Hacker News Reader

Comment by schenecstasy | Hacker News Reader

Can't these people learn to code?

I already know how to code. What do I code that will make me money? It's not like a person can just code anything at all and get paid by the line.

Getting a programming job is nice in theory until nobody will hire you. Programming freelance is a nice idea in theory until people on Odesk take your work and disappear. Bootstrapping a startup is a nice idea until you realize you don't have a good idea for one.

I'm ill, got fired from a tech support job I loved because of it, and have tried several times to support myself with coding from home. If I didn't have a loving wife who works hard to provide barely enough to pay rent and have decent health insurance, I might be homeless now. If I didn't have a home or own my own computer I would have even less of a chance.

There's a disconnect between the imagined reality where skill and effort instant translates into wealth and the actual reality where luck or the generosity of others is required.

I was 30 when I started teaching myself to code. Had a music degree and a good amount of success in the music business. I spent the first 18 months or so wandering all over the internet just trying to figure out what I was trying to figure out. Now I'm 35. I have a good job, a family, a house, basically all the support structure you would want in your life to help you along. This stuff is still, to me, incredibly hard, and I have an insane work ethic and a decent amount of intelligence and everything I need to learn.

So no, most of them probably can't.

Possibly, but in the real world not a chance.

Most of the formally homeless people I know are now in the food industry. That is because at the shelter I worked at they would rotate who cooks the meal, so all homeless 'in the program' learned to cook, and now they all work at the cheesecake factory.

Which pays enough to live comfortably in my hometown. Don't know how viable it is here in the valley, though, with both higher expenses and more competition.

Pretty sure this was sarcastic folks.

Please god let this have been sarcastic.

Sure, go ahead and teach them.

Remember you will need to start from the ground up. "To start the computer -- that machine in front of you -- press the button that is right there"... then, in about a year, perhaps you could teach them to code.

Only a fraction of homeless are like that, there a good chunk of just regular people who have worked in middle class environments and used to have jobs, but had shitty savings & a combination of not being able to get another one led them to the streets. There are people who have decided to be itterant homeless by their own choice, many young homeless people have email addresses.

Look at this guy for example: "NYC Homeless Man Learns To Code And Builds App In Four Weeks" http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/09/27/nyc-homeless-man-lea...

That's a pretty condescending reply. Homeless in no way implies stupid or ignorant. To state that a homeless person wouldn't know how to turn on a computer is insulting.

Is it? I managed convicts on work-release recently. Some of them had quite a bit of trouble clocking in and out. I'm talking basic "fill out this form" stuff.

There are many who could also benefit from adult literacy teaching. See if you can volunteer at your local library. Many of them have programs to help people read and read better.

Also, many employers will balk at employing people with criminal records. Many are legally prohibited from hiring them too (banks, etc).

Want to help? Make a company, hire people at the bottom who need help getting their sons and daughters out of shelters and to school on time at 7:48 am with a full breakfast in them after a good night's sleep. Keep your company going by providing excellent and valuable service to your customers. And when your janitor invites you to his daughter's middle school graduation, put on your best suit and go. Just because a man has darker skin, tattoos, a shaved head, doesn't want to talk about his past, and clams up with a frown and a thousand-yard stare when discussions get heated at the office, doesn't mean he's spending his pay on drugs and hookers. He's probably thinking that his girlfriend needs him to keep his job so he can make the car payment and the rent and buy groceries so he can feed the three year old at home that's watching Curious George right now.

I am in no way implying that they are stupid. Did you ever go out and shown computers to people who are not used to them? Not everyone in the world had access to one growing up. Some people are simply too old and never picked up on it.

I am actually saying to this person: "go ahead and help out there". I have shown computers to people who couldn't figure out how the damn mouse work!

This is such a rude comment. This comment is basically like putting salt on the injury. You are talking about coding when these people don't actually have a place to stay and/or good food to eat. You have spoken like a true 'born with a silver spoon and never knew what poverty really is like' guy.

I'm fairly sure it was sarcasm, since that's sort of a kneejerk reaction that coders have to people with issues, and in this case it's completely absurd.

We've seen the idea floated non-sarcastically on HN. I think it's troubling that in our community a statement such as this has uncertain seriousness.

It makes me wonder the thorough and complete disconnection from reality that much occur for someone to suggest this sort of thing seriously.

Yeah, you're right, I've seen it too.

I've noticed that techies have a tendency to drift into absolutist thinking, probably because we're so isolated from mainstream society, so our brains, being the wonderful bayesian-esque learning machines they are have relatively a relatively small sample of non-diverse data on the subject. And the abstract world we work in is artificially absolute. And maybe it's partly the type of person that's drawn to this field.

Which is just a complicated way of saying that we're often really crappy at modeling the real world in our heads unless we've forced ourselves to get out there and gather some experience.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com