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Women: Learn to Program This Summer

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Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#191

Post by headcanon »

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…

I wouldn't equivocate or dismiss classes as "hand holding" - social resources are very important for many people looking to learn a skill. The internet is a messy place and it is difficult to find the correct information without experience. A teacher in this sense acts a curator of information, giving students enough knowledge that they know where to go to learn more, as well as structuring the knowledge in a way that allows the students to learn in the best way possible. Even things as simple as "Check Stack Overflow" isn't a piece of knowledge to take for granted. Also, many people learn best when they can be in a group of other people learning the same thing. This has the additional benefit of developing social relationships.

To your second point, not all software jobs are as solitary and asocial as you seem to believe. Pairing, project planning, application product design, are all things that are done with other people. In fact, I am a software engineer and have more than a few days at work where I don't even touch my computer, yet still get a lot of work done.

The archetype of the solitary, 100% self-learned hacker as a representative of all, or even most of tech workers has been outgrown by the industry. Even the use of the term "hand-holding" as I've seen it used is a gatekeeper mentality IMO that needs to stop, or at least be toned back significantly. People that don't pull their weight certainly exist, but everyone learns and contributes in their own way.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#192

Post by theprotocol »

dgzl wrote: post #148

I don't think throwing money and free services at women while we sit on our knees begging them to join us the best way to get them interested. I'm generally against equality of outcome, and support equality of opportunity, which this is not.

I agree. Sadly I have been slandered for having this view. Apparently belief in equality means I hate women ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#193

Post by dang »

alexashka wrote: post #31
dzink wrote: post #4

Spreading this as far and wide as I can. Coding is as critical as literacy for the next 20 years and there are too many programs and teachers that teach it poorly, alienating large segments of the population. Lambda is among the best. I hope they can scale past 40 students for this in the future.

What? The average IQ is 100. Computer science is not a 100 IQ field. Science is not a 100 IQ endeavour. Coding at 100 IQ level will be automated away very soon the same way anyone can have a facebook account without knowing HTML.

Who (else) said anything about IQ?

Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? They include: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

Also, please stop posting flamebait, especially ideological flamebait, to HN. It fuels flamewars, which destroy what we want to preserve here: thoughtful conversation and intellectual curiosity. Assuming those are things you also want, you're welcome to post here in that spirit.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#194

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

krapp wrote: post #93
rubicon33 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you're getting down voted for this comment. Isn't the goal equal opportunity? Providing artificial silo'd environments seems at odds to the goal of an unbiased, fair workplace. But I guess I'll just get down voted too.

The premise here is that opportunity wasn't equal to begin with. To accept this premise, you have to also accept the premise that societal restrictions on the roles permitted to women, culturally imposed limits on womens' ability to gain power and authority (the "glass ceiling") and persistent beliefs about women being intellectually inferior to men in regards to certain fields, would lead to a status quo not of meri…

> Not to do so is merely to accept its bias as the status quo.

This is a biased interpretation itself that assumes there is preexisting bias. It is true that the premise requires acceptance of the ideas you put forth above, but the issue is that many people don't believe those are enough of a factor anymore to justify discrimination. Imbalance does not always equate to unfairness.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#195

Post by ddayz »

Pfhreak wrote: post #68
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…

> 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.

There are many walkthroughs on these concepts as well online

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#197

Post by manfredo »

llama052 wrote: post #116
manfredo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Openly... I'm not so sure. In our all hands meeting our head of HR consistently denies that diverse candidates are treated differently. When the Damore memo was sent out one of our senior VPs of engineering explicitly denied preference for diverse candidates.

But we do have tools for recruiters to cross reference applicant names with the US census bureau's data to infer race and gender. We give recruiter bigger bonuses for diverse hires and we set specific % targets for them in their OKRs (basically quarterly goals. They don't get fired if they go under this, so I hesitate to call it a quota). That, and the aforementioned practices surrounding interviews and non traditional backgrounds.

Looking deeper at the documentation, I think the company maintains plausible deniability by giving recruiters discretionary authority over things like number of phone interviews and initial resume review coupled with hiring targets well above the industry average (current target for women is 33%). So the company does openly discriminate, but it gives recruiters the tools and discretion to discriminate as well as goals that essentially require discrimination to achieve - after that it's "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

My previous statements about non traditional backgrounds and 2nd phone interviews came from recruiters themselves. I can also confirm that, absent a referral, I've done 2nd phone screens for diverse candidates and have never interviewed a non-diverse candidate from a non-traditional background.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#199

Post by dang »

grondilu wrote: post #151
mayankkaizen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ideological flamebait will get you banned here. No more of this please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#200

Post by grondilu »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #177
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…

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 learn. I would love to learn to code. It's the reason I originally joined HN closing in on a decade ago. (Proof: my first post, the day I joined: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713015 ) But I have found that one barrier to me getti…

> Men can talk to other men casually and get loads of useful information that is simply not accessible to me.

That is just hard to understand. If your gender is an issue, why even make it public in the first place? I mean, ever heard of the saying "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

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