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How would you are feeling if Google shut down for a day? With certainty, a lot of your burning questions would go unanswered. If a query and reply website like Stack Overflow skilled the identical destiny, many programmers would such expertise excessive frustration–I do know I might!
Stack Overflow attracts over 50 million programmers every month, the place they be taught and share information amongst friends. It’s a group I depend on in my position as a Knowledge Analyst at Traackr.
Final month, we introduced that Traackr is the primary influencer advertising platform to combine Stack Overflow information and GitHub content material, enabling our prospects to seek out influential builders and actual consultants within the engineering business. That is large for the organizations seeking to develop and nurture their developer evangelists and influential group packages.
I used to be a part of the staff that labored on this integration and curiously, I needed to marvel, “Who’re the highest contributors to Stack Overflow?” So I appeared to Traackr to seek out out.
Analyzing 1000’s of Subjects on Stack Overflow to Uncover High Contributors
To be able to supply the platform’s prime contributors, we gathered 1000’s of Stack Overflow tags in areas related to the Stack Overflow group, together with:
- Programming languages
- Algorithms
- Generally used software program instruments, and so on.
After analyzing these matter tags on Stack Overflow, I discovered that solely ~2 % of the highest answerers are identifiable as ladies (‘prime answerers’ as outlined by Stack Overflow itself), which I believed was attention-grabbing, albeit a bit of disappointing. On the identical time, I discovered nice leaders amongst these 2 %, and right here is my decide of the ten most influential ladies on Stack Overflow, proficient in numerous technical fields.
- Michelle Tilley
- Linda Lawton
- Kirti Thorat
- Deborah Kurata
- Chiu-Ki Chan
- Jennifer Marsman
- Lea Verou
- Kate Gregory
- Christina Arasmo
- Carol Skelly
These rock-stars are additionally energetic on their blogs, Twitter, and GitHub accounts, and so on., which, along with their ‘fame’ and ‘folks reached’ on Stack Overflow drives their Attain and Resonance on Traackr’s platform. Learn extra about Traackr metrics and scoring methodology.
Recognizing the Main Females in STEM
STEM jobs are rising quicker than some other U.S. sector, however 84 % of the working professionals presently in science and engineering jobs within the U.S are white or Asian males.
Consequently, many main tech corporations are lacking out on the great advantages of getting a various workforce that brings a wide-range of concepts, experiences and approaches to the desk–essential components for creating an progressive spirit.
As a query and reply website for skilled and fanatic programmers, Stack Overflow is a group the place many freshmen primarily learn to code, so it’s undoubtedly inspirational for ladies who learn to code on Stack Overflow to see ladies amongst its prime contributors.
Discovering What Led These Ladies to their Careers in Programming
To be taught much more about these ladies, I reached out to them to listen to their tales about what led them to their careers in programming. Two tales actually stood out to me, as a result of they spotlight the significance of ongoing schooling and studying–simply the kind of factor Stack Overflow makes doable!
“The way in which I began getting excited by laptop science is a bit of foolish, I used to be in highschool at the moment and my elder sister determined to take up Laptop Science for her Masters and in doing so we bought our first laptop at residence. She would spend a whole lot of time programming on it and me being me, I believed it was my proper to bother her on a regular basis. I might learn her notes, watch her programming and begin prompting from behind her whereas she was coding. That have really made me tremendous excited by laptop science, it was like a complete new world for me the place I might make a pc do issues. It was magic! I really like difficult myself and downside fixing offers me a thrill. Programming permits me to just do that, determine environment friendly methods to unravel a given downside. I like to be taught new issues and that is one of many explanation why I really like working as a developer. Know-how retains altering and there may be all the time one thing new that I can be taught, it by no means will get boring. Just lately, I’ve been engaged on creating Knowledge Science expertise and moving into R programming. At all times continue learning, it is enjoyable!” – Kirti Thorat
“After I was 11, we visited some household within the US. I used to be into computer systems already, so my uncle took me to CompUSA. I used to be obsessive about fonts on the time, so I used to be in search of software program that will let me design my very own fonts. Sadly, I could not discover something of the like, solely CDs with font collections. Nevertheless, throughout that search, some software program referred to as Multimedia Fusion caught my eye. It enabled you to construct functions visually, with out writing any code. I all the time preferred making issues, and coding appeared very daunting on the time, so that basically appealed to me. Fortunately, my mother purchased it for me, I believe it was about $100. A couple of yr after utilizing it for a number of hours a day, I made a decision I used to be able to be taught an actual programming language. For anybody questioning, I did finally discover font design software program, a few decade later :).” – Lea Verou
Reflecting on my Personal Journey into Programming
For many people, beginner {and professional} programmers, the journey began considerably by accident.
In highschool I liked constructing easy web sites, and with my fundamental information of HTML and internet design, I created a fan web site for Hollywood actor Edward Furlong, which grew to become fairly common (embarrassing and proud reminiscence on the identical time).
After getting a level in linguistics, I began working in localization, and, finally, my profession took me to information evaluation. I depend on Stack Overflow myself each time I have to debug my automation scripts or be taught a brand new know-how, so figuring out the highest contributors was an attention-grabbing investigation.
The significance of recognizing ladies in STEM has additionally been on my thoughts for a very long time, so, naturally, I used to be particularly curious to be taught in regards to the influential ladies on Stack Overflow. It was an incredible pleasure for me to find out about a lot of them, not solely the highest 10 within the record above, and I used to be joyful to have an opportunity to succeed in out and chat with a few of them.
Be taught Extra about Traackr’s Stack Overflow Integration
I’m proud to be a part of the staff that by no means stops innovating, and enabling Traackr’s integration with Stack Overflow information and GitHub content material is only one of such progressive initiatives. In case you’d wish to be taught extra, get in contact with us.
