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Facebook Launches Initiative To Attract More Minorities and Women To Coding (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook has launched TechPrep, a new initiative to attract more minorities and women into coding. The project draws a very strong analogy between the learning of computer coding skills and the learning of spoken languages, a field which is important to people whose first language is not English, and which engages with the popular understanding that women are better at learning languages. TechPrep is seeking to engage with parents and guardians to get its target audience into coding earlier in life.
How about hiring more people over 40 as well.
Why not just get people who are actually interested in coding to participate? Why do they have to be women or minorities? That seems rather bigoted.
Another notable finding was that men were five times more likely than women to say that they knew a lot about computer programming.
Holy shit, really? Men are more likely to claim they know a lot about anything.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
It doesn't matter what shape their genitals are.
Yep. Women and minorities work for lower pay.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
People who think computer languages are anything like natural languages know nothing about either.
You can be sure anytime employees want more people in a field it means they want to reduce labor costs.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
seeks to analogise coding skills with language skills to make the subject of computer science less forbidding and opaque
Good luck with that. Programming is about logic, not language.
Programming languages exist because natural languages are ambiguous. This is why the whole legal profession exists.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
So if woman are better at languages then there are differences (surprise) between the sexes. If you open that door, maybe men are better at programming.
Chris Mesterharm
It's any racial group that's in the minority in a given population--except Asians of course, because they just learn, work hard, and refuse to play victims.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
All those things you mentioned as "geek culture" are the new mainstream. Look at the news media: Today is back to the future day? Star Wars merchandising permeating EVERY media outlet? Your logic has failed. My "geek" friends no longer wish to identify with "geek culture" and have since kept all of their inherent "geekiness" under wraps because it has become a giant pain in the ass, and the most obnoxious thing any "geek" can experience is having people talking to them about common interests. To be a geek is to be socially inept, and as such this new found corporate fascination with all things "geek" has created a cultural paradox. Much like how the word "hipster" is regularly used today to describe the exact opposite of what a hipster is.
I'm still waiting on all the "Why aren't there more straight men in the fashion industry?" articles that I just know must be coming any day now. ....still waiting......
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
What I learned today: It's okay to say women are better at language, but clearly men can't be better at programming.
The only thing keeping straight males out of the fashion industry is feedback from straight males.
Nope, these articles have taught me that the only possible explanation for the underrepresentation of a gender or race in a given field is that the field is either hostile or discriminatory (or both). It can't possibly be by personal choice or because of social pressure from within the gender or race itself.
If someone isn't present, it's because they're being excluded or discriminated against by the powers in the field.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Do geeks very laid more now? Do they get hassled less? Do women swoon and men feel small at the sound of a Star Wars quote from a neckbeard? The mainstream may have appropriated geek things but little has changed for the average geek. Just watch Big Bang Theory for an example of how geeks are viewed.
You just hit the nail on the herad there pal. The question isn't why aren't there more women in high tech, but rather why are there so many men? Just because you can (sort of) doesn't mean you should. Seriously. If you got into computers because it is "where the money is", please leave the industry ASAP. You are ruining it for the competent among us. Thanks.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun