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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”?

#81

Post by discombobulate »

abraca wrote: post #77
lmcnish14 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a reasonable ratio considering that bootcamps are a popular way for women to break into the industry.

No, it is not a typical ratio. Bootcamps often have cohorts where there are 10 percent or even fewer women. For a bootcamp to have 40 percent ratio is impressive and unusual. Also - remarkable for all women to have a job at graduation. The bootcamp described sounds very unusual and the numbers are so very different from industry standard - that I encourage anyone reading to do their own research.

Which sites do you suggest for research?

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

#82

Post by discombobulate »

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 would fire someone for hiring based on a physical characteristic (for knowledge work). It's idiotic. It sounds no better than random.

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

#83

Post by mhenr18 »

grzm wrote: post #69
J-dawg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Be glad you haven't suffered it for literally your entire life. Modern feminism increasingly seems to be an ideology based on the idea that women are always victims. You've just described positive discrimination, and implied that you think it's a good thing. Then you imply that you think women suffer unfairness for "literally your entire life". Which is it? You've either been a victim your entire life or you've bene…

I understand what you're saying. To dig into it a little more, do you think there is structural (as opposed to intentional) gender discrimination, and if so, should it be corrected? Please don't hesitate to answer "no" if that's what you believe. My goal in conversations like this is to better understand each other, not score points or make judgements. If it should be corrected, what specifically (i.e., what implemen…

No.

At least in my country, all of the ways that females can be discriminated against in the workforce that are usually brought up are illegal.

(Pay gaps for the same work, promotions, sexual harassment, etc)

Yet people still complain they are problems. At this point, the onus is not on the rest of society to continue to try and make things easier for literally more than half the population. The onus is on the people being discriminated against to actually stand up for themselves and aggressively puruse legal action if they are the victims they claim to be.

For me personally, I find it quite ridiculous to hear people talking about all the gender stereotypes that exist today (and the discrimination that comes alongside them) and how we need action action action to solve them as if they are still problems.

My dad cooked more than my mum. I was picked on by girls at school. The girls always were told it's fine if they wanted to play a sport more dominated by guys, but god forbid a guy try to play sport with the girls. Rather than being discriminated against, the girls I know who went into software got given hugely preferential treatment over the guys and are routinely given better opportunities.

In everyone's effort to undo gender discrimination, they've forgotten that the aim is not to swing the pendulum to the other side, but instead to bring it back to the middle and treat people on their own individual merits.

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

#85

Post by J-dawg »

grzm wrote: post #69
J-dawg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Be glad you haven't suffered it for literally your entire life. Modern feminism increasingly seems to be an ideology based on the idea that women are always victims. You've just described positive discrimination, and implied that you think it's a good thing. Then you imply that you think women suffer unfairness for "literally your entire life". Which is it? You've either been a victim your entire life or you've bene…

I understand what you're saying. To dig into it a little more, do you think there is structural (as opposed to intentional) gender discrimination, and if so, should it be corrected? Please don't hesitate to answer "no" if that's what you believe. My goal in conversations like this is to better understand each other, not score points or make judgements. If it should be corrected, what specifically (i.e., what implemen…

Most importantly, I think that even if structural discrimination exists, artificially penalising other people is not the way to rectify it.

On whether structural discrimination exists, the question feels like a trap (even if not intentional) since we could probably spend hours arguing about what "structural" actually means.

But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, in general, I don't think it does exist anymore, in the western world. Gender discrimination against women is now both socially taboo and illegal. And yet this perceived victimhood is increasingly used to justify very real (and openly practised) discrimination against men.

We're going to raise a generation of young men who are continually told how "privileged" they are, while feeling anything but privileged.

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

#86

Post by marak830 »

convolvatron wrote: post #46

tell her to get a real job - that she can count on. sous chef. turbine maintenance mechanic. accountant.

As a chef, please only people with passion, we have enough mediocre chef's, and really the pay is shit.

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

#87

Post by fuzzyninja »

yorwba wrote: post #12
hoodoof wrote: post #4

Why do you need alternative ideas? You could just let her go to what she wants to. We technology people seem to have this built in need to get people to try other things than what they want to do. It's a form of controlling behaviour.

Would you say the same if she wanted to go to an expensive acting workshop that promises she will land a job with Hollywood in just 12 weeks? (And that might not even be a lie, since someone needs to be the extra that gets shot in the first 5 seconds.) Not saying all or even most coding boot camps are like that, but based on my reading of HN submissions, some definitely do overpromise and underdeliver. Finding potent…

A sincere question that I have often: what if the jobs these people land (and that many that we here do) are _not_ Hollywoodian at all? What if that does indicate that a lot of the things we can do can be done by someone with this level of experience and aptitude?

Related: https://www.wired.com/2017/02/programming-is-the-new-blue-co...

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

#88

Post by patrickg_zill »

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.

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 most dangerous jobs..?

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

#89

Post by DanBC »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #88
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.

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.

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

#90

Post by beachstartup »

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.

> 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.

unfortunately, positive discrimination also are discriminates against people who are negatively discriminated against, like asian men trying to get into college or get a good job.

but you probably don't really care about that because it doesn't fit neatly into your oppressor/oppressed classification system.

hey, at least you're honest about throwing people under the bus to further your social justice agenda though. i appreciate that.

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