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If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

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Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#51

Post by wccrawford »

I got into programming in 4th grade.

I had a sinclair 1000 when I was a kid. http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html Yes, $100. NOT a rich family's computer.

Eventually, I got a Commodore 16. $100 also.

Then, when that died and I was crazy about it, I got a Commodore 64. $600. Well, -I- didn't get it. The family did. I had to share with my sister and mother. (Dad didn't care.)

Eventually I got my first IBM-compatible. Again, shared. It was about $2500, if I remember correctly. This was about 10 years after the first computer our house had, I think.

I didn't have other hobbies. There were no expensive lessons or instruments to buy for me. Video games? Atari 2600, then 7800 that were bought used and dirt-cheap.

No, you don't -need- to have a wealthy family to get into programming early.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#52

Post by tptacek »

knowtheory wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not denying that class plays a role --- in fact, I think I made that pretty explicit. I'm arguing that "hacking since you were 8 isn't so much a badge of geek cred as it is an artifact of your social class" is a really bad way of making that argument, since hacking since you were 8 actually is a badge of geek cred. If you look, you'll probably find that people who've trained for pro-tennis since early grade schoo…

Why? Why is it a badge of geek cred? Cause you're so old sk00l? The fact that you have more demonstrable experience may be a badge of honor. That you have had more time to hone your craft perhaps that's worth something. But the fact that you've been programming for 10 years longer than someone else by itself doesn't mean anything, and it is otherwise irritating to hear people tout that as some sort of credential. So…

Yes. Because being old sk00l does count for something.

In fact, I'll go further than that: the graph of payoff vs. practice over age is nonlinear, and the time you spend from 8 to (say) 14 is probably more valuable than the time you spend from (say) 18 to 22.

My friends growing up who coded were writing their own protected mode operating systems, building 3d engines, and modem file transfer protocols. Why? Because that is something that is easier to do when you're too fresh and ignorant to know what a pain building those things turns out to be.

Is the lack of access some 8 year olds have to this uniquely valuable development time a problem? Yes, friend, it is. That's a good argument. Which is exactly why arguments that boil down to the notion that it isn't valuable or a credential are bad arguments.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#53

Post by oldgregg »

cheald wrote: post #28

What a load of bollocks. My parents were dirt-poor (on an first-world scale) growing up. I did all my early learning on an IBM PC-XT (which was given to us). It was nearly decade-old technology by the time I started in on QBasic, and not worth very much at all. I bought my first computer at age 14, with money that I'd made over the summer gutting and renovating houses. Sure, in a sense, I was privileged, in that my d…

Same story here. Our family was poor-- getting evicted was like a family past time. My brother and I were salvaging 8088s and 286s when 486s/Pentiums were selling for an unimaginable amount of $1400. We would dial into the library with our 2400 baud modem-- I designed my geocities homepage offline and then uploaded it using Lynx because it was the only free internet access I could find.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#54

Post by nathanielksmith »

Despite being excessive at points ("disgusting flaunting of privilege") I think the article points out a real problem. In my experience, the only way to fill this gap is to actively--as adult programmers--"bootstrap" the computing lives of lower class children in our communities.

For example, I volunteer with a church ministry that refurbishes old machines, installs Ubuntu, and gives them / grants them to those who need them (we just call it the Hardware Cooperative).

Our last machine went to a child who just turned 10. His family is low-income and their lone computer was a decade old HP running a virus-filled XP that rebooted every few minutes.

We gave him a speedy little box with Edubuntu on it and he was thrilled by it. He took to it immediately and was engrossed by Tux4Kids and more.

Without our donation, it was obvious that he wasn't going to go anywhere with computers on that XP machine. Without us "bootstrapping" the process for him, I don't see how he ever could have developed an interest in computers, but now I'd say there's a fairly big chance.

So yes: check your privilege if you've got it. But more proactively, look to see how you can prevent these kinds of gaps in the future.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#55

Post by ryanricard »

One beef with the article, one with the tone of many of the upvoted replies:

As for the article, I'd argue that the strict ability to afford a computer matters much less than the understanding of why a computer is useful, how to get the most out of it, and even that it can be programmed by kids. Possessing the knowledge that computers can be programmed by kids to do fun and useful things is, I'd argue, correlated with socioeconomic status. Passing that knowledge onto your kids is also correlated with the gender of those kids, it seems.

Of course, the fact that one comes from a privileged position doesn't require an apology. Nobody is asking anyone for a heartfelt "I'm sorry" note, or a reparations check, or whatever. One can be aware of one's position of privilege without being ashamed of it.

