Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 80 posts

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#41

Post by SkyMarshal »

lmm wrote: post #31
dzink wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about open sourcing this: http://www.doerhub.com/for/whichvc but as the primary hacker on DoerHub I haven't found the time to clean up the code. Technically, most of the code I wrote before my startup is source-visible, since my former employer doesn't obfuscate JS. If you dig into the CNN js files you will see the SearchProcessor, CSI Manager, ads js, custom local storage libraries, and other stuf…

Unless you mean in the sense of removing passwords and similar, you don't need to clean up code for it to be worth open-sourcing.

You don't strictly need to, but most people want to make sure the code the open source is at least commented and free of embarrassing mistakes, shortcuts, antipatterns and whatnot.

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#43

Post by dzink »

adrianhoward wrote: post #27

Any tips on entry points for coding that you've found worked well or badly? For example - a few years back I saw several young folk move over into coding by poking away at their MySpace pages to make them do "cool" things. For those people it seemed to be the same sort of starting point as the '10 PRINT "HELLO'; 20 GOTO 10;' type stuff did for mine.

I tried to aggregate those as a sub-thread. You make a great point with the MySpace example. Legos with built in robotics might be fun as well. I never had a lego (too expensive) and I only saw the $200 robotic kits in college in the US. In Chicago, a state organization is trying to create a programable robot with LED lights to get kids interested in coding and putting together simple hardware hacks. I think that is a great idea. I think a programmable robot kids can create and control with an iphone app would be great as well (paint-by-numbers hardware + software hacking).

It is true that the more we lower the threshold, the more people will dabble with hacking. It may or may not produce more great hackers in the short run, but in the long run it will create a shared literacy that puts hacking higher on the priority list for parents and kids 10 years down the line. You don't just share code, you share a value system when you teach that.

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#44

Post by rimantas »

WoodenChair wrote: post #6
dmn757 wrote: post #2

I'll go first.. Why in the world would you feel a need to make this post?

I think she pretty clearly explained why she felt a need to make the post - she feels underrepresented and also wants to prove a stereotype wrong. I'll go second... why in the world did you feel it necessary to mock her post?

Which streotype? That there are more male founders than female? I thought that's a fact, not stereotype. Semi-related: I found it stupid to carefuly write "she" when refering to some hypothetical programmer in every other case. How about writing it 5 times of 100, to get more realistic representation? Unless you believe that probablicit reference is the cause of all evil and using "she" will magically attract more females to coding.

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#45

Post by muglug »

dzink wrote: post #33
gaius wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH I find the "rural Bulgaria" bit to be far more interesting :-) Did you have any exposure to Soviet computers? Like their clone of the Sinclair Spectrum say? Did you learn trinary in school? Do you say "reverse Polish notation" or know it by a different name?

I love these questions! Yes, I started on "Pravets" 8 and 16 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers ) with BASIC and Pascal. We also had these robot hands you could maneuver with the Pravets machines. I would travel 250 miles to get the huge sheet-sized disk with a plumber game on it from my cousin in Sofia to show it off to classmates in Tutrakan. Karateka was also huge. For reference, my hometown had no t…

Learning English from Cartoon Network? What sort of vocabulary does that result in?

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#46

Post by muglug »

rjzzleep wrote: post #38
dzink wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have presented in front of teen girls at events and mentored girls individually. The tech bug catches on best anywhere between age 8 and 14 when you see a role model for something fun you can enjoy doing that is an "gateway drug to CS". At that age parents don't matter but peers do. When I was that age, just one of my classmates mocked me for trying, but a few other fellow tinkerers and I started competing in high-…

there is no tech bug. there is a thing that you enjoy what you get good at(the dilbert author wrote about it too), no matter what it is. also, as a person who caught on very early, i wouldn't advise people to study cs. for people that are really good at the stuff we're talking about here. cs without the right peers is one of the most disappointing experiences there is. imagine a professional heart surgeon having to g…

I think you're entirely wrong. First off, lots of people don't enjoy things they're good at, and enjoy things they're not good at. Having sung in choirs, I've seen ample examples of both.

And "catching the tech bug" just relates (IMO) to the moment where you see computers as a source of almost limitless inquisition. And I agree with OP that that most often happens between the ages of 8 and 14.

Also, having studied CS in university and really enjoyed it, I don't share your pessimism about the degree.

Finally, lawyers date each other, as do other sorts of geeks (included CS geeks), but there isn't the extreme gender disparity in college that one sees in CS courses, so one woman is unlikely to be the target of so much unwarranted male attention. And also, lots of lawyers are nice people, just as lots of CS people (men and women) are douchebags.

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#47

Post by dzink »

muglug wrote: post #45
dzink wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love these questions! Yes, I started on "Pravets" 8 and 16 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers ) with BASIC and Pascal. We also had these robot hands you could maneuver with the Pravets machines. I would travel 250 miles to get the huge sheet-sized disk with a plumber game on it from my cousin in Sofia to show it off to classmates in Tutrakan. Karateka was also huge. For reference, my hometown had no t…

Learning English from Cartoon Network? What sort of vocabulary does that result in?

It develops the ears mostly. I could see so many friends getting the same basic understanding as well. When I went to an English Language School for High School I failed my first written test, because I wrote a letter in Germish (English words, German spelling). I worked for Cartoon Network briefly a decade afterwards and the CMO told me they hear that story often. I think few things did more for the spread of English as an international language than good movies and cartoons. German was my second language because RTL had the best american movies at the time cable TV came to my hometown (and English wasn't an option).

Re: Ask HN: Female hacker-founder AMA

#50

Post by dzink »

bigsassy wrote: post #48

What are your plans for DoerHub this year?

Keep building it up. Add github and linkedin logins, build up the collaboration and contribution metrics features, grow at places where people and projects are really interesting, add to the team, maybe apply to an accelerator. This is my life moving forward. I love crafting every peace of it and I want to build it in a way that energizes the community within to do more, generate more, and amplify its amplifiers.
Post reply on HN