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Computer Science Education

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Re: Computer Science Education

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been somewhere where it was clear everyone noticed you didn't 'fit in'?

That's not possible in the tech field because the tech field is very diverse. With the high immigrant %, most people do not fit in because there is no majority/in-group. The demographic is fragmented with the immigrant groups clustering by native language and country of origin. You end up with maybe 30-40% Americans in an engineering team.

I didn't mean specifically in the tech field.

My peers in undergrad computer science were as you described, except I would estimate 60-70% Americans, 95% male 5% female.

I now work for a small-ish company with ~25 developers on a few different teams. All men.

I understand that this is anecdotal, though not uncommon.

Re: Computer Science Education

#242
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people "do just fine in their lives" without knowing how to read. This is discussing how to "be an educated citizen", a far higher bar. An educated citizen: * can have an informed opinion about the NSA's definition of "collecting" information [0]. * when told "we need to make sure that this list of 100,000 URLs are all valid websites", doesn't respond "wow, we'll need to hire a big team". * can reason about…

Citizens don't need to be educated, they need to listen to people that are. The problem lately (possibly always) is that the information exchange is being intercepted by special interests.

The educated are themselves special interests, even if not paid by external sources

And too close a following to the "educated" leads to the rise of your special interests; if it wasn't possible to turn the minds of many by using only a few, there wouldn't be anything worth intercepting

The trouble, i think, is that we assume the educated are educated, when they are not, and the educated are sincere, when they are not, and the educated are made of higher moral fiber, when they most certainly are not.

Re: Computer Science Education

#243
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue was that people with disabilities across the country (i.e. non-Berkeley-students) were suing Berkeley for not making their videos disabled-friendly. What the f#$k? Suing because their videos are not "disabled-friendly"? What does that even mean? God, the lawsuit trigger-happiness of some people...

> "disabled-friendly"? What does that even mean? I'd say lawsuits such these would be far fewer if people were at least aware of the existence of disabled people, and spend a modicum of attention on how to enable their participation in society. "video" being latin for "to see" may provide a clue as to the type of disability that could have trouble accessing this content. I'm not familiar enough with the subtleties of…

> Laws for disability access are a collective decision to break with purely economic rationality

but which collective?

> It's the same that's at play when we don't torture drug dealers to get them to give up their suppliers.

I disagree a similar situation is at play.

Re: Computer Science Education

#244
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. That is like saying that an educated citizen must: * have an informed opinion on current Emission standards * be able to change oil on their own car * could describe how a 4-stroke engine works Replace the computer with a car and you will see that what you consider basic knowledge is not basic to most people. They rely on experts for advice, opinion, and guidance.

People often forget, but educating the masses is a challenge that was discussed in length by the Founding Fathers of America as being a cornerstone of a successful democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers Education of the masses was believed to be instrumental to avoiding tyranny of the majority which was a very real concern (especially since so many Founding Fathers came to America escaping rel…

Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers themselves came to America as religious refugees?

Of the 145 people who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have clearly immigrated for reasons (business, military or education) other than religious persecution. I only see evidence of one (Daniel Roberdeau, whose father was a Huguenot living in the West Indies) having had religious persecution as a recent proximal cause of immigration to the Americas. The rest are unclear, although it seems that a few of the Presbyterian Scots might have had religious reasons for immigrating.

So, short answer, if anybody else cares, virtually none (1-5%) of America's founding fathers immigrated due to persecution as a minority faith.

Re: Computer Science Education

#245
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere I've been begs for female applicants. I feel like the low numbers of women trying to get into tech is a fantastic example of how market forces do not solve everything. There is an enormous gap between the supply of female applicants and the demand for them with little change in sight. To any women reading this comment. Places are desperate to hire you so do not be afraid to apply at places where you feel y…

Plus, it was discovered that when looking at the list of requirements for a job offering, women wouldn't apply if they didn't meet some requirement, while men would apply as long as they met ~3 of the requirements.

Do you have a source for this?

Not criticizing, just want citations for my interesting fact/study results.

Re: Computer Science Education

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine someone unable to read - they lose access to an important source of information. Lacking basic computer literacy is similar - they lose access to news, modern encyclopedias, research, political announcements, etc. Those resources are critical to being an educated citizen and being able to participate in the democratic process meaningfully. An educated driver may not be able to explain in technical detail how…

basic computer literacy != learning to code

Computer science != learning to code

Re: Computer Science Education

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere I've been begs for female applicants. I feel like the low numbers of women trying to get into tech is a fantastic example of how market forces do not solve everything. There is an enormous gap between the supply of female applicants and the demand for them with little change in sight. To any women reading this comment. Places are desperate to hire you so do not be afraid to apply at places where you feel y…

OK, so could you help me understand something? I certainly can see how there could be some injustice in the gap between men and women in the industry. And I could certainly see how the lack of perspective from women causes decisions that are suboptimal in some contexts. There are probably some companies in some subindustries that would benefit from hiring women programmers. But every company being desperate to hire w…

I see it as related to what you are saying. You will be more likely to have software features or whatever you are designing have features that are applicable to women. You'll think of problems that men don't notice - the classic is startups full of 20 something guys solve different problems that women, such as women with families. Women just face different experiences than men. Similarly, someone from China will probably have a different idea about some things than someone from the US. Companies avoid sexist choices - a female friend who was a layer was at a place that had an offsite activity where women couldn't be members at a golf club (really!). The women you have will be more comfortable if they are not a super rare bird. An office with women should have supplies in the bathroom like tampons. A company with men might think of razors or deoderant but not that.

Re: Computer Science Education

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often forget, but educating the masses is a challenge that was discussed in length by the Founding Fathers of America as being a cornerstone of a successful democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers Education of the masses was believed to be instrumental to avoiding tyranny of the majority which was a very real concern (especially since so many Founding Fathers came to America escaping rel…

Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers themselves came to America as religious refugees? Of the 145 people who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have…

Perhaps, but the strong religious motivations for the early colonies is well documented. [1]

> Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe.

Even from the article you link quotes a wide range of religious beliefs:

> Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), 21 were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons).[19] Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists.

And of special note most of the prominent Founding Fathers most Americans would recognize were either anti-clerical Christians or not specifically Christian or Deists:

> A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians such as Thomas Jefferson,[20][21][22] who constructed the Jefferson Bible, and Benjamin Franklin.

> Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid "theistic rationalism".

So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers.

[1] https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

Re: Computer Science Education

#249
This is not what I was expecting. I was expecting something similar to Udacity or Edx but for computer science education instead just seems like a bunch of kid games or am I wrong, I expected more from Google on this topic.

Re: Computer Science Education

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Briefly intrigued as a sidenote: How many of the Founding Fathers themselves came to America as religious refugees? Of the 145 people who, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United... were signatories of the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, or US constitution, 14 were born outside of the British-American Colonies. Of these, 6 seem to have…

Perhaps, but the strong religious motivations for the early colonies is well documented. [1] > Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. Even from the article you link quotes a wide range…

> So it may have been poor wording on my part, but I don't think it unfair to consider religious freedom an important consideration for the Founding Fathers.

For sure, and I didn't mean to be correcting you, I was just pondering what seemed like a sort of historical elision of "move to the new world to practice religion freely" and "founding fathers creating the USA" when the former predated the latter by more than a century.

I like to try to grapple with timescales as a way to understand history, so finding conclusions like "the vast majority of the founders and framers were born in the colonies" (and, in many cases, from prominent families that had been in the colonies for generations) are interesting to me.

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