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Great write-up! I'm a Ruby developer, but it sounds like your community is really excellent. I'd love to come check out PyCon sometime in the future.
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That's an interesting point. I don't have any real basis to generalize, but I have been in a number of situations where business people think that tech people are too politically correct. Coming from a general view that tech isn't really a role model in that category to begin with, that was surprising to encounter. My limited time in Europe suggests that European culture on the whole is less attentive on this subject…
Without overgeneralizing too much, Europe does not have the same culture of political correctness as the US does. If someone makes a joke people get offended less quickly. In this case people would just think of the jokers as immature and move on. The only exception I can think of is concerning the holocaust. EDIT: Anyway, I can recommend anyone to live in another culture for some time in their life. First you will f…
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I don't know your history, but I've heard that you have one Only one? I have, like, at least five or six, my friend. What sexist assumptions is white-collar Work [sic] culture based on? And how is it designed such that it is difficult for women to fit in? Dedication and ability are assessed, in most corporations, based on antiquated, counterproductive, and fascistic reliability measures that disfavor, for one example…
You write in such a protracted, drawn-out fashion that it is hard to understand what you are saying. Please permit me to clarify. >Dedication and ability are assessed, in most corporations, based on antiquated, counterproductive, and fascistic reliability measures that disfavor, for one example, taking maternity (or paternity) leave or dedicating substantial energy to childcare White-collar work inherently discrimina…
>White-collar work inherently discriminates against women because they could possibly get pregnant. Is this what you are saying?
I think what he's saying is, actual experience is worthless. The person that has performed an action 100 times is exactly as qualified as the person that has performed it 10,000 times.
Whether you were coding (or doing open heart surgery) for 20% vs 80% of the last 5 years is not relevant. If you have a computer science degree, or a medical degree, that is what really matters. The entire concept of estimating ability based on whether you have actually written a significant amount of code, or have actually performed a significant amount of medical operations, is a flawed concept.
I think that's the essence of what he's saying.
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Is this a troll? I don't know your history, but I've heard that you have one, so... If this is a troll, someone let me know, please. Otherwise... >It's designed in a way that makes it very difficult for women to fit in, in any stable and reliable way. Additionally You can't just make a statement, not provide evidence, and then say "additionally...". You haven't proven your first point. What sexist assumptions is whit…
"The entire industry is based on risk." The entire industry is based on a business model which only a monkey could fuck up, yet the industry manages to fuck it up (as Taleb writes). You do realize that all these risk computation are totally bogus and led to big trouble in 2008 right? And that there's no risk because when the shit hit the fan bankster simply go say they're too big too fail and get bailed out. And at t…
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Without overgeneralizing too much, Europe does not have the same culture of political correctness as the US does. If someone makes a joke people get offended less quickly. In this case people would just think of the jokers as immature and move on. The only exception I can think of is concerning the holocaust. EDIT: Anyway, I can recommend anyone to live in another culture for some time in their life. First you will f…
I'm an American who lives in Denmark, and I agree, but I'm not sure it is people getting offended less quickly in general, versus on specific subjects. There are plenty of ideas that Danes consider to be completely crazy, not really debatable in polite company. For example, suggesting that abortion should be illegal, which is a mainstream position in the USA, is such a crazy-far-right position in Denmark that you cou…
For me, it was just normal boytalk sharing personal preferences for small or big female body parts, for them it was as exciting as leaking out of school to smoke a cigarette.
I think it goes deeper than that. A remarkable well-documented(#) fact in the history of sexual life is that sexual perversions were much worse in places where sex was considered a sin (eg. the West), than in places were it was considered natural (eg. China).
I am really concerned that, after a while, the sexual PC pressure could backfire in North America. We all know how "Hell is paved", right?
(#) http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Life-Ancient-China-Gulik/dp/B00...
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Is this a troll? I don't know your history, but I've heard that you have one, so... If this is a troll, someone let me know, please. Otherwise... >It's designed in a way that makes it very difficult for women to fit in, in any stable and reliable way. Additionally You can't just make a statement, not provide evidence, and then say "additionally...". You haven't proven your first point. What sexist assumptions is whit…
I don't know your history, but I've heard that you have one Only one? I have, like, at least five or six, my friend. What sexist assumptions is white-collar Work [sic] culture based on? And how is it designed such that it is difficult for women to fit in? Dedication and ability are assessed, in most corporations, based on antiquated, counterproductive, and fascistic reliability measures that disfavor, for one example…
This is not good, I agree with that, but how can it be different? After 5 years off, your lost track of everything that happened, you're 5 years older and 5 years rustier, and, most importantly, somebody else took care of those things you were taking care of - you're not needed as you were when you took off. Now, in big impersonal bureaucracies, this can be not so big a problem, but in most places it is.
IMHO the solution to the actual problem can't be in just saying "that's not a problem, it only is because of sexism/tradition/whatever". By the way, I don't have a solution.
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I'm an American who lives in Denmark, and I agree, but I'm not sure it is people getting offended less quickly in general, versus on specific subjects. There are plenty of ideas that Danes consider to be completely crazy, not really debatable in polite company. For example, suggesting that abortion should be illegal, which is a mainstream position in the USA, is such a crazy-far-right position in Denmark that you cou…
I don't know if you are US citizen or from other American continent citizenship, but I, as a Frenchman, had the same impression, reverted, with fellow Quebequois boys. When we were casually talking between us about girls, they had a kind of transgression excitement that I did not understand. When asking, they told me they kinda weren't allowed to even think this way in their countries, let alone talking about it. For…
LOL! Although the Western Hemisphere is a big place, and North and South America comprise a lot of countries, I can assure you, in standard English, and fair or not, "an American" === "a United States citizen".
> Eben Upton, one of the creators of the Raspberry Pi,
> shared with us the brilliant insight that many young
> people used to have to “choose not to program” when
> they turned their computers on, in order to play games
Amstrad 128k Microcomputer (v3)
© 1985 Amstrad Computer Electronics plc
and Locomotive Software Ltd.
BASIC 1.1
Ready
I love that the Pi attempts to revive this for today's kids. At the moment I think the closest they come to anything resembling code is if they use Firefox or Chrome and accidentally stumble into the developer tools.
Thank you for posting this. I wasn't at PyCon 2013, but I really wish the discussion would get back to the fact that 99% of what happens when technical people get together is positive and cool. It's really sad that the ridiculous 1% gets so much attention. I actually don't think technology people are that bad, not as a class. Most types of ambitious male business people are a lot more vulgar and perverse than the tec…
I know that probably wasn't your intention, but please let's not turn this story into one of those interminable threads about gender relations, there are enough of those elsewhere.
This is a pretty unrelated question, but how does one find out about these conferences? I typically only hear about them afterward (Heroku's Waza and now PyCon). Are there any that are known to be particularly good? Additionally, any recommendations for which to try to attend as a first year computer science student?
http://lanyrd.com