A programmer is a person who writes and tests instructions, called code, that tell a computer what to do.
From *program* + *-er*, a suffix forming nouns for people who perform an action. It grew in use with the rise of computers in the 20th century.
A programmer is really a kind of scriptwriter—but the audience is a machine that takes every line literally. The power is wild: with just text, programmers can make invisible instructions shape how millions of people live and work.
Computing and programming were heavily shaped by women in the early and mid‑20th century, but the term "programmer" became culturally coded as male as the field professionalized and was marketed toward men. Media portrayals and hiring biases in the late 20th century further reinforced the stereotype of the programmer as male.
Use "programmer" as a gender‑neutral role and avoid defaulting to male pronouns or imagery; represent programmers of varied genders in examples and illustrations.
["software developer","software engineer","coder","developer"]
When discussing the history of programming, explicitly acknowledge women such as Ada Lovelace, the ENIAC programmers, Grace Hopper, and countless others whose foundational work was often minimized or attributed to male colleagues.
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