I for one fondly remember the feeling of empowerment when I was able to fire up my dad's copy of Visual Basic and create a working facsimile of Blackjack. I was using a real, grown up tool to create real, cool stuff all by myself (well, not really, but it sure felt that way). I'd love to give any kid the chance to feel that sense of limitless power.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#56

Post by drv »

It is unclear to me what argument this article is trying to make - the headline makes me think it is about getting early access to computers due to rich parents, and it partly is, but then it dives off on a tangent about gender. (Disclaimer: I fit the stereotype of the title exactly, as I am a male who started programming when I was roughly 10 on a computer bought by my parents.)

This is only personal experience, but my family had a computer when I was young (8 or 9, and my siblings are a couple years younger). This was a family computer, not mine personally, and my brother and sister were both exposed to it as well, with equal opportunity to experiment and learn, but neither of them developed an interest in programming or computer technology like I did. There was no gender bias when computer access was given - we all used it on a regular basis. Maybe this is untrue for other families, but my sister had just as much opportunity to uncover computer science aspirations at roughly the same age as me.

I certainly agree with the idea that "class" (or at least parents' foresight in buying computers) influenced my ability to get involved with computers early, but I didn't observe any gender bias in this early exposure. Surely this is becoming even more true with the proliferation of computers in everyday life - if you can use Facebook, you have enough access to learn much more about computers. The only impediment is your curiosity about the topic. Perhaps there are other gender-related factors that determine whether one is likely to be a self-motivated proto-hacker, but computer access doesn't seem to be one of them.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#57

Post by tkahn6 »

knowtheory wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not denying that class plays a role --- in fact, I think I made that pretty explicit. I'm arguing that "hacking since you were 8 isn't so much a badge of geek cred as it is an artifact of your social class" is a really bad way of making that argument, since hacking since you were 8 actually is a badge of geek cred. If you look, you'll probably find that people who've trained for pro-tennis since early grade schoo…

Why? Why is it a badge of geek cred? Cause you're so old sk00l? The fact that you have more demonstrable experience may be a badge of honor. That you have had more time to hone your craft perhaps that's worth something. But the fact that you've been programming for 10 years longer than someone else by itself doesn't mean anything, and it is otherwise irritating to hear people tout that as some sort of credential. So…

In what world do you live in that honing a skill for 10 years longer than someone else counts for nothing?

In fact, as computing moves forward, I believe the amount of insight gleaned in the early years of programming decreases. I think I would be farther along in my knowledge of programming and CS if I had started with assembly instead of BASIC. So I think being 'old sk00l' counts for quite a lot.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#58

Post by mattlanger »

Interesting how many of the comments in this thread take the form of "This article is bullshit! I started coding when I was eight because I got my first computer by way of [something other than privilege or affluence]."

Because if you've been coding since you were eight then you should probably know by now the difference between anecdotes and data.

[Full disclosure: I did my first hacking with BASIC and Rexx at around seven or eight because my parents were wealthy enough to afford an Amiga 500--but this experience would never inspire me to write an article claiming that everyone who started coding at a young age must have come from similar socioeconomic conditions.]

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#59

Post by mcgraw »

jerf wrote: post #22
mcgraw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key here is you were able to snag influence from your Dad. Luckily he was bright enough to see the potential and was resourceful which spawned your interest.

I was just thinking some more about this on the same line. If you want to call that privileged, you know, I'm open to that. In fact I'd say arguably this is "more privileged" that merely being rich, which is sometimes oversold. It's just that I don't feel like I can apologize for this or feel bad. It isn't in anybody's best interest for me to try to pretend this was somehow bad .

I wouldn't expect even the privileged to apologize. It's awesome that some people were able to shake up the world of computers sooner, otherwise, we wouldn't have what we have. It's people taking advantage of what they can get that ends up producing some great stuff. So I'm a little late to the party? Doesn't mean the party isn't going to be awesome in my book!

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#60

Post by dgordon »

Perceval wrote: post #41

The article doesn't really have a point. The title is really the only thing that the article is trying to demonstrate. "Privileged" is a code word in feminist discourse, and is applied to virtually any and every distinction that social beings make. The overall thrust of the article is to shame—i.e. if you had an opportunity that others didn't have, you should feel guilty about it. It's not clear to me how this kind o…

Well put. To use an example that's well-known here, this is like pretending that Bill Gates only became Bill Gates because he had rich parents and got access to a computer at 14 years old in the late 1960s, and that his great intelligence and willingness to work harder than most people have even considered working at developing his ability were irrelevant or incidental.

The implication that if you're white, male, middle-class or up, etc., then you're only where you are because of unfair advantage and should be considered an "oppressor" is everywhere in this sort of so-called discourse. Look to the Soviet Union or Khmer Cambodia for what this ideology, empowered and taken to an extreme with some slightly different axioms, can lead to.

By the way, thanks for teaching me a word -- "subaltern." I was disappointed to see that it's mostly an identity-politics buzzword, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it.

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