled out in any corporation by their “higher incidence of beards, sandals and other symptoms of rugged individualism or nonconformity.”
But probably the most colorful of descriptions came from programmer/management consultant Herbert Grosch, who declared programmers the “Cosa Nostra” of the computer industry, who
“…are at once the most unmanageable and the most poorly managed specialism in our society. Actors and artists pale by comparison. Only pure mathematicians are as cantankerous, and it’s a calamity that so many of them get recruited by simplistic personnel men.”
Nobel Prize-winner Herbert Simon
Through such stark language, the “battle line” between managers and programmers was clearly drawn in the sand. With two distinctive business cultures at odds, there was one over-arching reality: computer programmers, software specialists and technicians were increasingly important as the computer industry grew. By 1960, there were already 60,000 systems analysts and as many as 120,000 programmers in the industry. So the reality was that they had to live with each other. But as Ensmenger shows, it wasn’t at all easy. Nobel Prize-winner Herbert Simon, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, believed that machines would eventually supplant the programmer in the workplace. His 1960 book, The New Science of Management, predicted that in 25 years, organizations will “have the technical capability of substituting machines for any and all human functions in organizations.” Interestingly, as scientists in New Zealand have demonstrated, an operational jet pack has proven a much more viable concept.
McKinsey and Company delivered what Ensmenger calls “Perhaps the most devastating critique of corporate computing” in a 1968 report which rocked the industry. It noted that despite “sophisticated hardware,” “larger and increasingly costly computer staffs,” and “complex and ingenious applications,” none of the major computer companies were anywhere near realizing their anticipated investment. The earlier gap in programming support, by the time of McKinsey, had reached a “software crisis.”
As demonstrated by the copious notes included at the end of the book, there were rafts of studies by, among others, Harvard Business School, to try and analyze and improve the divisions between the software and management factions. In attempts to “professionalize” the programming field, numerous societies and other organizations were formed, such as the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), and the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS).
Ensmenger culminates his study with a discussion of the 1968 NATO Conference on Software Engineering held in Rome, which he notes represented a “major turning point in the history of the industry and profession” in trying to resolve the crisis of not being able to professionalize within the corporate structure – to improve conditions for employees and to ultimately make a “switch from home-made software to manufactured software, from tinkering to engineering.” However, he ends this particular chapter by saying that the conference was ultimately a failure because the groups within the conference just couldn’t get along – with descriptives such as “sterile,” “never clicked,” and “disillusionment” featured in various post-mortems.
Grace Hopper
Still another important dynamic Ensmenger confronts is gender. According to a 1967 Cosmopolitan article, “The Computer Girls,” there were already 20,000 women working as computer programmers in the United States. Formidable programmers, such as Adm. Grace Hopper, Betty Snyder Holbertson, Jean Sammer, etc., were originally employed in post-war computing as “hackers,” who would “de-bug” computers so that they ran more efficiently and reliably. For example, Howard Aiken, who ran Harvard’s computer program during World War II for the U.S. military, came to rely heavily on Hopper, and treated her as an intellectual equal. However, in later times, with corporate appropriation of computing, women were often seen as “proxies for low-cost or low-skill labor.” For instance, a 1963 Datamation article asserted:
“Women are less aggressive and more content in one position … Women consider fringe benefits of more importance than their male peers and are more prone to stay on the job if they are content, regardless of lack of advancement. They also maintain their original geographic roots and are less willing to travel or changed job locations, particularly if they are married or engaged.”
By the late 1960s, International Business Machines (IBM) produced an ad campaign, which nowadays would be considered very politically incorrect, featuring an attractive, young, blond, bookish, and bespectacled programmer, Susie Meyer. IBM was pushing the message that women like Susie Meyer represented the type of programmer who would save corporations considerable money in software production. And … they were thought to be non-threatening within the company’s [male] management structure.
Ensmenger’s conclusion, upon seeing the relative disappearance of women from programming in the late 1960s, determined that it was largely “professionalization” that forced them out. He cites Cornell Professor Margaret Rossiter, who suggested that “professionalization nearly always requires the exclusion of women.”
Nathan Ensmenger
Though some chapters that dwell on the minutiae of programming languages might escape the average reader, Ensmenger has crafted an orderly and well-organized argument that the dynamics of managing computer firms have often been as complex as the subject matter itself. Social interaction, management structures and gender have played pivotal roles in the development of computer technology, which defy the traditional notion that mathematics and computers are somehow above such dynamics. In this important way, The Computer Boys Take Over is learned, well-documented with citations, and often humorous – with numerous period cartoons and company advertisements that nicely support the text. Such a study of computing’s early and arguably most important years, is long overdue.
