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Women: Learn to Program This Summer

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Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#111

Post by fzeroracer »

navigatesol wrote: post #98
fzeroracer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great way to get a company to instantly reject you at the interview step if they have one or fired shortly after being hired. Because, you know, most companies look up the profile of candidates on LinkedIn, social media etc. Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly.

> Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly. In the current cultural zeitgeist it'd be unimaginable to see someone get fired because they didn't conform to someone's rules of "transgender enough" based on their social media profile. This is both the beauty and the irony of said zeitgeist; make all the rules you want, can't stop someone from playing.

Yes, you can actually. These sort of arguments remind me of the transgender bathroom fears: What's stopping a man from pretending to be transgender in order to enter the woman's bathroom?

Well, the answer is that people that are transgender will have a history of being transgender or acting in such a way that confirms they consider themselves that gender. So any lawsuit as a result of this would look into your past, see that you lied about being transgender and make it an open and shut case. If that case became public then you could say goodbye to your job prospects.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#112

Post by dapf »

grondilu wrote: post #55

Isn't programming a skill that can be learned alone in a fairly straightforward manner? I mean, most programming languages have extensive documentation, tutorials and so on (at least FOSS dynamical languages like Python, Rust, Perl...). From my personal experience and what I can guess about hackers I've talked to for instance on IRC, that's how most guys learned it : the web is full of resources for whoever wants to…

You're right.

I find these kind of "initiatives" quite condescending.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#113

Post by sound1 »

sound1 wrote: post #106
seancoleman wrote: post #28

My girlfriend, a nurse of 10+ years, just started learning to code on her own, built her first (basic) website ( https://www.nataliepeterson.dev ) and is applying to Lambda School already. I sent this to her this morning and she was elated. Programs like this really work.

"hi cutie" lol... someone knows how to market well

i meant that in a positive/fun way, sorry if it came across as rude :-)

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#115

Post by commandlinefan »

ajiang wrote: post #58

EDIT: To clarify that the money is going directly to private individuals, as per Austen. Incredible, thanks for putting your money where your values are @jl. As for the numerous comments in this post around reverse sexism / reverse discrimination: 1. This is a private individual giving personal capital to other private individuals, supporting a personal cause. It is hard to both claim principles of free market and ra…

> arbitrary euphemisms for gender / racial bias like 'bad culture fit'.

You make it sound like there are people out there saying to themselves, "I know I should stop discriminating against under-represented minorities, but I just can't seem to stop myself" as if discriminating were addictive like smoking. If somebody used to discriminate and wants to stop, the solution is to stop discriminating, not discriminate in the other direction. But this isn't somebody who used to reject people under vague euphemisms and needs this "nicotine patch" to help them kick the habit - this is somebody who's creating new euphemisms to discriminate in a way that's socially acceptable.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#116

Post by llama052 »

manfredo wrote: post #110
jordigh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's any consolation about how we underrepresented but unqualified idiots are getting hired everywhere, I've interviewed with Mozilla a couple of times now, selecting the "yep, I'm Mexican" tickbox, and this hasn't gotten me any more hired there either of the times I've interviewed. I must be really awful if I can't get hired as a Mexican, eh?

This misrepresentating my company's approach. We don't hire underqualified applicants if they're diverse. Rather we deliberately make it harder for white and Asian men to get to the on-site.

So the company is openly discriminating then?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#117

Post by manfredo »

llama052 wrote: post #107
manfredo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm your observations. At my company we have a couple policies. 1. We only accept applicstions from candidate from non-traditional backgrounds if they're diverse. Diverse is defined as any of the following: women, black, Hispanic, or native American - maybe also veterans but I'm not sure. Non-traditional background means coming from a coding boot camp, or majoring in a non-computing related field. I think a…

Is it fair to claim equal opportunity when you give more opportunities to other people? You are ultimately selecting the factors which could affect the outcome of that opportunity. How is that not discrimination? How do you pick and choose what you consider diverse? When you select the factors you're ultimately not an equal opportunity employer anymore in my opinion.

> Is it fair to claim equal opportunity when you give more opportunities to other people?

Googles careers page advertises that they're both in equal opportunity employer and an affirmative action employer:

> Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer.

https://careers.google.com/teams/?&src=Online/House%20Ads/BK...

So I guess the answer is yes.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#118

Post by zimablue »

ajiang wrote: post #76
zimablue wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Free market doesn't mean that your choices are exempt from criticism. I was going to say silly but honestly this is a very stupid point. "To people who are criticising me for funding ISIS - FREE MARKET".

I'd like to think HN is a place where people can have debate without resorting to saying things like "very stupid point" ;) You're absolutely right that free market doesn't mean your choices are exempt from criticism. That isn't my point, nor where I applied 'Free Market'. My point was: If you're going to argue against this donation, saying that it fuels the trend of reverse racism / sexism that makes the free market…

Yeah I comment a lot and pretty much never insult people. No-one is arguing that this is wrong because it's a government market distortion, they're arguing against it because it's injust, and proceeding from incorrect principles. So you invented an argument that's invalid by it's own definition as a straw man to rebut. It's stupid, there's no other word for it.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#119

Post by sbov »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #87
mettamage wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so if you have to do it, you'd better love it in the first place. Depends on how much you think anything else sucks. Compared to physical labor you're not breaking your back over things. Compared to other jobs you get paid relatively ok (EU centric view). Compared to some jobs the hours aren't that crazy: hey McKinsey folk! How are you doing? :D Really, it isn't that simple. It depends. It helps if you like it, but…

> Depends on how much you think anything else sucks. Compared to physical labor you're not breaking your back over things. Not always true, sometimes you have to help lift boxes (100lb) carrying hardware with your software preinstalled / ready to be shipped because you work in a small office and paying someone off to do the same task 1 day randomly throughout the different quarters of the year is not worth the hassle…

Yeah, sometimes it gets physical. But I think they're talking about daily, continuous, physical labor that can be very destructive to your body in the long term.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#120

Post by commandlinefan »

jordigh wrote: post #19
atom-morgan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A legal justification doesn't make something right. It's also worth mentioning why the term "underrepresented minority" or "underrepresented group" is need in the first place. Considering how sexist and racist people claim tech is Asians seem to be doing perfectly fine which is exactly why the term URM is needed in the first place.

The question was just about the legality of it. It's not a mystery why it's legal and people should be aware of what the laws actually are.

> The question was just about the legality of it

So somebody asked "how can this be legal" and your answer was "because it's a law" and you're actually trying to claim the moral high ground?

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