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Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

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Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#91

Post by inimino »

OJFord wrote: post #27

> As a positive point, all the females in our cohort got dev jobs, including the only one who actually failed the class. Startups are pretty aware of the gender discrepancy and actively looking to hire those with double x chromosomes. Not complaining about affirmative action, just wanted to give you as full picture as possible You should be complaining! Especially given the rest of your story. This kind of thing is s…

I downvoted you for being smart enough to expect downvotes, but not to see the first, most absolutely obvious rejoinder to the facile argument you presented.

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#92

Post by knopkop »

trymas wrote: post #65
ramses0 wrote: post #29

Before going through a dev-bootcamp, I recommend (especially if you're a coder already) to get her through Learn Python The Hard Way. https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ Best case it'll take less than a month (2 exercises per day, 52 exercises), is basically free, and if she's happy with everything at the end of it, she'll be FAR more prepared to jump feet-first into a dev bootcamp. I compare learning to program…

I could not resist... but do you want to confuse her with python2 vs python3? When python2 should be out of the question, even if it's default on macOS. Though to be fair the difference should be learned, but it shouldn't be promoted to learn python2 for beginners. It will just confuse them. Even though many years have passed, but I think soon many libraries and frameworks will not support python2 at all (e.g. Django…

https://learnpythonthehardway.org/python3/intro.html

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#93

Post by nip »

trymas wrote: post #65
ramses0 wrote: post #29

Before going through a dev-bootcamp, I recommend (especially if you're a coder already) to get her through Learn Python The Hard Way. https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ Best case it'll take less than a month (2 exercises per day, 52 exercises), is basically free, and if she's happy with everything at the end of it, she'll be FAR more prepared to jump feet-first into a dev bootcamp. I compare learning to program…

I could not resist... but do you want to confuse her with python2 vs python3? When python2 should be out of the question, even if it's default on macOS. Though to be fair the difference should be learned, but it shouldn't be promoted to learn python2 for beginners. It will just confuse them. Even though many years have passed, but I think soon many libraries and frameworks will not support python2 at all (e.g. Django…

Your remarks are extremely sound. The good news is that LPTHW is now Python 3[1] :)

[1] https://learnpythonthehardway.org/python3/

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#94

Post by owebmaster »

dsacco wrote: post #57
jen729w wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called "positive discrimination" for a reason. We're positively discriminating to the benefit of women (or minorities, or whomever) now, to make up for the decades of negative discrimination that these groups have suffered. Don't think it's fair? Interesting feeling, eh. Not very nice, eh. Be glad you haven't suffered it for literally your entire life.

Something seems off to me intuitively about "positive discrimination", as you've described it. It doesn't really seem fair to be unfair to an individual because, in the aggregate, that individual's group has been unfair to others in the past (and even the present). Sort of feels like an emotionally charged way of righting the wrong, rather than a rational one...or even an effective one.

This remembers me of how germans has to hear quietly about their nazi grandparents.

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#95

Post by OJFord »

inimino wrote: post #91
OJFord wrote: post #27

> As a positive point, all the females in our cohort got dev jobs, including the only one who actually failed the class. Startups are pretty aware of the gender discrepancy and actively looking to hire those with double x chromosomes. Not complaining about affirmative action, just wanted to give you as full picture as possible You should be complaining! Especially given the rest of your story. This kind of thing is s…

I downvoted you for being smart enough to expect downvotes, but not to see the first, most absolutely obvious rejoinder to the facile argument you presented.

Sample size of 1 each way? Sure, I suppose the quote just encapsulated something I frequently see, and think is beyond idiotic.

I'm young enough that the world I see being prepared for those not that much younger than me is, I think, going to be completely reversed from the motivation for the change.

I've tried to sign up for (technical) events and talks at my university because they sounded interesting, only to be told 'this is a women-only event'.

It would never even occur to me to hold a 'men-only talk on the latest foobar technique'; I suspect if I did, and refused to change my access policy, I'd be widely disparaged and perhaps kicked out!

Equality - fine. Positive discrimination is just discrimination, and at some point it will be 'traditional, negative' discrimination.

It's like the equality v equity cartoon - only the smaller box doesn't exist, and the middle-size child isn't short enough to qualify for a box: http://interactioninstitute.org/illustrating-equality-vs-equ...

