... and yes, there's an entire school of study devoted to it. It's the amazing, revolutionary idea that software should be centered on the user's tasks, not on the peculiar, extremely logical way that a programmer's brain works.

There's a software joke that's been floating around forever, describing how various people in typical software organizations go hunting for elephants in Africa. I don't remember all of them, but the programmer starts at the Cape of Good Hope, and proceeds in a westerly, then easterly direction, picking up every object in his path and comparing it to a known elephant. It's funny because it so accurately describes how programmers have learned to think in order to interact with computers. It's a very useful skill, but a very weird one when compared to daily life.

Programmers in any software organizations are first and foremost, programmers. They are not domain experts in the software they are building--finance, writing, photography, college financial aid, construction estimating, or what have you. They have to rely on designers for all that knowledge, yet designers are few and far between, stretched too thin, and leave too many design decisions up to the programmer. That same programmer who is proceeding in an easterly then westerly direction picking up objects.

That's not to say that this study doesn't have merit. But rather than looking at why more women don't feel confident about computers, why not ask why more software isn't designed with its target user base in mind? Perhaps women are less forgiving of poor design, and have better things to do than crawl inside a programmer's brain to figure out how the damn thing works.

People shouldn't have to learn to be a system administrator to do even advanced tasks on their software. The software should accomodate them, using the language and traditions of whatever profession is at hand, rather than requiring the user to turn his or her head upside down to use it.

If I want to clean my house, do I need to know about volts and amps and engine speed and belt tension on my vacuum? Nope, I just turn it on and figure out if it sucks up the dog hair or not. My vacuum is well-designed in that it's inner workings are invisible. Turn it on, and it goes. Empty the bag. That's it.

We have a long, long way to go before software has achieved the kind of seamless design we expect of a microwave, a vacuum cleaner, or a toaster.

... came from a Unitarian friend of mine. I'm not a Unitarian, but I like what they believe, in the ability to use the wonderfully rational brain we were all born with.

My friend taught Unitarian Sunday school for many years, and even wrote some of their educational materials.

The nugget of truth? (Drumroll please)

"It's OK to change your mind."

Wow. That was mindblowing to me, raised as a conservative Catholic, that I could tell that to my kids. That when they ask me about God and Jesus, I can say "Jesus was a man who lived a long time ago, and some people believe (this or that). You can believe what you want. And you can change your mind."

But I agree in principle with Cary. Go with your daughter. See it in the same light as participating together in an art class, or a father-daughter Girl Scout camping trip... anything she might do that is particularly important to her, be a part of it. Don't lie or tell her anything that's not true. But go with her.

By the way, you also might buy some non-judgemental National Geographic type books on world religions to have around the house as general background reading for her to find.

Thanks for the great letter.

I am trying so hard NOT to do this to my kids.

I just left a soccer game, where my fourth grade son is an average player. He likes to play, he likes being on the team, he likes being with his friends, but he is never going to set the world of soccer on fire. It's ok, he's playing on a parks and rec team where they're still giving the kids equal playing time, and equal time to try out all the positions. There are some kids on his team who are seriously gifted. He ain't one of them.

My daughter tried soccer for one year, had to be dragged to every practice and game, and hated it. She's trying music lessons now, and begs to practice. They're all such different little beasts, I'm trying very hard to encourage their strengths, help them where they need help, and get out of the way.

Science fair is another one where I do my best to help them come up with experiments, and let them do their own projects. It's extremely obvious on elementary school science fair night which kids have parents who are amateur graphic designers, and which kids did their own projects with markers and crayons. Mine are definitely in the markers and crayons set, though I help with spelling.