Women: Learn to Program This Summer • Hacker News Board

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#151

Post by grondilu » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

mayankkaizen wrote: post #134

Pfhreak wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't programming a skill that can be learned alone in a fairly straightforward manner? No? Stuff like pointers, for loops, threads, interface design, data structures, idempotency, source control, working on a linux command line, etc. all present reasonably challenging roadblocks for a burgeoning developer, and I think many of us benefited from having someone around to help walk us through this the first time.

I learned programming on my own. Sure there is a lot to learn in programming. Often you are stuck with a problem for long and there is simply nobody, except online forums, to help you out. Nobody around me is into programming. I am married and have 2 kids. My regular job has nothing to do with programming. I have to spend 3 hours in daily commute. Saturdays are working day. But I still manage to learn programming. I…

> I don't understand why women in general need special help or guidance.

I do, but my explanation is not PC.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#152

Post by QualityReboot » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

grondilu wrote: post #131

krapp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now, if for some reason women don't take this road and "need" someone to hold their hand in order to learn programming, I would argue that maybe those women don't have the intrinsic motivation to do so and trying to force it upon them may be a gross waste of time and resources. Why would you assume that a programming course amounts to "hand holding" just because a single gender is involved? For that matter, why woul…

> would you still be casting the same aspersions only on the women, Gender is not important here. As a matter of fact, I wanted to edit my post and talk about people in general, but I did not bother. This article was about women. My point is that I have the feeling that programming is something most people learn more or less for free with the documentation available online and with the help of online programming comm…

I think the optimal situation if you're applying to a program like this is to be a self-starter that's capable and interested in programming already, doing the same kind of self-learning that I did online without anyone asking my gender. Then if you happen to be a woman, you can go to one of these events, be the best in the class and treat it mostly as a networking opportunity.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#153

Post by TLAFanBoy » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

decebalus1 wrote: post #123

I'm leaning back and watching our profession go to shit. The liberalization of programming is very profitable for software companies. The wages need to go way down as currently we're the contemporary blue-collar job that didn't get screwed up by the modern corporate machine. This has less to do with gender than with plain-old creating inflation within the profession. Accountants, doctors, lawyers, all managed to clos…

[flagged]

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#154

Post by kazinator » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

MrPea wrote: post #140

decebalus1 wrote: post #123

I'm leaning back and watching our profession go to shit. The liberalization of programming is very profitable for software companies. The wages need to go way down as currently we're the contemporary blue-collar job that didn't get screwed up by the modern corporate machine. This has less to do with gender than with plain-old creating inflation within the profession. Accountants, doctors, lawyers, all managed to clos…

Couldn't have said it better. My eyes need a break rolling when people, especially politicians, say coding is a requirement and as important as math.

Algorithmic thinking is part of math, and quite important.

Anyone who learns pencil-and-paper addition and multiplication is actually following an algorithm, so you basically cannot even learn arithmetic without touching algorithms.

People need to understand what an algorithm is, because more and more circumstances which affect their lives will be determined by algorithms.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#155

Post by Townley » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:44 PM UTC

rosterface wrote: post #3

I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against white men. I was shocked to hear from multiple companies, large and small, that they did not want men and white men in particular. Now we see a YC co-founder giving 40 women $9000 to learn to program. Where does it end? I was really sad that while I personally c…

I'm sympathetic to anyone who's had a challenging job search, and am glad that you found something.

Society is worse off for having barriers that prevent anyone who wants to code from being able to do so. That includes the inefficiencies of the job industry not placing you into a productive coding role faster. But it also includes the lower salaries, lack of support/representation, belittling, and near-universal campaign of horrible harassment that every woman I've talked to in the field has experienced.

Everyone in the field of software development struggles, and I don't want to take away from that. We should be making life easier for everyone. But doing so involves recognizing problems specifically and succinctly, and building solutions that fit those problems. One of society's many problems is that women in tech have to contend with a nightmarish swirl of negative distractions that I've never had to think about as a white man. In the face of such a problem, giving resources to the effected population makes total sense, and it's a good thing that more organizations/companies are doing so. Even more than that, it brings us closer to meritocratic equality.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#156

Post by icelancer » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:44 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #34

ReturnToVoid wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have sadly witnessed a lot of discrimination against white men recently as well. God forbid you happen to be a white man from a third-world country, you'll literally never get a single interview anywhere no matter how good you happen to be.

I've seen even more against Asian men (not that it makes discrimination again white men any more okay). After all, if we are going to strive for for equal representation - which seems to be the goal - Asian are going to have to go down from 30-40% of many large companies down to a fraction of that. Asians are 14% of California and 5.2% of the US population.

This is the currently acceptable form of prejudice in this country, yes. It is totally fine to enact policies or make statements that hurt Asian-American men (and women, I don't think gender is much of a factor here).

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#157

Post by ergothus » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

seancoleman wrote: post #109

sound1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I forgot she added this for me. She doesn't know I posted this here and thinks I'm her only visitor still. She'll be embarrassed, but I told her if she's not embarrassed with her first version, she's shipping too late.

> she's not embarrassed with her first version, she's shipping too late.

Valuable wisdom! Thus inspired, I might make it "If you aren't embarrassed, you haven't shipped yet"

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#158

Post by ringaroll » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

This is an excellent thing! More women should be encouraged to code as there are too many men in the field already. I hope this sets the trend so that colleges mandate 60% quota for women in CS.

Companies should pay women more then men to encourage more women to join the field. Laws should be made so that companies have to hire women because the bosses are misogynist.

Destroy the patriarchy! You go girl!

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#159

Post by azangru » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #99

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…

What do 'reverse sexism' and 'reverse discrimination' mean?

I would understand reverse sexism to mean consciously giving preferential treatment to women, all other things being equal (because sexism, bizarrly, means discrimination against women, not just discrimination based on sex/gender). But, of course many versed in feminist theory would disagree with such definition.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#160

Post by dang » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

ringaroll wrote: post #158

This is an excellent thing! More women should be encouraged to code as there are too many men in the field already. I hope this sets the trend so that colleges mandate 60% quota for women in CS. Companies should pay women more then men to encourage more women to join the field. Laws should be made so that companies have to hire women because the bosses are misogynist. Destroy the patriarchy! You go girl!

Please do not take HN threads even further into ideological hell. In addition to destroying this place, it's tedious.