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#96

Post by owebmaster »

jen729w wrote: post #67
michaelmrose wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Male 1 and Female 1 wherein female 1 was unfairly discriminated against. How does it follow that if you unfairly privilege female 2 in favor of male 2 that you have somehow made up for the original injustice. A rational though process would be that this just adds to the sum of injustice in the world. I'm perhaps presuming to much but with a name that begins with Jen which is often a short or familiar form of Je…

They're my initials. I'm a 40 year old white English guy called John. I believe my life thus far has been tremendously more easy than a 40 year old black woman's would have been. Do you disagree? Edit: here's a concrete example. I've basically been offered every job interview I've gone for. I'm good at my job, no doubt, but in some of those cases I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been the strongest candidate. But - for…

> I believe my life thus far has been tremendously more easy than a 40 year old black woman's would have been. Do you disagree?

The "funny" thing is that we are heading to a situation where the "positive" discrimination in favor of women will affect the weak side, the black/brown man, and they are not privilleged, of course. Now we have double negative discrimination.

BTH, if it wasn't so common for women to waste lot of hours everyday with cosmetic and aesthetic stuff, they would have more time to study computers and suffer less harassment. Win-win.

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#97

Post by OJFord »

jen729w wrote: post #54
OJFord wrote: post #27

> As a positive point, all the females in our cohort got dev jobs, including the only one who actually failed the class. Startups are pretty aware of the gender discrepancy and actively looking to hire those with double x chromosomes. Not complaining about affirmative action, just wanted to give you as full picture as possible You should be complaining! Especially given the rest of your story. This kind of thing is s…

It's called "positive discrimination" for a reason. We're positively discriminating to the benefit of women (or minorities, or whomever) now, to make up for the decades of negative discrimination that these groups have suffered. Don't think it's fair? Interesting feeling, eh. Not very nice, eh. Be glad you haven't suffered it for literally your entire life.

> Be glad you haven't suffered it for literally your entire life.

I am. I'm young enough, though, that I'm acutely aware that the roles are going to be completely reversed for men not that much younger.

I've been unable to attend technical talks at my university that sounded interesting, because they're 'women-only'. There are exclusive events, clubs, networking for women - but of course there aren't equivalents for men! Disassociate yourself from the poor fool who dare suggest such a horrid thing!

I'm all for equality, but manifestly not for 'positive discrimination'. At some point, the tables will turn, and the generation of men below me will perhaps have this feeling of having 'suffered it for literally [their] entire life', and will want to positively discriminate back.

Or, we could just consider people on their merits, rather than their gender. Y'know, what women say they want?

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#98

Post by yahyaheee »

If she wants to be a software engineer, tell her to teach herself. I think the reason why many of the graduates don't get jobs is because Tech is really hard, and almost all of it you have to figure out yourself to be a good engineer. A lot of the boot camp attendees are the type that need to be taught, it actually looks better if you teach yourself. It shows your independence and drive, which are very hirable qualities in Tech. That said a good mentor can go a long way too (there are plenty of those for free as well) :)

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#99

Post by owebmaster »

DanBC wrote: post #89
patrickg_zill wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt view: for at least the last 500 years of Western civilization, women have always had a more comfortable and safer life than an equivalent man living at the same time and of the same class. Men died in wars, suffered injury and death in jobs, etc. There's money in software development and women want it. Note the lack of "positive discrimination" for jobs like coal mining, or any other profession on the top ten mos…

> Note the lack of "positive discrimination" for jobs like coal mining, Come on, that's lazy and dishonest. You can do better than trot out that well worn, dumb, troll point.

You are the real troll here. What he said is right. Don't you think men in coal mining would also prefer work with software development?

Re: Ask HN: What should I tell my cousin who wants to go to a “coding boot camp”?

#100

Post by DanBC »

owebmaster wrote: post #99
DanBC wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note the lack of "positive discrimination" for jobs like coal mining, Come on, that's lazy and dishonest. You can do better than trot out that well worn, dumb, troll point.

You are the real troll here. What he said is right. Don't you think men in coal mining would also prefer work with software development?

The troll point is that there are no programmes to get women into mining (or other high risk / low pay industry) - that's untrue, and it's easy to check with a simple web search.

It's lazy, and it's so frequently used and debunked that it's indistinguishable from trolling at this point.

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