Things You Love are Made with Code | Hacker News Reader

Things You Love are Made with Code

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39 pointsyawz61 comments

I'm curious, are there growing initiatives to make every career gender/race balanced? Because it seems like we're fixated on getting female representation in computer/mathematical occupations from 26.1% to 50%. Yet there are lot other occupations which have pretty low representations, i.e. only 1.6% of architects are black, 0.1% of judges/magistrates are Asian, only 1.8% of automotive repairers are women, only 5.2% of truck drivers are women, 19.7% of social workers are men, 5.2% of childcare workers are men, 3.8% of physicians/surgeons are Hispanic, etc.

It may not be socially acceptable to ask these questions but I wonder the same thing fairly frequently.

Well hopefully there are, but that's up to the people in those professions.

If we have more women in STEM then we must have less men in STEM unless we grow the total number of STEM jobs by the same amount.

So those men who would otherwise be in STEM must move to other professions, which means they either move into other male dominated professions and make them even more unbalanced or there must be an equivalent push to move them into a female dominated industry.

If we do the latter then a possible outcome is a system where we are allocating people to jobs based primarily on demographics rather than interest or aptitude.

Diversity isn't a zero sum game. STEM is one of the fastest growing professional fields, meaning more people--of any gender--will need to fill those jobs.

The goal is gender balance, there's no need to fear that a woman or a person of color accepting a newly created STEM job will somehow push a white man out of his existing position. Let's be realistic here.

Perhaps, but I could take these arguments more seriously if western countries weren't so excited about issuing more visas for tech workers. It's also possible that we have a tech bubble that people are wisely avoiding.

For that to make sense you'd really have to believe that the US will need fewer, not more, STEM jobs in the future. The vast majority of educated STEM workers and engineers are completely removed from venture-funded Silicon Valley startups and any potential 'tech bubble.'

It depends on what ratio you seek and what growth you think you will get. For example if you aim for a 50% gender split but only get 10% growth.

Where'd you get these numbers?

I'm guessing Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf

One thing I haven't seen explicitly stated in this whole debate is that workplace diversity is very much a zero-sum game. If Google / Tech Sector / Random subgroup of the economy is to be representative of the population, those workers have to come from some other equality lop-sided subgroup.

There are structural issues which can cause the workforce as a whole to not be representative of the population - lack of opportunities for poorer people / minorities or lower participation by women due to child-rearing, etc. Even after accounting for those,

I do appreciate the sentiment and effort, but most of what I've seen is empty belly-aching.

No, and the answer why should be blindingly obvious to any intelligent person: computer engineering (as opposed to your chosen examples of truck driving childcare, and auto repair) is among the most well-paid, economically influential, and entrepreneurial profession today, and will become increasingly so in the future. Gender and race representation is simply of less concern for less aspirational, lower-paid professions that do not require extensive education or access to technical resources.

This is exactly it. When people say shit like, "why aren't we encouraging women to become garbage collectors because that profession is entirely male dominated" they just demonstrate that they haven't thought about the issue thoroughly and they think gender balance is something to aspire towards just for its own sake.

edit: Thanks for the downvotes. I must have hit a sensitive spot.

So it's about equality and equal gender representation only in well paying professions? Doesn't sound all that equal to me.

Perhaps you didn't read closely, but the fact that computer engineering is a well-paid profession is only a result of its demand, influence and importance to the future economy. Devoting equal time and resources encouraging people to abandon higher education in order to pursue unskilled labor may sound like "equality" to you, but hardly seems like a sound strategy for the economy or any industry.

Well but all these initiatives are not so much about encouraging all people, but mostly women it appears.

> Gender and race representation is simply of less concern for less aspirational, lower-paid professions that do not require extensive education or access to technical resources.

This comes off as classist, to me. I have had the impression that promoting equality and diversity in certain professions is partly motivated by a want to make more people feel welcome in the profession. That is, for minorities and such that already work in the profession to have a good work environment.

Yes, there are programs to make other occupations diverse. This point has been made very many times on HN before -- every time a thread like this happens someone will make exactly the same point as you.

I'm surprised that you managed to get statistics about the disparities without also finding information about the various programs to increase diversity. They need to publicise those better.

While I commend initiatives like this, I don't think people should be so eager to make girls start coding. If your daughter shows no interest whatsoever after being exposed to coding, well, maybe it just isn't her cup of tea. It's the same with boys, of course. I know so much people who had been pressured into the same profession as their parents. Not all of them today love what they do.

We should be helping kids discover coding, not making them love it. I started hating chemistry and biology because I'm forced to study them in thorough detail in school and I have no interest in them--they're really just a pain in the ass. If someone has genuine talent for a particular area, you don't have to push them to explore it--you just make them aware of it and their natural curiosity will do the rest.

We force kids to learn math even if they have no interest in it. Same with history, chemistry, biology, etc...

Forcing them to learn an intro to something is very different from forcing them into a career about that something. They don't know whether or not they like it if they've never tried it. This seems to be a campaign to get young girls to try it, nothing more.

Not just forcing them into a career about something, but e.g. being disappointed (or, more precisely, showing that in frobt of them) if they don't express interest. Of course you should get as much people you can to try out as much fields as possible to see if they fit. But in my case, I knew from the first two months of studying chemistry I don't like it, and likewise, from the day I wrote my first VBA Excel macro I knew I loved making computers do things.

I wish I remembered where the study was now, but I remember reading one which said that girls were naturally curious about STEM careers, up to around 12, when it starts to tail off dramatically. The theory was that societal issues begin to kick in that makes girls not want to: no role models, fellow students telling them it's for nerds and no girls do it, male jock stuff.

So the curiosity and talent is just drained out of them. That's the issue.

But as I don't have the study to hand, of course I could just be making this all up :/

I unfortunately can't find it either, but this month I heard a talk by Madeline Di Nonno, the CEO of the geena davis institute, cite that it is in 4th grade (~10yrs old) when there is a marked drop off in interest in STEM for the reasons you list. likely more at their site: seejane.org

> I wish I remembered where the study was now, but I remember reading one which said that girls were naturally curious about STEM careers, up to around 12, when it starts to tail off dramatically. The theory was that societal issues begin to kick in that makes girls not want to: no role models, fellow students telling them it's for nerds and no girls do it, male jock stuff.

Or it could be puberty.

I would find it incredibly hard to believe that sexual maturity has anything to do with an interest in STEM. Some kind of evidence would change my mind, however!

> I would find it incredibly hard to believe that sexual maturity has anything to do with an interest in STEM.

When you put it like that it sounds kind of strenuous, sure. Just like it sounds weird in isolation to say that being sexually maturing is often connected with irritability and rebellion and defiance against parental and authority figures, if it were not for the fact that this is an incredibly common phenomenon. Kids tend to change a lot as they approach their teen years - their body, behaviour and personality, not just their sexuality.

It doesn't have to be purely or directly about puberty - maybe it has to do with the teenage tendency of seeking acceptance and approval with certain groups, and I don't imagine that programming has enough mind-share with teenage girls to give much "cred" compared to other activities.

That's fair!

Don't similar societal issues also turn off many boys to STEM around the same age? I was definitely not in the larger, more popular bunch of kids starting around 10 years old.

Whatever the effect is, it's obviously stronger with girls given the ratio of adult men to adult women in STEM.

Which is the whole point of these sorts of programs, of course. The issue is not that some people don't go into STEM, the issue is that there is something about STEM that repels girls and women far more strongly than boys and men.

And since there is nothing inherent to STEM jobs that is in conflict with women's capabilities (doesn't require extremes of height, strength, weight, etc.), it seems likely that the issue is social factors, which can be changed with effort.

I'm curious about the use of the terminology "code/coding/coder" as distinct from "programming/programmer".

I've noticed that a lot of recent programming outreach and education efforts consistently use "learn to code" instead of "learn to program". How come? What connotations do they perceive? Are they intending to refer to a broader set of activities (including document markup, which I wouldn't refer to as programming)? Do they think that some audiences find the term "programming" to have negative connotations that aren't present for "coding"?

Maybe it's just that code is a shorter word, which makes for snappier titles for initiatives and whatnot. Then that carries over to the surrounding discussion about it.

"Coding" is using a computer language to create software.

"Programming" is a superset of that, and includes planning and psuedocodes and etc.

As an example of that use see "Jackson Structured Programming" which spends a lot of time drawing little boxes and includes coding right at the end.

Do you ever write code without doing any planning?

No, I never write code without doing the programming first. Coding is converting the planning into whatever language you're using.

Some use of "coding" is simply for text and syllable brevity.

Also thanks to its relatively new household term status, it doesn't carry as much of the pre-internet 80s/90s imagery of nocturnal bearded men doing arcane systems programming through a CRT. The average non-tech office worker in the 80s had some kind of experience with an oddball programmer coming in for an assignment and leaving with a check in hand. As a child of the 90s, that impression even trickled down to me. Partly due to my father sharing his past workplace experiences, but mostly due to the exaggeration of television, movies, and early internet culture.

