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Ada Lovelace Day 2013: Thanks for the HTML (and great conversations)

Ada Lovelace Day is an annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and maths, and a good time to say thanks. There are two women whom I’ve never properly thanked for what they taught me: Cynsa Bonorris and Laura LeMay.

I originally met Cynsa and Laura online through the WeLL‘s genx conference. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I’ve ever met them in person more than once. But through discussions there, they both got me interested in and excited about this new thing called HTML back in 1993 or ’94. Cynsa spent several hours online with me one evening explaining how it worked, using one of her own pages as an example. I probably wouldn’t have gotten so interested in web development were it not for that conversation. Laura’s technical writing helped me to take that interest and go further with it. Her book Teach Yourself HTML in a Week helped me to understand it in more depth, and later on when I got introduced to Java, Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days was my bible. I probably wouldn’t understand classes if it weren’t for Laura’s work.

So Cynsa, Laura: thank you both. I hope you’re continuing to help other folks get interested in and empowered by technology.

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