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You're not using the top-line definition of prejudice, which is when your opinion is formed without reason. You can only spend a finite amount of effort on hir

You're not using the top-line definition of prejudice, which is when your opinion is formed without reason. You can only spend a finite amount of effort on hiring, and you have to phone-screen some people before you phone-screen others, so you've gotta create expectations of people based on imprecise information like their major, GPA, former employers, etc.

andrewstuart 11y ago
I don't agree that the criteria you mention are effective ways to work out if an individual is a good computer programmer. They are just more pre-judgements. For example I can't see any way in which working at a particular company defines whether or not someone is a good programmer. Can you quantify in detail why working at company X means someone cannot be a good programmer? A detailed explanation? Can you explain to me precisely how you can measure someone's capability as a computer programmer via their GPA? And I mean in a really quantified way, not just hand waving. Even what someone majored in.... can you say exactly in detailed terms how this defines whether or not someone is a good computer programmer? Pre-judgements like this are just voodoo recruiting. It's how to recruit when you really have no idea how to work out if someone is a good computer programmer or not.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  It is possible to operate on information without rounding beliefs to either 100% certain or 100% certainly not, and without collapsing imprecisely specified heuristics to simple If X then 100%-certain-of-Y conditionals. You didn't respond to the blog post. You responded to a version of it that has been rounded off in this manner. Likewise, you haven't made a response to my comment: I never claimed these criteria were effective ways to work out if an individual is a good computer programmer. You've rounded the idea that some people are more likely worth interviewing to a different meaning, and responded to that. Likewise, using the word "prejudice" under one definition to pick up the negative connotations of one of its other definitions seems like the same kind of thing -- a similar obliteration of nuance.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  Well, I guess I'll have to respond to these extensive edits you've made. > For example I can't see any way in which working at a particular company defines whether or not someone is a good programmer. Some companies have stricter hiring standards than others. Thus the probability that a candidate is worth hiring is higher, because they already passed that company's tests. Plus, they'll have experience working on whatever the company's working on -- you can expect somebody to be a better foo developer if they've done foo before. > Can you explain to me precisely how you can measure someone's capability as a computer programmer via their GPA? I never claimed you precisely measure that, did I? But obviously, somebody with a 3.5 GPA is much more likely to be a good programmer than somebody with a 2.0 GPA. If you have a 2.0 GPA, you're most likely stupid, and even with four years of mitigating circumstances there's a huge set of people that could not get such a low number even if they had a policy of not caring about their grades at all except to show up for exams. > Even what someone majored in.... can you say exactly in detailed terms how this defines whether or not someone is a good computer programmer? For example at my alma mater the CS major was filled with gamedev-wannabes, and programming-inclined EE students were far better on average. Also, all your new questions in your post's edit are still putting everything in terms of If X then 100%-Y. Why?

andrewstuart 11y ago

I don't agree that the criteria you mention are effective ways to work out if an individual is a good computer programmer. They are just more pre-judgements. For example I can't see any way in which working at a particular company defines whether or not someone is a good programmer. Can you quantify in detail why working at company X means someone cannot be a good programmer? A detailed explanation? Can you explain to me precisely how you can measure someone's capability as a computer programmer via their GPA? And I mean in a really quantified way, not just hand waving. Even what someone majored in.... can you say exactly in detailed terms how this defines whether or not someone is a good computer programmer? Pre-judgements like this are just voodoo recruiting. It's how to recruit when you really have no idea how to work out if someone is a good computer programmer or not.

SamReidHughes 11y ago
It is possible to operate on information without rounding beliefs to either 100% certain or 100% certainly not, and without collapsing imprecisely specified heuristics to simple If X then 100%-certain-of-Y conditionals. You didn't respond to the blog post. You responded to a version of it that has been rounded off in this manner. Likewise, you haven't made a response to my comment: I never claimed these criteria were effective ways to work out if an individual is a good computer programmer. You've rounded the idea that some people are more likely worth interviewing to a different meaning, and responded to that. Likewise, using the word "prejudice" under one definition to pick up the negative connotations of one of its other definitions seems like the same kind of thing -- a similar obliteration of nuance.
SamReidHughes 11y ago
Well, I guess I'll have to respond to these extensive edits you've made. > For example I can't see any way in which working at a particular company defines whether or not someone is a good programmer. Some companies have stricter hiring standards than others. Thus the probability that a candidate is worth hiring is higher, because they already passed that company's tests. Plus, they'll have experience working on whatever the company's working on -- you can expect somebody to be a better foo developer if they've done foo before. > Can you explain to me precisely how you can measure someone's capability as a computer programmer via their GPA? I never claimed you precisely measure that, did I? But obviously, somebody with a 3.5 GPA is much more likely to be a good programmer than somebody with a 2.0 GPA. If you have a 2.0 GPA, you're most likely stupid, and even with four years of mitigating circumstances there's a huge set of people that could not get such a low number even if they had a policy of not caring about their grades at all except to show up for exams. > Even what someone majored in.... can you say exactly in detailed terms how this defines whether or not someone is a good computer programmer? For example at my alma mater the CS major was filled with gamedev-wannabes, and programming-inclined EE students were far better on average. Also, all your new questions in your post's edit are still putting everything in terms of If X then 100%-Y. Why?