Live data from Hacker News

Untitled topic

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 23 posts

Re: undefined

#11
> As software becomes a high-impact, low-skill trade, we decouple the technical ability and experience needed to write tricky software from the ability to solve problems for people.

It was for the most part an interesting article. I doubt, however, that software development will ever become a low-skill domain. It will perhaps become more like carpentry -- a medium where people across a range of ability will be able to work in. Some are master carpenters, and some are content to make a bird feeder, and the barriers to doing the latter are low.

Re: undefined

#12

Females only make up about 10% of the CS program enrollees, I highly doubt the females in this list are as good as their male counterparts. 5 out of 100 is good, you are getting only the top 5% though. 5 out of 1000 is better, since you are taking that top 5% and taking the top 10% of that.

While your numbers "5 out of 100" and "5 out of 1000" are way off, there are disproportionately many girls on this list.

I would expect to see around 20% of girls.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/computerworld.com/files...

Which makes me question the quality of the list.

Re: undefined

#13
post #5

I see a lot of 3s and 4s, which according to the key means "High Potential to Be Among the Best in the World" and "Currently Among the Best in the World". Maybe I'm just ignorant or jealous, but I have a hard time believing that all those young people could already be called "among the best in the world" in any field, at least not without serious evidence to back that up. But I think the problem is mostly that the sc…

One girl had a 5 in communication. Who even knows what that means.

Re: undefined

#15
post #4

Females only make up about 10% of the CS program enrollees, I highly doubt the females in this list are as good as their male counterparts. 5 out of 100 is good, you are getting only the top 5% though. 5 out of 1000 is better, since you are taking that top 5% and taking the top 10% of that.

Gender biased, much? Given the low overall enrollment, it wouldn't surprise me if the ones who "bother" to join the CS program are more driven and intrinsically motivated than the average. Given that drive and intrinsic motivation are likely highly correlated with excellence within their peer group, it seems well within reason that a minority group overall would be over-represented in the elite set.

> Given the low overall enrollment, it wouldn't surprise me if the ones who "bother" to join the CS program are more driven and intrinsically motivated than the average.

But that's true about the guys too. People who don't like programming get weeded out pretty quickly from CS.

Re: undefined

#17
Clearly not representative. Seems like attempt for someone to start a recruiting service. Bias on schools to CMU Cornell and UPenn. Not other majors present.

Re: undefined

#18
I know two of the people on this list and just spoke with them. They themselves disagree with this portrayal of their abilities.

Re: undefined

#19
I am sorry but please do not call this list "The best or among the best in the world". This is a list of students from only 3 schools. Also the first students in the list are all from Corn, giving to them a significant advantage for no apparent reason. They do not score higher in skills and the list is not alphabetically listed, it seems very biased.

Good luck to all the kids, most of them are already heading to awesome and fulfilling careers :)

Re: undefined

#20

Females only make up about 10% of the CS program enrollees, I highly doubt the females in this list are as good as their male counterparts. 5 out of 100 is good, you are getting only the top 5% though. 5 out of 1000 is better, since you are taking that top 5% and taking the top 10% of that.

Or maybe the relatively few female that persevere in a field that is biased against them are going to be better on average ?

At my university in engineering and applied sciences ( weird but that's the official translation in English ), one of our teacher was the first woman to graduate. She was very good, she had to be better than the average to prove that the school did not make a mistake in letting her in.

Post reply on HN