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Being a Developer After 40

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271–280 of 583 posts

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#271

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…

You won't understand because you fall in that category. But trust when it's said. You avoid certain challenges because of your race and sex and that is a given.

That said, that doesn't mean that you sailed through life on a magic carpet with things handed to you.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#272
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but 1- it doesn't compare to what, for example, black or chinese people or native americans suffered historically And that doesn't compare to what Jews went through 50 years ago. What's your point? There's always a bigger sob story around the corner. You deal with it and move on . The moving on part is important. > whereas prejudice against "people of color" is still very much alive. And that prejudice will amplify…

We pretended that institutional racism wasn't sown into the fabric of our society for decades and did nothing about it. The net effect is that nothing changed for minorities, because we've proven that we won't change our behavior without incentives. > And that prejudice will amplify if you continue treating people of color differently. Do you have a source for this? Such policy has real concrete effects with statisti…

> Do you have a source for this?

Yeah. It's called deductive reasoning.

You scream about the evils of racism and what harm it's done to our society ... and your solution is more racism, just in the opposite direction? Smart.

How about no racism at all? I think that's better.

> Mainly, that you blame other people for your problems, specifically minorities, which is an odd conclusion to come to.

It is an absolutely odd conclusion to come to. It would make more sense to blame people like you. Unfortunately, human beings aren't purely logical and when they see another person at the job they should have had ... they blame that person, rather than the policy that put them there.

What's worse, nobody knows if that policy is at fault or not ... so people assume that they got fucked over, because it's always easier to blame someone else than yourself. So you've now created a society that resents success, because it's assumed that success only comes to the privileged classes like minorities, etc, rather than to those who earned it.

Congrats on making a full circle.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#273
post #246
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staffs and Permanents are very well paid, even Fellows considering you pay no taxes and you get free UNICA healthcare which is insanely good compared to what you get in Switzerland (it's worth 1.2k CHF monthly, can cover your whole family). It often does sucks if you work at CERN for some university, the salary then depends on their rates, and often you don't know where you will be in 2 years, but you still get UNICA…

Staffs and Permanents, even Fellows are by and large from Western Europe. In particular senior staff positions (ie. decision making). Just look at any orgchart in any division.

Which makes sense given that these countries contribute the most to the funding of CERN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Member_states_and_budget

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#274
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I do. And a larger % I work with are over 30 rather than under 30.

If you're talking about the internet, a decade is a long time and an important distinction. We're not talking about a 32 year old dev. I mean hell I know plenty of early 30s folks. 40 years ago was 1976. We're talking about people who were born not too long after we landed on the moon (or even before). There's just not a lot of people that age who both went into programming and are still doing it, as opposed to manag…

Programming is a skilled labor, not a profession, in that you are "supposed" to do it for a couple years and then move on. Like teens used to work at McDonalds and give weird looks to the creepy 30 yr old guy still working fast food.

When its not noteworthy for programmers to have an age distribution similar to the greater population, or for experience to be respected instead of being made fun of, then programming will finally become a profession rather than a semi-skilled labor.

Personally I don't mind being made fun of by the kids... I get a lot of money cleaning up their inexperienced mistakes.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I've heard this assertion made many times in recent years, but I don't recall any reasoned arguments for why the listener should accept it as a moral imperative. Since the assertion clearly isn't something we'll all…

This is actually the biggest issue I have with the intersection of social justice and the technology industry. The concepts of "white privilege" and "stereotype threat" are borne of the non-falsifiable, non-reproducibility "science" of sociology departments everywhere. Here on HN, where people ostensibly require the weight of evidence to accept a concept, I would expect nearly 100% of people to reject this evidence-f…

> This is actually the biggest issue I have with the intersection of social justice and the technology industry. The concepts of "white privilege" and "stereotype threat" are borne of the non-falsifiable, non-reproducibility "science" of sociology departments everywhere.

I wasn't suggesting that because moral claims are metaphysical in nature, they're automatically wrong or meaningless.

Just that because no such arguments are offered at all, the best the author can hope for is that the argument either strikes the listeners as obviously true, or prods the listeners into further consideration which leads them to the same conclusion.

My point was simply that the only chance he has of convincing some of us (including me) of his assertion is to actually do the work of presenting a decent argument, which he hasn't done.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are talking about America, certain white people certainly profited from stirring up racism here for centuries. We don't even have to look back to when slavery was legal, the blatant use of racism and dog-whistle politics to gain white racist's votes is well documented as being the core tenet to the Southern strategy.

