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Barbie Will Be Used To Teach Kids To Code (engadget.com)
Mattel and Tynker are teaming up to launch seven new Barbie-themed coding lessons this coming summer. "The curriculum, aimed at teaching girls about computer programming, will also expose them to potential careers like becoming a veterinarian, astronaut, or robotics engineer," reports Engadget. "The larger goal is to introduce coding to 10 million kids by 2020." From the report: The Barbie programming curriculum has been designed for beginners grades K and up. It puts learners in career roles alongside Barbie as it introduces concepts gradually. It's not all just Barbie, of course, with a few different initiatives coming in 2018, including a Mattel code-a-thon and teacher outreach program as well as involvement in the Hour of Code in December.
"For close to 75 years, Mattel has taken a visionary approach to advancing play for kids around the world, most recently promoting computer programming and other STEM skills alongside iconic brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels and Monster High," said Tynker's Krishna Vedati in a statement. "We are very excited by this expanded partnership and the ambitious -- but achievable -- goal of teaching 10 million kids to learn to code by 2020 using Mattel brands."
"For close to 75 years, Mattel has taken a visionary approach to advancing play for kids around the world, most recently promoting computer programming and other STEM skills alongside iconic brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels and Monster High," said Tynker's Krishna Vedati in a statement. "We are very excited by this expanded partnership and the ambitious -- but achievable -- goal of teaching 10 million kids to learn to code by 2020 using Mattel brands."
The SJWs are out to spoil absolutely everything. I've never heard anything more ridiculous than using Barbie to teach kids to code. Everyone knows that He-Man is the only doll that should ever be used for teaching kids to code. Barbie is only to be used as a companion for He-Man so he can relax a little after a hard day of coding, as God intended.
[Note: I only use "doll" above in the generic sense, since technically, He-Man is an action figure. Barbie is a doll. And several studies have shown that women lack the upper body strength to code. It's a biological fact. ]
You are welcome on my lawn.
Your demographics are changing ... better bring back the OMG Ponies! theme.
It's not a report. It's an article. A "reporter" may write the article, but unless it's a specially commissioned document and not one of many articles in a periodical publication, it isn't a "report."
BeauHD and msmash have been hitting the copy-paste just about every story and calling TFA a "report" for the past week or so.
Next up, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teach boys how to knit.
California Barbie has to train H1B Barbie so she can take California Barbies job back to India.
The bigger issue is that people choose the path of least resistance. You aren't going to teach women to code as well as men simply because they can get a Hell of a lot further in life by learning how to put on a pushup bra and bat their eyes properly while giggling. Why spend years learning to do something to slave away 40+ hours a week for moderate income while absolutely dedicating your mind during that time and therefore making zero personal progression (even someone stacking boxes gets to keep their thoughts as their own during that time,) only to have your health suffer from sitting or otherwise not moving all day if you have literally any better choice? Can coding be fun? Sure. Do women have that degree of inherent autism brought about by an environment which offers them no options, no friends, etc other than to sit alone in a room for years learning how to do some extremely specialized thing? No, at least not any which might be competent enough to learn it were that the only option.
Computers will code themselves before your kids have a chance to finish college.
Hopefully it works out OK for you all, because coders like me will be retired and too burned out to fix the AI once we unleash it onto the world.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Barbie gave up last time she tried to code: https://m.slashdot.org/story/210093
"Do women have that degree of inherent autism brought about by an environment which offers them no options, no friends, etc other than to sit alone in a room for years learning how to do some extremely specialized thing?"
This is spot on. The only fucking way to get any good at this weird job is seclusion, for years. Sounds funny, like a joke except it is not.
a barbie coal miner? plumber? garbage collector? mechanic? truck driver?
not good argument?
how about this: stop raising your children based on your inferiority complexes
someone might say "Hey stupid, they are teaching kids something useful!" Well, they don't. Programming is a métier. It's the same as plumbing, wood crafting, smithing, e.t.c.. It's like teaching your kid to be an employee. Why don't they make barbie teach kids physics? math? astronomy? chemistry? literature? music? Because there's an inferiority complex and they feel that little girls' whole purpose from now on is to mimic/copy/compete nerd boys who suffer their whole life with their anti-social occupation and habits.
-Daddy?
-Yes, dear.
-Daddy, why does the compiler throw those warnings?
-Drink your milk and go to bed. Daddy will fix the code later.
Do women have that degree of inherent autism brought about by an environment which offers them no options, no friends, etc other than to sit alone in a room for years learning how to do some extremely specialized thing? No, at least not any which might be competent enough to learn it were that the only option
Interestingly there might be deep reasons why men are more prone to autism and aspergers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
to make more money for Mattell.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I told you not to use go-to's.