"Coding" is more cleanly associated with the new wave of engineers, entrepreneurs, apps, and games visible to young people in popular media.

It seems irrational, and it is, but that is language and life.

It's to devalue the profession. Instead of a 'software developer" or even "programmer," now you're just a "coder" or even a "code monkey."

All of these initiatives that claim to want to make programming more accessible, even though it is already extremely accessible in that it doesn't require a degree or licensing and there are a wealth of free tools, books, and other information available online now to get started with, are really intended to change the public's perception of programming from a highly-technical, white collar career to a low-skill trade that is easy and that anyone can do so they can flood the job market with sub-par applicants and drive down wages.

I remember seeing some statistical evidence that women in particular are more responsive to ads to 'learn to code' than 'learn to program'[1], which would ring true with my personal experience where I notice I often describe myself as 'learning to code' rather than to program.

[1] But I can't remember where I saw it and googling hasn't helped me to find it... :/

That's interesting; did anyone have suggestions about why that should be so?

> engineering isn’t just for engineers.

Yes it is.

Could be. The question is: Do you want to drive every day to work over the bridge that was not build by engineers.

I disagree with your metaphor. If the bridge you're on collapses, you could be seriously injured. If the CRM you're working in crashes, you're moderately inconvenienced until it comes back up.

Your app constantly crashes, your customers are pissed and leave. You have to close the company. You suffer from depression and kill yourself.

You could find loopholes in any analogy. That's what they are - analogies. Perhaps a different one could capture what I wanted to say.

Everybody can sing, but not everybody can listen it.

That escalated quickly.

Or your CRM crashes and loses some of your business contacts. Or it doesn't crash and just silently corrupts the data your business depends on over time and no-one spots the problem until it's too late.

Or maybe the software you use leaks your secrets to others and you are unwillingly outed as transgender/gay/in-disagreement-with-the-state/etc...

In this digital age, bad software can do irreparable harm to people. We need to keep this in mind and hold ourselves to a higher standard.

I think those are all still at least marginally better than having the bridge you're on collapse, but on the other hand they can wind up affecting many more people than can fit on a single bridge...

There is comparable "life at risk" software. Hospital electronic records and devices, the software controlling your car, airplane autopilots, etc.

The people at Knight Capital would disagree with your statement [1][2].

[1] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-t...

[2] http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/09/technology/knight-expensive-...

Until this CRM is in a hospital and you 're the patient in the intensive care unit.

agreed.

Yes it is. There is value in learning to build things without being an engineer, but you should know the limits of your skill so you don't cause others harm.

| you should know the limits of your skill so you don't cause others harm

Which is funny how the 'hacker' mentality is to build things fast and cheap. Along with Zuckerberg's "Most fast and break things" mantra.

Moved fast and broke the quotation.

Which quotation? [1]

[1] http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA0LzMwL2ZjL1p1Y2tlc...

As the proud father of a 5 month old baby girl, things like this make me really happy and eager to see how my daughter interacts with technology.

In the earliest iLuminate photo I can find, Miral is hacking on an Arduino prototype board and staring at piles of glowing EL wire on the floor. Barely anything worked back then. Five years, numerous televised appearances, and 400 Off-Broadway performances later, the company is still doing amazing stuff at the intersection of art and technology. [1]

Miral is the reason why. She can code, she can choreograph, she can manage and inspire people, she can dance, and most importantly, she can pursue a vision relentlessly. She's a great example of that "formidable" quality that pg ascribes to successful founders.

So, while I get why Google is trying to inspire more women to code with this story, there's inspiration here for all of us. Build something you love and don't let the hard stuff stop you. (There will be lots of hard stuff.)

[1] Seriously, go see the show if you're in NYC, it's mind-blowing.

I think I inhabit a different world than most people. I didn't even need to encourage my daughter to get into coding. I only exposed her to it.

Url changed from http://www.themarysue.com/google-made-with-code/, which points to this.

Why does a feminist(?) blog have a logo that is a picture of a woman sticking out her butt with her hand on it?

Isn't that the atmosphere that contributes to "the gender gap in tech"?

Looks like the link has been changed.

Maybe she just has a shapely butt.

Looking through now, it doesn't appear to be a feminist blog.

I dig the idea of celebrating cool stuff women do rather than pointing out the 'oppression' of everyday western life.

Shouting about how sexist the tech industry is only puts people off coming into it, celebrating all the cool stuff is the best way to attract more people that aren't dudes. I think this is what the site is doing.

The lady's bum logo is part of that celebration... because you know bums are great.

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