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Women: Learn to Program This Summer

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Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#211

Post by canthonytucci »

rubicon33 wrote: post #54
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #43

There will be benefits to this program for those who participate, and I wholly wish those women who have the opportunity to participate the best of luck. However, I also worry about the motives behind the program. A huge part of feminism is a push towards gender equality[1]. Discriminating against half of the population while aiming for equality is an odd way to behave. I know the blog post did not mention gender equ…

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.

I think the gist of things like this is - at the risk of using a silly gaming analogy for something really serious - a "catch up mechanic" to bring about more equal representation sooner than just being genuinely fair and waiting for things to even out.

There are philosophical cases to be made that the wrong must be righted asap, or that this approach is an instance of two wrongs not making a right.

For me, assuming good intentions, I choose other things to be upset about than people being selectively nice or helpful to others who are dealing with a problem.

I can understand the concern that leaning too hard in to this kind of thing can get out of hand, so as with everything, probably best to do our research and decide case by case.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#212

Post by the_af »

grondilu wrote: post #200
DoreenMichele wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_...

Her username here is Doreen, and I assume that's her name. Why should she have to hide it?

If she has to hide her sex in order to get meaningful answers, that right there is a huge impediment us men in tech never have to experience.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#213

Post by black-tea »

nck4222 wrote: post #50

I'm trying to figure out on what side of the debate I fall on this one. On the one hand, women have obviously been disadvantaged in many ways, for many years, which is wrong. The gender disparity in software development is well documented, and should be fixed. No one should be discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender. On the other hand, a for-profit company deciding to offer free services…

> The gender disparity in software development is well documented, and should be fixed.

Why should it be fixed? Is there any evidence to suggest it's because of discrimination? There's been special treatment for women (such as this one) for so long now. Have you ever considered that maybe women just don't want to sit in front of a computer for hours on end writing software?

Also, I walked past a building site the other day. Full of men. They work through the night for not much money. Where's all the special programs to get women in to back-breaking overnight construction work?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#214

Post by grondilu »

manfredo wrote: post #81
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.

In much of silicon valley, the goal is equal outcomes not equal opportunity. Often times explicitly unequal opportunity is necessary to achieve equal outcomes.

Equal opportunity? How often do men get free programming lessons IRL?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#215

Post by CydeWeys »

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.

I've been really happy to see all the nice personal sites and blogs that people have been creating on .dev domains, this included. It feels like the Web of the late 90s that I grew up in.

She can send a oneliner PR to get her site included on https//fullname.dev if she wants, and if she hasn't yet started using GutHub this would be a good learning opportunity for it.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#216

Post by dang »

TLAFanBoy wrote: post #153
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]

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, because it destroys the intellectual curiosity that is the reason HN exists. If you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#217

Post by jki275 »

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…

I have the conversations you say do not happen with female developers and engineers every single day, online and offline. I've mentored and developed male and female engineers and technicians for decades, without any discrimination, harassment, or asking for their phone numbers.

I don't care one whit about what gender an engineer or technician is, nor do I even know all the time online -- sometimes I find out years later, sometimes I never find out, but I've never cared.

If you want to learn to code, join one of the free Udacity courses, or MIT or Harvard's free EdX courses, and learn, and write your projects. Nobody's going to stop you. Information is free. And you got a whole stack of useful responses to the post you just linked.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#218

Post by joenot443 »

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…

At the risk of simplifying your problem, what's stopping you from just not announcing your gender at all on these forums or chatrooms? Why make your username your full name at all? I've been joenot443 for as long as I can remember, and when given the option, I never volunteer my gender because I just don't think it's usually useful for that discussion.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#219

Post by astura »

rubicon33 wrote: post #23
mywittyname wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal It is illegal to discriminate for jobs on the basis of sex in the US (as per the Civil Rights Act of 1964). If you believe yourself to be the victim of discrimination, then submit a complaint the the EEOC [1] who will investigate. That being said, a large gap between the number men and women (or whites and blacks, etc) working at companies exist can be considered eviden…

Good luck with that complaint to the EEOC as a white man.

The EEOC absolutely investigates discrimination against white males.

https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/caselist.cfm#re...

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#220

Post by grondilu »

40acres wrote: post #182

Some of the comments in this thread is a master class of how discrimination and gatekeeping work not just in our industry but in society as a whole. How can we simultaneously be an industry built on free an open source software and yet try to put up walls around our industry when efforts are made to make it more accessible to others? The barriers to programming are being lowered and this is an excellent thing. More d…

Which barriers are gender-related, though?
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