Slashdot Mirror
Programming Prodigy Arfa Karim Passes Away At 16
quantr writes "Arfa Karim, child prodigy, youngest certified Microsoft Professional in the world and winner of the president’s Pride of Performance, breathed her last breath on Saturday night at the Combined Military Hospital in Lahore. Arfa had an epileptic attack on December 22 and had been in a coma since."
...it must be asshole day at /.
Seriously, folks - what the hell is wrong with you?
A young woman of tremendous promise and an incredibly positive outlook on life dies far before her time, and this is what you have to say?
Some really sick folks. First time in a long time that I've actually been embarrassed of the folks here at /., despite some seriously differing opinions.
Check your premises.
Wow, what a bunch of badasses we have here. Way to slam a dead teenager for not being as cool as you are. Real men, you are.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why is this posted on Slashdot?
This is a sad event indeed, but the sad news here is that a young person, yet to live a good and full life died. Not that a possible future program hero died.
Its not news for slashdot. Its news that in this world, a lot of people still die because of diseases that should be able to be helped.
Well at the basic level Certified just means you can pass the test.
Do you know how old she was when she passed it? She was 9.
You may not be impressed by that fact, but I am.
People have to die. Sad fact. Don't take it so hard. I bet about a million other people died the same day. Are you mourning for them? Lighten up, Francis.
I know that, in the face of the appallingly low level of most of the comments here, it is easy to take the moral high ground. I know. But still - this is tremendously sad. We ( with "we" I mean both "humanity" and "we, the engineering community" ) lost something valuable here: a promising life.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
It's sad that she passed so early. She appeared truly gifted and it's a shame that she died too soon to learn how awful Microsoft products are. She could have become quite the *nix wiz.
Perhaps, but I don't make a habit of pissing in open graves before the dirt's even shoveled in.
And I find it reprehensible when others do it out of some sort of misbegotten patriotism, envy or need to prop them selves up by being vile to others.
Especially in the case when such potential for brilliance is snuffed out so early.
Check your premises.
So you can ignore the fact that the world is full of assholes? AC posting restrictions is good enough to work for the most part. Buck up, be a man, and ignore those who are just trolling. Falling to grief means they win
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Indeed. The MCE tests are pretty easy for an adult. Passing one as a teenager displays a somewhat above-average level of competence. Passing one when your age is still in single digits is very impressive.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well at the basic level Certified just means you can pass the test.
Do you know how old she was when she passed it? She was 9.
You may not be impressed by that fact, but I am.
The tragedy is that she was a young girl in the prime of life and seeing her life taken too soon, not because she was labeled a Microsoft Certified recipient and thus labeled a child prodigy for doing so.
I am sickened by some of the posters here. I expect stupidity and ignorance from the CNN posters, here I thought there were be a higher standard because of the average intelligence and educational levels of the average reader here. I was sorely mistaken. If you're so jaded and bitter that you use the news of the death of a young girl, who seemed to be quite remarkable by the way, to post stupid shit about how you hate Microsoft, certifications, or whatever, you need to get your humanity checked. I know you can feel so smarmy posting your bullshit into the ether, but, you are genuinely fucked up for doing so. I really have to stop reading reader's comments on websites, it's actually beginning to damage my soul. Thanks assholes.
It's pretty special that you consider the phrase "not as gifted as Mozart" to be synonymous with "not impressive". I hope your kids grow up to be Oscar-winning astronaut quarterbacks, or else you're in for quite a disappointment.
Lack of empathy is a clear social dysfunction and the only excuse is adolescence.
I would not ridicule a 16yo for not understanding how others might feel or how things are for someone else. If you are still busy finding your own identity it is difficult to feel for others. But if you're 20+ and still posting things like the above comments, you are on the way of becoming a pathetic loser.
On one side we have the who cares, this is not the place to post this. The on the other side we have Its such a tragedy we lost such a great young mind! Then we have the people who probably agree with the first but are to afraid to comment for the karma loss inflicted by the second side.
Lets be honest, it is a tragedy any time someone dies, even more so when that person had potential to change alot of peoples lives through their work, but let us remember we lose people everyday with more potential and intellect than this girl. She had the right combination to get to the point were she could excel, good parents that encouraged her that had money to make possible what she wanted to do. So I think on that point is a greater tragedy when we lose someone who tries to excel even though they have none of those things to help the process. Where is the press then? Where is microsoft to help them find the best medical care? Where is the overzealous out cry of mourners for those people?
I think its time the second group of people step back and re-look at all the shit they are giving the first group of people, unless you can name every bright mind the world has lost in the last year and how that young kid who was working themselfs through college because his mother was a crack head and his farther was in jail has effected you.
Being familiar with this girls story, I came here to say some kind words. I see that they have already been said.
For those of you with unkind words all I can say is I have been on Slashdot since 1997 and I have never been so embarrassed and ashamed to call myself a part of this community.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Here are the reasons why this is a news-worthy item here on Slashdot and why she should be credited for what she did:
1. The girl was from Pakistan and therefore unlikely to have been afforded similar social & educational privileges than a 16-year old girl in the USA or Europe.
