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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.
Hooray smash the patriarchy!
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.
The way concepts are expressed is irrelevant, what matter is how structured they are to one another. To make a culinary parallel, everybody can use a pan and a pot, but not everybody can marry food in delicate and tasty way.
This, or Facebook is looking for code monkey.
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.
Define minority please. Heck, for that matter these days, define women! This is baloney. I don't give a rat's ass about a programmer's sex, color, background, etc. I care that they like what they do and that they do a good job of it, without being offensive to the team. Frankly, I care more if they smoke or wear too much cologne and come in stinking up the office several times a day.
It doesn't matter what shape their genitals are.
I reckon these initiatives are close to outnumbering the people in the target groups. They'll have to start moonlighting to keep up with the supply.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Please tell me I'm not the only one bothered by "The project draws a very strong analogy between the learning of computer coding skills and the learning of spoken languages"
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.
Not mine, copied from a forum...
sup
{
gimme fibo bitch
a be 1 bitch
b be 1 bitch
putou a bitch
putou b bitch
fibo be fibo widout 2 bitch
slongas (fibo bepimpin 0)
c be a an b bitch
a be b bitch
b be c bitch
putou b bitch
dissin fibo bitch
nomo
}
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
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
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.
What I learned today: It's okay to say women are better at language, but clearly men can't be better at programming.
Please explain how a statement such as "popular understanding that women are better at learning languages" is acceptable while "popular understanding that men are better at mathematics, applying the scientific theory and thinking in a logical manner" will get you lynched. They're both inflammatory statements.
It seems that any statement which includes women must be respectful and filled with praise to avoid social outrage. Any statement which includes men is permitted to disparage them, paint them as unintelligent, as buffoons and as dangerous criminals.
How is this social justice?
Let's see what passes the PC compliance test:
"Women are better at learning spoken languages" - PASS
"Therefore men are not as good as woman at learning spoken languages" - Eyebrow inperceptively raised, but PASS
"Men are better [on average] than women at computer programming" - RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERT !!!
Is "wiling to work for minimum wage" considered a valid minority now?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When I worked at Cisco, I was part of a minority group that two white guys and one Latino guy, all native born. Everyone else was from India.
Life pro tip: don't be a tranny.
And multiple posts by people over 30 were saying they won't even consider working for FB? It's SJW shit like this that experienced engineers loathe.
Not only a girl, but the typical, if not stereotypical, SJW, as far as I can see...
When I was looking through college catalogs in the early 1990's, some degree programs allowed the substitution of foreign language classes with programing language classes. Alas, eight years in Commodore 64 BASIC didn't qualify as an acceptable programming language for college.
"The project draws a very strong analogy between the learning of computer coding skills and the learning of spoken languages"
Seems to imply speaking a language, which is not right at all. It's about writing a language. Maybe not coincidentally, male authors outnumber women authors by about the same proportion as in software development.
http://www.theguardian.com/boo...
BTW one of my favorite authors is Mary Stewart, her Arthurian Saga is awesome!
love is just extroverted narcissism
Keep whining, or why don't you just shave your neckbeard, buy some decent clothes, and bathe once in a while shitlord? I'm a girl btw.
And why don't you lose some weight, stop wearing butch-dyke overalls, and shave your armpits occasionally, you land-whale?
See how bigoted assumptions work both ways? Or is it only fashionable to insult males?
Are they cheap labor, or slaves? Make up your mind.
That's what I thought. "Attracting minorities and women" is code for, "we're aiming tp pay minimum wage with no benefits".
Would you like files with that?
There isn't that much difference. The main reason you'd want slaves is so that your labor cost is close to zero: the only cost involved with a slave is the initial purchase price, and then the ongoing maintenance costs (mainly food, but also housing and medical care). Of course, these days with government welfare programs it's probably cheaper to hire cheap laborers than to buy slaves: by paying the workers minimum wage, they qualify for government assistance, so you effectively outsource some of the cost of that worker to the government, and by extension the taxpayers at large. With slaves, you have to pay for all their costs, plus you have to go to the trouble of managing their daily lives too, instead of letting them do it themselves like you do with non-slave workers.