Some white people a long time ago had slaves, therefore all white people including those that immigrated just recently are unfairly privileged. Yawn. It's such a nonsensical argument that I'm surprised anyone can even use it in a non sarcastic way.

daily reminder that universities indoctrinate students.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#277

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement I was about to patiently type out another "hey, you did work hard and you did earn your success - 'white privilege' doesn't mean things were handed to you easily; it means that even though your life has been hard y…

"white privilege" is just a term to coup out of the economic slavery that liberals/progressives in power put upon their constituencies. Call it what it is. The democratic party needs to enable minorities in particular by creating middle class opportunity through deep education entrenchments in lower income enclaves - aka. inner cities. This isn't 1963 anymore. We are WELL past that, so if someone uses this term one more time ... you are just validating that you fail to motivate yourself around your situation. We all deal with them, so be of the belief you go around them, not over. To me ... Democrats to not serve me ... let alone their own base.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have stuck with Oracle and Java or spent my career in Mainframes And last I heard, there are tons of job openings asking for experts in Oracle and Java. So how exactly would that have been terrible in terms of getting a steady income?

Well enough if you want a traditional 9-5 job (which is fine if it suits you) - pity Java is such a PITA to work with though and Oracle do charge a lot! for there product. Trouble is if your company pivots and you have been doing Mainframe COBOL for 20 years - you might find transitioning to a new language hard.

I would happily go back to mainframes if given the opportunity. I miss the days of the "priesthood of the computer". I sorely miss linear languages like COBOL and PL. Yes, yes, I'm old fashioned, but man, were those the days. I miss programming on my 8-bit Commodore 64, praying I wouldn't run out of space on my floppy drive. Anyone remember Creative Computing magazine. I wrote every program in every issue for quite some time.

Now? I'm stuck working for a salary in a job that pays the bills. I live in Texas (I know, I know) where IT salaries are already low. Texas has that "right to work" mentality. My bosses are not real IT guys in the sense that they love IT. They're in it for the salary, whereas I'm in it because I still love it after a span of pushing bits over three decades. I would retire only if I won the lottery, but if I did that, I would likely buy a Z-Series mainframe and spend my days playing.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop calling it a problem. Why is it a problem that preferences differ? Is it a problem that more women aren't miners or plumbers?

Because we don't completely know whether preferences differ, or whether cultural biases cause those preferences to differ. I have a young boy and a girl. They are pushed into so many gendered roles from such a young age I have a really hard time trying to figure out what they actually like, versus what society tells them they should like. My son recently picked up a pink toy in a store and said "I can't have this one…

Worth looking at this before assuming that "society has pushed him".

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-pr...

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement I was about to patiently type out another "hey, you did work hard and you did earn your success - 'white privilege' doesn't mean things were handed to you easily; it means that even though your life has been hard y…

> basic rights we take for granted (for example, walking into a store and not being treated as a potential thief, or having prospective interviewers assume we're professional/literate/presentable) are actually privileges that many people or color don't have. You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right? You know that 'White Pr…

I'll keep this polite and assume you're intelligent and informed, a courtesy you did not extend to me.

     You are aware that Irish and Eastern Europeans, and on and off through history Greek and Italian, have had all those same problems right?
I'm very, very aware of that fact. Hey, for the record, I'm partly Welsh. The Welsh have been oppressed by everybody! They're pretty damn white.

Literally nobody is denying that Italians, Irish, Eastern Europeans, or people from unfashionable parts of Brussels, or your mother's uncle's cousin from Estonia, have faced discrimination at various points in time, and perhaps still do today.

     White Privilege should just be called White Devil.
I won't try and change your opinion, but you should at least understand what the concept of "white privilege" means.

It absolutely does not imply that white people are bad, or that white people are devils, or anything of the sort.

The concept of white privilege is a way of viewing things that challenges us to observe freedoms that we as white people have that others don't always enjoy.

For example: as a white person, if a cop pulls me over, I may be treated unfairly. But whatever happens, I generally know that I won't be treated badly because of my race. He certainly didn't pull me over because I'm fucking part Welsh, I can tell you that! Black people don't have that privilege. Now, 99% of the time, maybe their race doesn't have anything to do with their interactions with the police. Most cops are good people. But wouldn't it suck to be black and never really know if a cop was going to treat you badly simply because you're black? And that at least once or twice in your life, it probably will happen? That's some bullshit I don't really ever have to deal with in my life. A privilege I have, if you will.

Now, like I said above, I can't help but wonder if we do need some new terminology here.

I am certain that I have not changed your mind. Again, I'm just defining the concept for you. You can agree with it or disagree with it at this point. That's cool. But your post made it very clear that you had no understanding of the concept. Probably because the term "white privilege" itself was a turn-off. You probably thought it was an attack on white people. It's not.

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