How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
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Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#2"So first of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: Diversity is good for a community.
"If we can’t agree on this fact, the rest of the article is futile. There are many studies that support this point and if you’re not convinced, this article isn’t for you."
I'll bite: What real-world measure of goodness (that isn't tautologically identical to diversity) has been shown to increase as a function of an open-source community's diversity, whether gender, racial, or otherwise? I'm very skeptical there is strong enough evidence on this point to justify dismissing the question as quickly as you have. Honestly, I'd be surprised if the total number of studies on gender balance in open-source projects was higher than single digits.
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#3Honestly, I didn't gain anything from reading this. The PyLadies announcement is awesome and it really doesn't take a big writeup to understand why.
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#4"So first of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: Diversity is good for a community. "If we can’t agree on this fact, the rest of the article is futile. There are many studies that support this point and if you’re not convinced, this article isn’t for you." I'll bite: What real-world measure of goodness (that isn't tautologically identical to diversity) has been shown to increase as a function of an open-source c…
A tiny bit of Googling would answer this for you. There are several studies showing that diverse groups are much (much much) better at problem-solving than homogenous groups. e.g. http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16385.full
Also, having more diverse groups of open-source developers makes it more likely that the product will appeal to more end-users, and also attract more developers :)
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#5"So first of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: Diversity is good for a community. "If we can’t agree on this fact, the rest of the article is futile. There are many studies that support this point and if you’re not convinced, this article isn’t for you." I'll bite: What real-world measure of goodness (that isn't tautologically identical to diversity) has been shown to increase as a function of an open-source c…
"We have created this diversity statement because we believe that a diverse Python community is stronger and more vibrant. A diverse community where people treat each other with respect has more potential contributors and more sources for ideas."
Source: http://www.python.org/community/diversity/
Universal Design, the idea that produces "buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to both people without disabilities and people with disabilities" is the same idea when in the context of diversity in programming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design
Think about it, if Apple had a woman's input, do you think it'd be named iPad?!? For f*ck sake, it's the most ridiculous name ever, reminding half the population of the embarrassing trip to the drug store.
Plenty more on Diversity just within Python: http://wiki.python.org/moin/DiversityInPython
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#6Honestly, I didn't gain anything from reading this. The PyLadies announcement is awesome and it really doesn't take a big writeup to understand why.
yet some still need to read it.
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#7"So first of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: Diversity is good for a community. "If we can’t agree on this fact, the rest of the article is futile. There are many studies that support this point and if you’re not convinced, this article isn’t for you." I'll bite: What real-world measure of goodness (that isn't tautologically identical to diversity) has been shown to increase as a function of an open-source c…
"We have created this diversity statement because we believe that a diverse Python community is stronger and more vibrant. A diverse community where people treat each other with respect has more potential contributors and more sources for ideas." Source: http://www.python.org/community/diversity/ Universal Design, the idea that produces "buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to both peop…
> Think about it, if Apple had a woman's input, do you think it'd be named iPad?!? For f*ck sake, it's the most ridiculous name ever, reminding half the population of the embarrassing trip to the drug store.
I'm sorry, what? Do women get "embarrassing reminders" every time they pick up a note PAD, or use PADmapper, or discover that someone has PADded their resume?
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#8Honestly, I didn't gain anything from reading this. The PyLadies announcement is awesome and it really doesn't take a big writeup to understand why.
To anyone who's devoted a reasonable amount of thought to the subject, it should be obvious that it is a Good Thing.
However, this crowd is full of entitled young men who don't like the implication that they somehow had any advantage or are (accidentally or purposefully) discouraging anyone from doing anything. I have literally heard this argument leveled as I tried to explain this to one such rich young white male, "I don't see why women need any [extra consideration] in our community. Nothing stops them from going to school then getting a job, just like I did. ... I never saw a no-girls-allowed sign on the door."
Outrageous, isn't it? The response to the declaration of a problem is to deny the problem exists because it is still strictly possible for a woman to press through the constant stream of discouraging media, denigration, and implicit unfair treatment.
Which just goes to show how incredibly out-of-touch some people can be. And so articles like this serve as reference points during conversations like the one above.
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#9"So first of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: Diversity is good for a community. "If we can’t agree on this fact, the rest of the article is futile. There are many studies that support this point and if you’re not convinced, this article isn’t for you." I'll bite: What real-world measure of goodness (that isn't tautologically identical to diversity) has been shown to increase as a function of an open-source c…
I think this is intended as a general fact--I'm inclined to say "theorem"--about communities, and there was not much of a notion that you would need specific information about a particular community to say that the fact applied to it. Anyway...
One advantage of diversity is automatic specialization. Different people have somewhat different strengths and problems, and they develop different skills that are best in either leveraging their strengths or solving their problems.
This has the specific benefit that if some threat to everyone in the community suddenly becomes much worse, then (in a diverse community) there will probably be some people who are already specializing in solving that problem, because they or their friends (employers, customers, whatever) suffered from that problem in the past.
To take the case of a community that does open-source programming: If, suddenly, a lot of people start caring deeply about performance, it would be a good thing if there already were a couple of people who had figured out techniques to increase performance. Those people might be people trying to run a large business on a low budget, people who hate or suck at multi-threading and worked hard at making primitive operations go faster, people who hate low-level stuff and worked hard at learning to parallelize tasks, and so on. All of these people would have specialized skills that would now become valuable to the community, which could now pick up those skills more quickly and with less pain than if no one had those skills and they had to invent them from scratch.
Re: How I Stopped Worrying and Started Loving PyLadies
#10Other Python/Outreach/Education Resources:
Python Core mentorship: http://pythonmentors.com/
PSF Outreach and Education committee: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/outreach-and-educati... - this is meant to help identify groups/etc for the PSF to help fund. Via the http://www.python.org/psf/grants/ program(s) (see also resolutions: http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/resolutions/)
Boston Python Workshop: http://bostonpythonworkshop.com/ (as a side note, see this great post on Boston Ruby: https://openhatch.org/blog/2012/the-steps-boston-ruby-is-tak...)
PyStar: http://pystar.org/ (https://twitter.com/pystarphilly/)
OpenHatch: http://openhatch.org/blog/
Women who code: http://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-SF/
Python Sprints projects: http://pythonsprints.com/
Software Carpentry: http://software-carpentry.org/blog/
PyLadies Main: http://pyladies.com/ (groups are popping up all over the US)
I'm probably forgetting a few.