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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.
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.
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.
to make more money for Mattell.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
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
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;
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
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".
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.
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)
Why this obsession with teaching EVERYONE how to code?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone