Extending this ridiculous logic to its absurd extreme, clearly we must conclude that Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Hendrix came from socioeconomically privileged families because they managed to get access to expensive musical instruments when they were kids.
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
#92What in the sam hell is the point of this article?
In a nut shell: Life isn't fair, you need to learn to deal with it and stop bitching. The sooner you stop bitching, the sooner you can make strides to provide a better life for your children so they can be well off so some future naive little girl can call them privileged.
Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged
#93oh wow, this article is bound to get flogged on HN ;) before the onslaught begins, i'd like to add my own short anecdote. reading this article reminds me of when i took my first CS course as a freshman in college over a decade ago ... i remember that there were clearly 2 groups of students (i belonged to the latter): - those who, like this article describes, had hacked since a young age (sorry for the gross generaliz…
The same attitude is effaced on HN about persons in liberal arts studies. A hacker was brilliant enough to see that the world was headed into computers, or their parents were, and they were led down the right path. People are bound to want to claim that people deserve what they get, it justifies their wealth, and comforts them in the face of another's misfortune. Anyone who had access to a computer at 8, whether thei…
Lucky, yes, but not privileged. The plethora of stories listed here, to which my own could be added, show that we were just lucky to get hold of computers so young.
Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged
#94Ugh. I sympathize with this argument but its flaws are so glaring that it's trivially knocked down, which is a shame, because there is a class privilege argument to be made about this field. Before you say "programming since age 8 just means you had rich parents", you have to address the fact that most kids with rich parents don't become hackers, and that even if you're not impoverishing yourself to support the hobby…
"most kids with rich parents don't become hackers"
That is a very good observation that I hadn't noticed before. Of the scores of rich kids I knew who had computers in their rooms, I can name on one hand the number who now code or do anything close to coding as part of their jobs.
Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged
#95I don't buy it. I grew up on a subsistence farm and we were, I think, living well below the poverty line. I started programming when I was 8, on a Timex Sinclair 1000, which my brother and I saved up to buy. We learned by trial and error and a ZX81 assembly book that came from the library. I picked raspberries one summer (among other things) to buy a C64. > Me and some of my black friends were talking about the other…
"working hard throughout grad school (in math) was the great equalizer"
The trouble is that so many people don't do that. But also there is only so much that effort can overcome. I have been coding for nigh on 30 years, having started with a hand-me-down Trash 80, Model I, Level 1. I have worked in all kinds of environments and hired coders who fell variously into both camps. Almost without fail, the coders who have been coding since they were kids do better. It is almost like breathing for them. I don't know how to explain it, but they have almost a Zen-like relationship with the machine that no degree or amount of compressed effort will match. I would like it to be so, but it just isn't the case in my experience.
Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged
#96Class is a false concept created by those who want to keep people stuck in one station in life. Especially those who bemoan those who had some privilege. I wouldn't waste my time arguing with the people who buy into the premise of this article, because they are ideologues who will stop at nothing in their quest to make everyone equally miserable. Pass.