If you count food, shelter, training and potential medical bills, slaves are more expensive than wages.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We need more H1B visa. Look, in the US we only get applications from white males, but we want diversity in our company!
For example, Indians are really underrepresented in our work force!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm a V8.
grave bait
Thanks, I always wondered what came after MILF.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now that he's past 30, I wonder if Zuckerberg will pay attention to it.
http://www.fastcompany.com/303...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
A 200lb black women wearing a Captain America outfit at Comic-Con is not being part of geek culture.
Logic, knowledge, and discipline are timeless.
Too bad they don't teach that in school.
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.
Impossible. University of Washington Assistant Professor of Social Justice Sapna Cheryan has made her career demonstrating that first of all, women don't like geek culture, and second, that's why there aren't so many women in tech, and third, if we just stomped on the geeks, made them dress like normal people and put away their toys, we'd have parity between men and women in tech.
I disagree with your last assertion. I had exposure to multiple languages from the day I was born, and I think it was great for me because it gave me that disconnect between concepts and words. I have far less trouble learning languages than my wife, who grew up with a single language and learned English later.
What the actual fuck? I was born in an environment where English, Kanada, Hindi and Dutch were spoken. I can speak five languages now. I understand how to use tenses, and that different languages have different tenses available. That's never been an issue for me. Are you going to claim next that bilingual children can't use articles? Or the verb to be? Oh I know, verb conjugation! That's an easy one! Bilingual children can't conjugate verbs!
I'll grant that a child whose parents aren't fluent English speakers isn't going to learn to speak perfect English at home, that's to be expected. But isn't school supposed to remedy that? What's the point of sending the kids to school if it isn't even providing basic language education? Don't they teach English/ESL?
I think there's another issue at play, in that some teachers simply take English for granted and never put in the effort to actually understand it fully, leaving them unable to teach it properly. Perhaps one should be required to speak at least one other language in order to be qualified to teach English. You learn a lot about how a language works when you see how another language does it differently.
To be fair, You can be sure anytime employees don't want more people in a field it also means they want to reduce labor costs. (i.e. companies always want to reduce labor costs.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
They are mo' cheap
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Dude, your best hope lies now, as it always has, in the hopes that cybernetic women are just around the corner. Keep on pulling for her!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Dude, for someone who can't figure out how to create A Slashdot account and log in she's probably out-geaking him. Besides, what you got against BLOW?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I have seen this attempt time and again over the decades, and they never seem to gain traction. Why not? Simple. It's all about the passion, and especially in today's world of the Internet, with endless resources available online for free at every level to for anyone even mildly curious about software development.
If you are interested, you already would've Googled and checked it out. Many sites allow you to write code in your browser in just about every major language out there. Development platforms can be setup and downloaded for free to any computer. Etc., etc. So what will FB do that will enhance what's already there? I think they will get maybe a handful interested, but you will not see the "sea change" they seek. You either have the knack or you do not, and no amount of flag-waving will change that much. "Women" and "Minorities". I don't see the point in targeting specific demographics like that. It's very condescending.
In a male dominated board. Bring it on fuckers, it is excellent PR.
I don't care about wrestling, but don't call it "geek culture".
Asperger Syndrome is about 4 times more prevalent in males. Males are about 4 times more prevalent in coding jobs. I believe the vast majority of software developers to have (undiagnosed) Asperger Syndrome and I believe that that fully explains the "lack" of female software developers.
Now let's go invent the Overly Considerate Disorder that affects mostly females in order to explain the lack of male nurses so we can finally put an end this "equality" bullshit.
0x or or snor perron?!
i'm really sick of this employer cynicism i see on slashdot. it basically comes down to: "i'm am highly skilled and no one else can be".
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
So with all these H1-B stories floating around, I assume they mean white people when they say "minorities"?
Oh, but by that logic, SCIENCE isn't strictly a science because you have to use Language to talk about anything in science!