Notes from an earlier era, when computer science was still emerging (separating from mathematics & engineering) and a lot of legitimate work was still “stamp collecting”.*

I remember (I was a kid but watched it — I was fascinated by all things computing thanks to the Apollo program) that in the 70s and early 80s nobody had any idea who might make good a good programmer so would hire musicians, philosophy majors, poets, and math majors. Also a disproportionate number of women, still a small number in that more sexist age, but more than traditional engineering professions in that age. And you can see reflected in the two authors of this paper.

* I used the scare quotes around “stamp collecting” in case the term is unfamiliar and comes off as denigrating, which it is not. The term is not mine: it reflects that most fields start out that way (botany, zoology, biology, chemistry, physics...) until there is a large enough corpus for people to start reasoning about them.