Researcher question – what's the point of semicolons and curly braces?

[Observer via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 3 May 2016 at 20:54:05 UTC, Observer wrote:
> I have to say, not to be too negative, ...

Let me turn that around and suggest something in a positive light.
If the researcher wants to investigate social phenomena around
programming and gender, then I suspect that a more fruitful
approach would be to find out what types of problems are being
taught, and whether or not those issues are terribly interesting
(or not) to specific genders.  For instance, if I were female,
I suspect I might be interested in how variations of knit1-purl2
patterns turn into fantastic patterns on knitted sweaters.  And on
whether I might be able to program a knitting machine to carry
out a complex design.  I might also be interested in programming
sewing patterns for various garments of my own design, and on
learning how to scale the patterns for various sizes, particularly
if the class had access to a large-format plotter for output.
Even better would be if students could send off designs to get
them laser-cut, so they could then sew them up and make some fun
clothes or costumes to wear.  But do present instructors think to
come up with such approaches?

The point is, be more expansive about what attracts people or
discourages people from particular disciplines.  You could, in
effect, be mirroring the plaint of one of my high-school's biology
teachers.  He wanted to know why most of the best-and-brightest
students gravitated more toward physics than biology.  Myself,
it was because I didn't care to work around smelly pathogens.
But everyone will have their own reasons for making such choices.