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Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

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Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#61

Post by riprowan »

douche wrote: post #11
brandmeyer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything Google needs more different minorities if anything, for instance Latinos and Blacks. This is a much bigger problem than just the software industry in the US. I'm a Navy veteran, as a nuclear reactor plant mechanic. I remember being shocked in MEPS (the enlistment and entry processing center for all branches of the armed forces) by the number of black men enlisting in the Army and Marine infantry - it's…

Engineering, from my recollections, had probably the highest wash-out rates of any major when I was in college. It sure looks like a huge part of that is because of the math requirements - a lot of engineering programs throw you in the deep end right at the beginning, with calculus and differential equations, and then you're pretty much hosed in the subsequent coursework if that doesn't click, or you come in woefully…

> engineering programs throw you in the deep end right at the beginning

I started as a EE. My diff EQ professor literally did the stunt "look to your left, look to your right, of the three of you, only one will pass my class." I was the only caucasian to pass, but I made a D, and rather than re-take the class I decided that EE wasn't for me.

There was only one way to ace that class, and that's to live inside it. I have a very good mind for math, but I was also interested in lots of other things: music, theater, philosophy, humanities, business, politics. The same semester I had made a D in Diff EQ I had also taken a Phil 101 (Logic) class which I aced. I was also a walk-on in a play that semester.

The dean of the engineering school called me to his office to tell me I wasn't the sort of student the EE program was looking for. I left and got an MIS degree, where I could develop as a much more rounded student.

Looking back some 30 years later, I realize now that the dean was literally telling me that they don't want well-rounded EE students. He was literally telling me, in spite of being in the top 1/3 of my class (math-wise) the very fact that I wasn't willing to forgo Logic and my theater activities to become a better calculus student made me a misfit. The whole point of making Diff EQ so amazingly difficult was specifically to weed out those who did anything but study Diff EQ.

So in the end, I made the right decision for myself and my career. And I've learned a healthy suspicion of companies that tend to exclusively hire ace engineering students.

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#62

Post by [deleted] »

kenjackson wrote: post #36
wrong_internet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the consensus of scientists who actually study this is pretty strong, and supports the parent's post. Jayman has collected a nice sequence of citations on the matter, most of which are peer-reviewed: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#Race-IQ Much effort has been made to minimize the effect of poverty, stereotyping, and other non-hereditary factors in much of the literature. Most people downvoting th…

That's a horrible list of mostly the race baiting circle jerk (for lack of a better term). Even a cursory glance shows that it lacks several authors who have written papers that dispute this. Coincidence? Probably not.

[deleted]

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#63

Post by 791872919 »

jonathankoren wrote: post #44
DKnoll wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming was a 'women's job' at the time because men were intended for combat. It's exactly the same reason women were working in factories which, in peacetime, was traditionally a men's job. This is not to say that it was right, but at the same time it wasn't due to lesser ability... it was because they were still at home and not delivering the munitions whose trajectory they were calculating. I would like to add…

The facts don't back this up the assertion that this was an inherently transitory effect. Women fell out of computer science starting 1985, and hasn't gained any year since.[0] Turing was prosecuted as soon as his usefulness in the war effort ended, so I don't think they made that many bounds. And if we're going to have a good ol' oppression-off how about blacks? They weren't anywhere in programming, and sadly still…

In 1985 programming wasn't considered prestigious at all. It started after the first bubble (2000). The free software that partly made the bubble possible was almost exclusively written by male volunteers, many of whom likely had low social status.

Even today, many male OSS progammers have low status. Women in general (there are counterexamples) know this perfectly well and thus shun work in open source.

Don't tell me that it's about their treatment in OSS. Men treat each other badly in OSS, if anything, women are treated more politely (if they appear ...).

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#64

Post by socket0 »

cb18 wrote: post #37
majormajor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interested to know how you believe conflating economic, social, and geographical/geopolitical factors (e.g. clusters of poverty and their effect on upbringings) have all been filtered out of this supposed consensus conclusion.

It's called science bro, it's kind of detailed. Trust that the people doing it know what they are doing. If you'd like more information, you're free to study it. The answer to your question is relatively straightforward though, different races raised in the same circumstances have been given IQ tests. Among other techniques. Once again, this is a century old science, it's been thought through pretty well. Whatever co…

> Trust that the people doing it know what they are doing.

Science does not require trust. The wonder of the scientific method is that any old nutty crank (given the ability to convince a small panel of his peers of the merits of his crank cred) can get an article published. Then it's up to the community of malicious and slightly less nutty cranks to gleefully prove him wrong.

That's why the method goes wrong when you trust someone. Which is really hard when it's not your field, and you're just looking for someone with authority on the subject. But the reality is that the loudest voices with a lot of media time often also tend to be the nutty cranks, rather than the slightly less nutty cranks.

