After reading the full report, I actually have a lot of respect for the author, even though I personally support leaving gender and race out of it. I also have

After reading the full report, I actually have a lot of respect for the author, even though I personally support leaving gender and race out of it. I also have minor gripes as well about "women, trans, or non-binary" - I believe a more fair representation of the underserved in programming would be women, minorities, or older people - but hey, I'm not running the program, and I have no stakeholder value in it, so who am I to comment on what they want to promote? My gripes aside, I believe there is value in creating a program for people who want to learn programming but struggle to do so in other environments. Programming is not some sacred art reserved for nobility or certain personality types, it's a skill that anyone can and should pick up. Even if most don't become a rigorous full time engineer at google, it's still an empowering skill that should be accessible to anyone. Accessibility of training should be universal; earning money as a programmer should be skill based. These values do not conflict - I think there are underserved classifications of individuals that, if given the training, would become great programmers. But I also think that diversity in programming will never happen to the degree the article wants it to. I'm happy to be proven wrong, I just don't think it will happen. Saying that "accessibility of training should be universal" is me playing armchair policy maker, because I have done nothing to make that happen, nor do I intend to, and the amount of effort to make that happen is quite large. That's why I have respect for the author, who, despite my disagreeances with his political leanings, does something about it, especially in a rational and strategic way.