2. Pakistan is a mainly Muslim country meaning that women have a lower status than men from the moment of birth. Therefore what she did was that little bit more harder for her than for a boy in Pakistan.
3. It's good to occasionally get a new story from Pakistan where everyone isn't portrayed as either a Taliban terrorist in the mountains or a member of the Pakistan government hiding them.
4. Maybe if a few more kids in our rich Western countries (I'm in the UK) took an interest in intellectual pursuits like programming, we wouldn't have so many of them dropping unwanted kids or getting addicted to drugs or alcohol. Maybe just one or two of those kids will read this story and take some inspiration from it, possibly change their own lives.
So now kindly shut the fuck up if you cannot show some compassion.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
Obligatory Hawking reference.
...is when you troll gleefully about the death of a teenage Pakistani girl who was a genius with Microsoft stuff but attacked anyone who trolled gleefully when Steve Jobs passed away.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
I am with those who maintain that a Microsoft certification is not Computer Science, and that the wikipedia article is erroneous, misleading and should be corrected. Perhaps by changing the heading from "Computer Science" to "Systems Administration". An impressive achievement for a nine year old to be sure, but not to be ranked with science. Attempting to mischaracterize her achievement that way only sullies it.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I had an uncle who was studing CS, so by age 2 I was writing my first Hello World program in BASIC.
Sorry, I don't believe you.
At two years old, you didn't have the motor skill to control a keyboard or a mouse, much less read or write.
The only problem I see is some user's inability to act like grown ups and thus let petty comments rile them enough that they go off advocating ways to punish people just for acting in a way that they don't approve. Do you approve AC comments? I don't. Therefore I don't waste my time reading them and thinking of ways I could punish them for saying stuff I don't like.
And don't come here with that righteous "social pressure" bullshit, with that "teach him to be more civil" load of bullshit. To see how this is such a good idea, remember that in the 60s this very same sort of argument was used in the US to justify attacking and assassinating people for not "knowing their place" and acting "uppity", with a blatant disregard for that time's social order.
This "social pressure" bullshit is just an excuse for authoritarian folks to bully people into submission and force them to be subjugated to your own views on every given subject. It's thanks to this bullshit that, even in this day and age, we get teenagers being stalked and receiving death threats for not caving to "social pressure" and be fervently aligned with a religion. And this is supposed to be a good thing'
So, the problem isn't any AC spewing crap to a forum. The problem is you, and others like you, who are urged to inflict punishment on others as a form of revenge just because someone dares to do or say something you approve, and who doesn't cave to your "social pressure". The real problem is that you, and others like you, are intolerant bigots who believe that it's ok to use force and violence to shape society into your preconceived notion of what is supposed to be. The real problem is you, and your inability to just ignore irrelevant stuff, such as bullshit comments, and instead opt to react violently to punish those behind them. You are a worse influence in society than anyone posting distasteful comments on any message board, and your self-righteous attitude does not benefit an society in any way.
So, if you don't like distasteful comments then stop browsing at -1 and go on with your life. Don't waste your time pretending that you know what's good for society, because you don't. If you don't like it then consider this your recipe of "social pressure", and see how you like it.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
I have zero respect for the certification. It will not buy me in a job interview. I have the slashdot'ers natural inclination to treat MS certification for what it is: someone I don't trust vouching for someone I don't know.
If you are in an interview with me:
o Prove you can code
o Prove you didn't lie on your resume
o Prove you can communicate with other engineers
Given all that, she seems like a smart little shit. I would have given her a chance.
Judging her life after the fact without extra information is not useful, and doing so makes you a dick.
--Terry
She is called a programming prodigy but no evidence is given, the only "evidence" is a MS certification on a site where MS certification is a gigantic red flag. Certification in general tends not to be popular and the ones from MS are often considered to have less value then the paper they were written upon if the paper was made of shit.
The article writer probably knows this and also knows that controversy sells ad impressions.
The simple fact is that a young person died who had some minor accomplishments that most on /, simply do not value since they know adults with the same who are the waste of IT. Maybe if the article poster had given some examples of actual code she had written? Something that would actually impress other developers? But the only links I seen so far are to software that is frankly not that impressive to people from a generation that had to create their own computer from scratch. Don't forget, there are REAL rocket scientists on Slashdot. People that built their own home computer before there were home computers are supposed to be all impressed with a kid that made a calculator in a modern development environment? Not even a very good calculator.
It might be hard for a 9 year old to do that particular exam but so what? Coders judge other coders on code, not certificates.
All this is to me is a young person who died who seems to have gotten some minor press attention for an achievement I do not value. Show me her 3D engine, new sorting algorithm, something that makes her a true child prodigy and not just a very boring kid who read a training manual cover to cover.
Sad she died, but millions die each day. What makes her worthy of special attention? I just don't like fake emotion from people who shed tears over this but never made a donation to stop people from dying or to cure a disease. Slashdot doesn't need human interest stories.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.