I have daughters and was not able to get them interested in any computer unless it involves games or social media.
But the boys they hang out with are the same way- games only, for the most part.
While I played a lot of games on my computer as a youth, I also spent a lot of time trying to program games. Today, I'm a developer.
Because of kids' fascination with their phones and tablets, and because programming isn't a "normal" thing on computers, I really don't have high hopes for the future of the development community at all, much less for the future of women in this field.
But, getting back to the topic of my daughters, my experience has been that:
1. If given the choice, they would not choose the constructive, mechanical toys I grew up with where they might get into robotics or mechanical engineering (e.g. Thames & Kosmos or Mindstorms) although one enjoyed putting a tin can robot together.
2. They also would not choose the electrical kits to put things together and get into electrical engineering, although I did get a kit and my daughters played with them a few times. It just took too much time and attention to have anything happen, and when it did, it wasn't exciting the way it was for me as a kid- it was boring compared to their phones and tablets.
3. As for development, I was able to show one of my daughters how they could play music by programming in emulator of an old computer, but they had little interest. I was able to get that daughter to work with me to use Scratch to program something for about an hour and she really liked it, but she's not asked about it since.
Today's environment is just not the same. As much as parents who are developers try to get their kids into development, I just see it as a losing battle.
What the world needs is an operating system (or systems) or even an application or set of applications that almost everyone would want to use that require programming in some form or fashion to accomplish everyday tasks better.
But, iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, Linux and most applications that people use and games people play- they don't really work like that so much. You can get by without learning to code as a casual user, and the bar is so high now to create anything that a casual user would actually want to use or play. The closest thing to it really is a spreadsheet application or rules in an email application, and most users barely use those.
We have Minecraft which had the potential to create legions of people interested in programming, but the reality is that it's an awful awful introduction to programming.
Microsoft could, if they port it to a sensible language and structure, drag in millions of young programmers.
> Microsoft could, if they port it to a sensible language and structure, drag in millions of young programmers.
The first thing I would like them to do is include some form of programming tools with Windows. On a Mac[1], you have Python, Perl, and Ruby available on a default installation, and you get XCode for free from the App Store. A fresh installation of Windows, OTOH, is a barren wasteland in comparison, and the effort it takes to change that is significantly higher.
[1] On GNU/Linux, *BSD you have at least Perl installed, and on most Linux distros Python is part of the base system, too.
Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition is considered a top-notch programming environment... and it's free.
It would be the perfect place to put something with built in programming hooks into Minecraft.
And... there is already too many people putting too much garbage on devices that people don't need... last thing we need is being loaded down with crap - whether Python, perl or Visual Studios - on a default install of Windows.
(Why the F* is Candy Crap included with Windows 10 now? Much less Note and other crap that should be opt-in... not clean install > remove, remove, remove... /rant)
> Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition is considered a top-notch programming environment... and it's free.
Free but closed-source. Kids should also learn the value and power of Freedom.