Table-ized A.I.
https://www.dailydot.com/parse... The "Barbie: I can be a computer engineer" book showed her having to ask the boys in her class to code a game for her because she wasn't able to! Not a great message for her fans.
Prostitution in women's cases. You never get respect for it though in other cultures, it is treated like a real career.
It's like a real career here, too; an entry level job in which workers with very little upward mobility constantly get screwed, and the overwhelmingly male senior managers reaps most of the rewards.
For example documented here: https://gizmodo.com/barbie-f-c...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually, PostScript is pretty interesting and teaches you some things you usually do not learn when coding. It is decidedly not for beginners though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You appear to have just assumed that Barbie is for girls.
Yep, spot on.
And not many people have the chance to get to write interesting code. A lot of coding is wearisome, repetitive drudge work that will be discarded in a few weeks or months.
Getting to write interesting code means that you will have put in years of learning the ins and outs and tricks and traps of modern coding - mastering this is a mostly solitary experience that demands a special mind-set.
I learned and enjoyed coding (a lot of DBase4, Pascal and assembler) 30 years ago when life was much simpler and it was only a part of my work.
Couldn't do it now (though I fool around with Python for fun) and earn my living in other ways.
Mac
...but...but..that's dangerous to talk about, so tread lightly!
Ezekiel 23:20
Thank heavens I don't work for Google.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I've always found it funny how nothing in the book has actually anything to do with computer engineering.
Ezekiel 23:20
I sure hope they do better than last time...
a decade ago...
"Math is HARD! Let's go shopping!"
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Math class is tough!
don't forget welfare ken that works the system after being layed off.
"Coding is NP hard."
I kid, and am bad at making jokes, but perhaps someone can run with that subject line...
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Getting to write interesting code means that you will have put in years of learning the ins and outs and tricks and traps of modern coding - mastering this is a mostly solitary experience that demands a special mind-set.
I would say that to be good, you also need to understand the tricks and traps of old fashioned coding which the new coding abstractions are built on top of. It's like the difference between a "new music" musician that pieces samples together and someone who also understands harmony and can create those samples.
Interestingly there might be deep reasons why men are more prone to autism and aspergers
Actually - it turns out that diagnosis presents differently in girls/women and that many (high functioning, although that term has been dropped from the DSM-V, I still use it to differentiate the set of people who have enough social communication skills to 'pass') ASD women get misdiagnosed, or go undiagnosed.
There is some legitimate debate in the medical community if there is a biological basis for the difference in expression of the symptoms in autism in women, or if it comes form the fact that society, when faced with a non-socially-conforming female puts into place a social training regime that would make most intensive behavioral invention programs jealous, which works to lower the observable impact of the symptoms. As in most things, it's probably a bit of column A and a bit of column B.
Since we don't know what causes Autism, it's difficult to say how prevalent it is in women. It's worth noting that the prevalence of diagnosed cases in women has increased over the years though, which absent a causal factor to increase its expression in women suggests that we are still coming to grips with the different symptoms in women.
Some background reading for those interested:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
http://www.autism.org.uk/about...
Source: I'm the father of a newly diagnosed ASD daughter, and research is how I deal with life. Please, if you have a child, male or female, and you suspect ASD, get them tested. If it's significant enough that you suspect it, it's also impacting their lives.
My daughter was diagnosed years late because her pediatrician mistook the symptoms for shyness, and it wasn't until she was seen and tested by a specialist that we got the correct diagnosis.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Apparently Mattel still thinks its OK to discriminate and only provide help and support based on gender.
i.e. acquiring The Learning Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"I think this is to turn out about as well as all the other initiatives to "teach kids to code"."
They'll just sell the kids some crappy clothes to put on Barbie, so that she 'looks' like a programmer, together with a girly 'workstation' and other crap.
Or maybe it's this Barbie?
(Barbie-obsessed mother is saving so her daughter, 13, can have surgery to look like the doll just like she did)
Coders are just mental prostitutes.
If you're trying to raise your child to be the next blue-collar peon, then by all means this is how to do it. You can teach "coding", and they'll get paid minimum-wage to "code".
This is precisely the same as painting. You can teach your child to paint, and they'll be able to paint walls.
But you can't teach creativity, creative innovation, nor artistic creative innovation -- that means problem solving.
I don't think that you'll find an experienced programmer, successful and senior and making real money, who isn't mostly self-taught.
Humans learn problem solving in the only manner than any living thing has ever learned problem solving skills -- by having problems and fighting with them until someone wins.
If girls don't have the patience, or the dedication, or the motivation, or the self esteem to work a problem alone, until it's gone. . .if a person insists on direct hand-holding (as opposed to documentation or occasional guidance) to work out a solution to a problem affecting them. . .then this ain't a'gonna be their day-job, so to speak. This ain't their forte.
