Facebook Launches Initiative To Attract More Minorities and Women To Coding (thestack.com) 281
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about hiring more people over 40 as well.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't speak for Facebook, but my team is currently comprised of
8 Caucasian men
1 Caucasian woman
5 Indian men
4 Indian women
2 Asian men
(Note that my metro area is ~78% white). I can only hire from the applications I receive, so I can't bring in Latino or African American devs/BAs/PMs/etc... I've been thinking about doing an outreach program to see about visiting some of our local high schools' CS programs and see what I can learn about our next generation of coders.
The youngest people on my team are late 20s. A couple of months ago one of the women on my team retired. I have multiple team members that are looking at full retirement in the next 5 years (one of whom I hired last year). Probably half of my team is in the 40+ category and a good portion of that has been hired on in the last 3 years.
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.
-Rick
Re:How about... (Score:5, 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?
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Typically, sure, but when we are picking someone to cross the desert for us, I think I'll stick with racism :-)
Category Shift (Score:2)
grave bait
Thanks, I always wondered what came after MILF.
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I always heard it was GILF; Grandmother...
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Grandmother I Loathe Fondling?
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I can only hire from the applications I receive, so I can't bring in Latino or African American devs/BAs/PMs/etc
Then you need to do more recruiting. If the corporation is more interested in meeting diversity targets, then you don't need to worry about qualifications; just go find someone and hire them for the job. I'm sure the cafeteria janitor can become a PM or developer.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Interesting)
Listen, if I get an application that fits the profile and the person provides what I'm looking for, I'm hiring him or her.
I am not going to compromise the financial situation of my company for the sake of pandering to some PC fad.
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Why are you worried about the financial situation of your company? The company doesn't belong to you.
What's important is what your bosses want. Do they want diversity, or do they share your attitude? If they're pushing diversity uber alles, then you should propose promoting one of the janitors to high-skill jobs so they can fill those quotas. See what the CxOs say about that.
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You didn't seriously just post that on Slashdot for everyone to read did you?
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Fuck racism along with political correctness. I'd rather be a terrible person than march along to that PC bullshit.
Play the race card on me only if you really want to forfeit the game early.
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Is your metro area population also 50% H1B foreigners?
The purpose is to reduce wages not increase them. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can be sure anytime employees want more people in a field it means they want to reduce labor costs.
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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.)
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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
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If you count food, shelter, training and potential medical bills, slaves are more expensive than wages.
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Sorry that won't work. That would mean paying people actual market rates for skilled jobs. We just can't have that. Particularly when there is an endless supply of 3rd world talent willing to work for a fraction of what you and I would work for. So let's just open the H1-B floodgates and let them all in. It's the Walmart-ization of high tech. Careful what we wish for.
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You better hope he's just a white geezer. If that's a black lesbian, you're in SO deep shit...
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I can't speak for you specifically, but most of us here on Slashdot concluded that vaginas are greater than penises many, many years ago.
It's a daily SJW treat now! (Score:4, Funny)
Hooray smash the patriarchy!
Re:It's a daily SJW treat now! (Score:5, 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......
Re:It's a daily SJW treat now! (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.
Re:It's a daily SJW treat now! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Some school boards do try to attract male teachers for the younger grades. Some recreation programs do try to target attract male leaders for programs that serve children. Many parents and children appreciate male role models for their children, particularly if they have boys. Many children appreciate male teachers and recreation program leaders as well.
The stereotypes certainly exist, but they are not universal. Men do have to be somewhat more careful because of those stereotypes, so it is better to wo
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Re: It is about culture. (Score:5, 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.
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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!
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Re:It is about culture. (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually I have. I have seen women recruited for industrial electrical work, driving big as trucks in open pit mines, and running equipment underground. Or launched into space using liquid oxygen and or HME.
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Yes it does. In an open pit mine.
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My point has not been demonstrated to be false, because we don't have the same definition of "miners". Point that highlighted by the comparison between fighter pilot and drone pilots.
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Oh yes, I forgot. Your definition of "miners" is not the common one of "people who work in mines".
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It does happen. A friend of mine spent about 20 years as a welder because of one of those "get women into the trades" programs.
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Are you assuming there are no women and minorities who are interested? Or who might be interested if it were presented in the correct manner (which does not imply easier).
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As such, they either don't regard the treatment as sexist or racist, or if they do see it that way feel that it is justified in orde
Coding is irrelevant (Score:3)
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.
I know a lot about this comment (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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That's not the only thing they lie about. ;)
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LOL and how much do men outnumber women in programming.... maybe 5 to 1?
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Sure but that was the results of one of the research papers. Women feel they must know 100% about something before attempting it where Men feel like they must know about 60% about something before attempting it and will learn the rest on the job.
[John]
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FTA:
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.
