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Facebook Launches Initiative To Attract More Minorities and Women To Coding (thestack.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the come-together dept.

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.

13 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about hiring more people over 40 as well.

    1. Re:How about... by tripleevenfall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are dev managers in the world that don't give a crap about your age or skin color as long as you can code, document, lead, teach, test, implement, or what ever else we need done.

      Maybe we should stop putting people into categories and treating them differently (+ or -) based on the amount of pigment in their skin?

      Maybe we should judge people not based on the color of their skin but on the content of their character?

  2. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Why? by x0ra · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because STEM is paying well, and the induced physical risk and requirement is null. You will never see a progressive campaigning to have more women working in mines.

  3. Re:Facebook to abuse minorities and women! by plopez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep. Women and minorities work for lower pay.

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    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  4. The purpose is to reduce wages not increase them. by trout007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. Programming is not a language by tomhath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Why not just hire the best people for the job. by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because SJW.

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    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  7. Women are better by mesterha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    Chris Mesterharm
  8. Re:It's a daily SJW treat now! by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  9. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What I learned today: It's okay to say women are better at language, but clearly men can't be better at programming.

  10. Re:It's a daily SJW treat now! by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  11. Re: It is about culture. by cyber-vandal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.