In the past two weeks, I've watched girls take the "shallow side" of the mountain in slope-style, get lifted in skating, and basically do push-ups from their knees -- a.k.a. "girlie push-ups". I'm no athlete, I sit at a desk 80 hours a week, but when I go to the gym next to the jocks, I play the same game they do. There's a mutual respect in that. When I golf (I don't golf) I play from the same tees as the regular golfers (the ladies tees are in-front of the amateurs, by the way).
Women don't deserve equal respect for playing a dumbed-down version, just like they wouldn't deserve equal pay for dumbed-down work.
I've recently been convinced that all of this is engrained into girls at a young age -- that they aren't as good as men, aren't as strong as men, aren't as fast as men. I have no idea if that's true of gladiator men, or hockey playing men, but I promise you that most women are faster and stronger than I am.
But I wasn't raised by Barbie. I was raised by Mr. Wizard. Maybe the hockey playing men were raised by G.I. Joe?
I am impressed by Barbie today though. She's come a long way. You wouldn't expect coding from someone who used to think that "math is hard".
However I don't like this continuous push in favor of Swift (a chiefly Apple development platform)
I think the one thing that is most likely to thwart efforts to get coding on the school curriculum is the cursed language wars. Get them coding. Apple have some nice tools for learning Swift interactively. Anybody who turns out to have an otherwise undiscovered aptitude for it will have no difficulty learning other languages before they start looking for coding jobs. Everybody else will just learn a bit about computers and maybe relate it to how you can use mathematics to do useful things and planning/organisation skills.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I experienced this first hand when my kid was young. The "Doctor" Barbie sets cost more than the McDonald's sets. I didn't really noticed it until it was pointed out to me by one of those SJW type sites, but it's one of those things you can't unsee when you see it. I haven't had to buy Barbie in years though and I wonder if the bad press made them stop doing it. Still annoyed the hell out of me (as did paying $200 for a cheap plastic doll house because I suck at wood work).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you replace "computer engineer" with "software engineer", the premise isn't quite as stupid as it seems at first. The software engineer's role is to make high-level technical decisions and tell the programmers what to write. In many companies, though, programmers are given the title "software engineer" and the people doing the high-level engineering are given titles like "software architect".
In that book, Barbie is the manager or lead engineer and the boys are the programmers. Whether or not Barbie is portrayed as a competent manager is a separate matter.
public class Math {
public boolean isTough = true;
}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Talk_Barbie#Controversy
Autism is defined by obsession at the expense of other things.
Is it fuck.
A symptom of autism can be obsession on a specific thing, but it's not a defining trait, let alone mandatory or the key thing.
Female autists tend to focus on what females focus on (socialization) and end up scary good at it
Strange, my reading on the subject suggests that women get diagnosed less because they're better at faking the social engagement side.
That's not 'scary good at it', that's 'hiding how fucking hard it is for them'.
males tend to focus on tech and get scary good at that
Stereotype much?
Given that treatment for high functioning austism doesn't include any drugs, no zombification is likely to have happened.
Diagnosis means easier understanding of what the fuck is going on, and thus ways to mitigate or prevent negative behaviours or outcomes. E.g. sensory overload can trigger very negative behaviours so identifying and minimising the overload can keep everybody happier.
No drugs needed, just some awareness and common sense.
Not sure which idiot modded you as 'troll' but they should probably read up on previous Mattel explorations in this space.
https://techcrunch.com/2014/11... (link nicked from a page linked by another post)
Numerous recent studies show that in the most gender equal countries, far fewer women pursue careers in science or mathematics. https://www.theatlantic.com/sc... Given the choice, women prefer different things than men. Wow, what a revelation.... Now just waiting for the SJW's to counter this with more pseudoscience.
Why this obsession with teaching EVERYONE how to code?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I'll believe Mattel is serious when half the 'Barbie' aisle looks like the 'Maker' department at a store like Fry's. Say, Barbie-themed RasPi & Arduino boards, cases, and tools, plus the usual components & accessories.
It's easy to laugh at this but I welcome anything from any direction that helps kids get exposed to programming, as I feel like there are probably a lot of people who would enjoy programming but never get a chance to know that.
However the actual approach they are taking sounds maybe a bit muddled or over-ambitious. It sounds like they are trying to tech kids what a programming career is like, while at the same time introducing "programming concepts"... I'm not sure that sounds fun enough to draw people into programming, as the career stuff could cast the white thing in a pretty boring light.
But we'll see how it actually turns out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you replace "computer engineer" with "software engineer", the premise isn't quite as stupid as it seems at first. The software engineer's role is to make high-level technical decisions and tell the programmers what to write. In many companies, though, programmers are given the title "software engineer" and the people doing the high-level engineering are given titles like "software architect".
That's a description of a very dysfunctional place to work. Rarely do we see such a dichotomy between a "software engineer" and a "programmer". That might have been the case when programming was more of a cowboy activity. A software engineer is expected to do programming, and we expect the act of programming to follow some basic principles of software engineering, starting at the most junior positions (entry level software engineer or software engineer associate, or intern.)
More senior positions provide high level guidance, but the software engineering process is carried out from the grounds up. When this is not the case, shit ensues.
In that book, Barbie is the manager or lead engineer and the boys are the programmers. Whether or not Barbie is portrayed as a competent manager is a separate matter.
And therein lies the problem I had with that book (I'm a father of two girls.) Sure Barbie is the lead, but where did she start? How did she start? The book still harks to certain stereotypes where a woman still has to dictate how to do things without showing that she can actually roll her sleeves and get shit done.
This a reason why I keep showing my kids pictures of factory women during WWII or lady mathematicians working ballistic trajectories or programming vacuum tubes back in the day.
Damn you slashdot and your markup. https://static01.nyt.com/image...
That's a description of a very dysfunctional place to work. Rarely do we see such a dichotomy between a "software engineer" and a "programmer". That might have been the case when programming was more of a cowboy activity. A software engineer is expected to do programming, and we expect the act of programming to follow some basic principles of software engineering, starting at the most junior positions (entry level software engineer or software engineer associate, or intern.)
More senior positions provide high level guidance, but the software engineering process is carried out from the grounds up. When this is not the case, shit ensues.
I thought I had written something about how many companies have the "software engineer" and the "programmer" be the same person, but I guess I removed it while editing. I strongly disagree that having them be separate people makes the team "very dysfunctional". In some companies, every person on the team is both a good software engineer and a good programmer. If that's what your team is like and it works for you, that's great. But having different people that are better at different parts of software development can also work perfectly fine. They're different ways of organizing the team, and either one can work if you have people that do well in that type of organization.
And therein lies the problem I had with that book (I'm a father of two girls.) Sure Barbie is the lead, but where did she start? How did she start? The book still harks to certain stereotypes where a woman still has to dictate how to do things without showing that she can actually roll her sleeves and get shit done.
This a reason why I keep showing my kids pictures of factory women during WWII or lady mathematicians working ballistic trajectories or programming vacuum tubes back in the day.
I haven't looked at the book myself, but I'm not at all surprised that it's as bad as you say. Even if someone involved in creating the book was thinking of what I described (which they probably weren't), I'm sure the group would find plenty of ways to screw it up.
The bigger issue is that people choose the path of least resistance. You aren't going to teach women to code as well as men simply because they can get a Hell of a lot further in life by learning how to put on a pushup bra and bat their eyes properly while giggling.
A girl rejected you once, did she?
I mean, seriously, you must be quite the charmer with the ladies.
They could introduce the Fat Model and Fat View to keep the Fat Controller company.
Don't worry about that. CS is tough. The few women in CS are like rock stars, especially if they actually know what they're doing. It'll always be a male dom area because it's tough. It takes work and people don't do it unless they have to. Women don't have to.
Forum 2000 was doing this 20 years ago.
It does reek a bit of an image overhaul on the math is hard fiasco although i doubt anyone but tekkies still use that for teh lulz by now. What strikes me here is how "women" are considered one entity ... one size fits all, like "all women never have a secluded life", "there are no female shut-ins" ... etcetera ... that's a bit Trump-ish if you dont mind me taking the liberty of adding a few words to the Oxford dictionary. I'm not a fan of feminists since they are -ists and extremists and in most cases live in places where they can afford to be (lets exclude pussy riot and Malala from that for now ...) which hippocrists more like.
but aside that ... Barbie as the face of coding ? does that come with Mattel-C ? I havent been paying much attention to a world that kept pushing me down for the last years since i dont see the point but last time i was talking to my 16 yo cousin he told me they are taught something called "scratch" at school under the pretense that it's IT and programming but from what he described its more like playing sokoban with a puzzle where you just need to put the right blocks in the right place ...
i wasn't too keen on "environments" before since i feel they break connection with the machine (Von Neumann weeps) but that doesnt seem like coding at all really so im curious as to how Barbie will bring the nooze lol
(and to the guy below : prostitution isnt illegal here in hellgium but it isnt legal either, it leaves the girls in a grey zone so all but the independent real expensive pros tend to be shaken for money or worse ... i personally think it should be legal since it is an inevitability everywhere. At least you can regulate some conditions , i mean why not, they regulate everything but co tax fro breathing and farthing -)
ting
good now before i get labelled off-topic ..
moreover since coding on huge projects works in chunks i suppose these days its become more like a highly specialized craft where one lead-director oversees the main flowchart and a lot of little cogs write a lot of little chunks related to their personal area of expertise
so, GOOD LUCK, BARBIE !
why dont you stick with pageants , darling, after all (i k now i know but i gotta ....) math is hard !
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?