Yeah, ask men about their dick size and then ask their wives the same question.
Define minority (Score:2)
Re:Define minority (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Here are the 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee finalists:
https://lintvkoin.files.wordpr... [wordpress.com] ...or, as like to call them, "7 reasons why the myth of Asian high achievement isn't a myth, and also 3 white kids."
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I read through the linked article and it's enough to make me sick. In the end it's just another feminist who hates evil white males, 100% of whom are oppressors and 100% of whom deserve to die. The ostensible thesis, though, is that by praising successful Asians we promote prejudice against blacks. Seriously ... white people can't get anything right, apparently ... even when they praise people who have overcome hardship and done well, there has to be a reprehensible motive for it.
Many people have worked the
Why not just hire the best people for the job. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not just hire the best people for the job. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because SJW.
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I would hire a black person, I would hire a woman, I would hire a latino, I would never hire a SJW.
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The people have to exist if you're going to hire them.
TFA isn't about hiring unqualified people just because they're from underrepresented groups. It's about encouraging people from underrepresented groups to seek and acquire the qualifications in the first place.
Re:Why not just hire the best people for the job. (Score:4, Informative)
That sounds cruel.
The underrepresented group is the "low IQ" group, and unless I missed some big developments, IQ isn't something that can be acquired by seeking.
The root problem is that membership in the fundamental group is not distributed evenly across superficial demographic groups. But reality (genetics) can't be moved by wishing, shrieking or blaming.
The implications of IQ distribution by demographic groups has been discussed in gruesome detail elsewhere [f2s.com]. Pay particular attention to the parts about thresholds and tails.
Of course, everyone already knows this, and are increasingly recognizing that these stories are about power, not programming.
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IQ tests measure how good you are at doing IQ tests. They don't necessarily correlate to an individual's abilities in all areas.
In any case, my post was not about average IQ of a particular group. It was about opening the door to groups that might perceive that they are closed. People still need to make the grade. We just need to make sure they aren't discouraged to try.
Not long ago, women represented about 10% of physics majors. In recent years, that number has increased significantly, and not because wome
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Sounds to me like your company was being incredibly obtuse when they announced they were hiring a female Java developer. They should have just said they were hiring a Java developer, and left it at that.
Whether a person is qualified or not becomes obvious enough after they start contributing. And everyone has to deal with self-doubt from time to time. All I can say is ... persevere.
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Sounds to me like your company was being incredibly obtuse when they announced they were hiring a female Java developer.
FTFY
YAMICI (Score:5, Funny)
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.
because ebonics (Score:3)
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
}
Programming is not a language (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.
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Programming is about logic, not language.
oh yeah? well then how do you explain LISP?! ;P
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With a minimum of "S" sounds.
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It sure as hell isn't a liberal art. And you can't treat it like a language used to communicate with people. You don't get your head out of your ass and distinguish clearly between to, too, two, Two, TWO, etc., and you are a shitty programmer. If you write about a car's breaks, or braking a dish, a human can figure out what you actually mean inside that besotted head, but a compiler cannot.
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More like an applied art because sometimes there is no single right answer. Just because it compiles and works doesn't mean it couldn't have been done better or worse.
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Yeah by writing it, not speaking it. I don't know how many times a customer has given me a nonsensical requirement and when I asked them to write it down they then realized it didn't make any sense.
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Women are better (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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Sure, as long as you're aware that those facts allow you to make inferences only about populations, not specific individuals.
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I believe the IQ factoid on this is really just a good trap.
If you want to spark a flame-war, or look like an anti-PC bad-ass on the Internet, bringing it up is a good way to do it. I believe this because any intelligent, productive conversation afterwards is usually impossible. It's like Godwin's Law, only better. An actual productive conversation could go in a few interesting directions, with points that could be debated on their own merits, but I almost never see that happen.
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Interesting (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.
Politically Correct Compliance Test (Score:5, Funny)
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 !!!
Question (Score:2)
Remember the story how FB won't hire grey beards? (Score:3)
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.
learning spoken vs writing (Score:2)
"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... [theguardian.com]
BTW one of my favorite authors is Mary Stewart, her Arthurian Saga is awesome!
Translation (Score:2)
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!
Big F'ing Deal - What about ageism? (Score:2)
Now that he's past 30, I wonder if Zuckerberg will pay attention to it.
http://www.fastcompany.com/303... [fastcompany.com]
More misandrist articles (Score:3)
Re:Facebook to abuse minorities and women! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Women and minorities work for lower pay.
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People who think computer languages are anything like natural languages know nothing about either.
Re:Please tell me I'm not the only one bothered by (Score:4, Insightful)
Programming languages exist because natural languages are ambiguous. This is why the whole legal profession exists.
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Logic, knowledge, and discipline are timeless.
Too bad they don't teach that in school.
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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.
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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 Englis