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#65

Post by fsloth »

wrong_internet wrote: post #31
kenjackson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

knowledge of this is scientifically sound, it is the consensus of everyone who studies it seriously. This is so untrue, I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. The overwhelming consensus by scientists at reputable top universities don't allege this at all. But I'm sure you can find it at fringe or less reputable state universities.

No, the consensus of scientists who actually study this is pretty strong, and supports the parent's post. Jayman has collected a nice sequence of citations on the matter, most of which are peer-reviewed: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/hbd-fundamentals/#Race-IQ Much effort has been made to minimize the effect of poverty, stereotyping, and other non-hereditary factors in much of the literature. Most people downvoting th…

"No, the consensus of scientists who actually study this is pretty strong,"

Lots of groups develop their own consensus. That still does not mean it's correct.

The main problem is that they want to find an arbitrary metric and then prove that there is a racial variance to it. I would claim that this is a variant of P-mining[0].

They take the concept of "IQ" within the context of the tests to be a scientifically concrete measure like height or weight (which it isn't) than then search for datasets which supports their racial superiority hypothesis.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging

Also, Any list that contains the name "Tatu Vanhanen" should be immediately suspect. He's one of the known "racial IQ" crackpots.

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#67

Post by tajen »

eaq wrote: post #54
exclusiv wrote: post #29

I don't deny that there is some history in the current representation of programmers but I don't buy that socially awkward white males are somehow oppressing diversity in general as some would suggest. When they supposedly aren't, it's a brogrammer problem and blatant sexism. Everyone wants to find someone to blame. Granted this was 9 years ago, but when I was in computer engineering we had a few classes with only 1…

> All the nerdy types flocked to her Is it unimaginable that this might be uncomfortable?

This is still blaming nerds for something they really can't do anything about.

There's really a gap between "scientific surveys" and the terrain I've seen. In my last project as contractor there were 9 male/developers and 4 females with a management title. The meantime-to-management I've seen is 2 years after graduation for women, 7 years for males. All 15% females of my 150-student class are now in management positions, 10 years after IT master's degree, and only 50% of the male students. If a women really wants to know what discrimination is, just step in as a male.

I've left companies where I wasn't promoted and created my startup 3 years ago. Sounds like my skills weren't the problem: I'm doing better than seasoned product managers who left the same company and created startups in my field, so as a developer I'm better at product management than my previous employer foresaw. But it sure seemed very important to my previous employer to promote a female team lead.

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#68

Post by okasaki »

mdpye wrote: post #59
cronjobber wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we clearly need to tell nerds they can't interact with females, because... ...help me out here. Because nerds are icky?

Because it's still a way of being singled out, even if well intentioned. Do you think they flocked for the lone woman's benefit?

What do you think?

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#69

Post by jonathankoren »

oneweekwonder wrote: post #48
jonathankoren wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The facts don't back this up the assertion that this was an inherently transitory effect. Women fell out of computer science starting 1985, and hasn't gained any year since.[0] Turing was prosecuted as soon as his usefulness in the war effort ended, so I don't think they made that many bounds. And if we're going to have a good ol' oppression-off how about blacks? They weren't anywhere in programming, and sadly still…

> and sadly still aren't. I have to disagree with you. I'm from Africa, and I can point you to many African programmers. Maybe in your country where blacks is a minority(?) you don't see black programmers. But in the last 10 years of my programming career. I worked next to black competent peers.

You're right. I did make a US centric statement. I think in my university career there was never more than 2 in my department in one year, and 1 of them was an African international student.

Re: Born for it – How the image of software developers came about

#70

Post by eva1984 »

First of all..The stereotype is mainly nerdy, socially-awkward male...but is it overall white? No. Actually the percentage of white people in software is lower than the overall demographics. I can understand why white is singled out here, because it helps to drive the rhetoric of the discussion to racism and sexism, but fundamentally the problem is much more complex.

My 2 cents about why women are underrepresented in software industry is that not too many of them are interested in the beginning.

One big drive of male programmers, according to my observation (hundreds of samples), are video games, myself included. It is stereotyping, but it is statistically significant. Gamers are overwhelmingly MALE. That is the a big reason that I got to know different parts of computer hardwares, collecting parts from markets and assemble them, and eventually being thrown into this industry. As to girls, they may not have same level of motivation as the boys had. It was in the days, when computer programming was still kind of niche profession and by no means had that much of influence as it cast on the society today, so self-motivation is important.

Fundamentally, if we want to really solve the gender issue in this industry, it is not the duty of those established software companies to force reverse sexism to artificially inflate the gender ratio, it is the early stage education system to introduce programming to wider range of people. Once it becomes universal parts of people's curriculum, the problem will be there no longer.

Disclaimer: Male, Asian, not born in US, but works here.

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