4 ms·

Inclusive of idiocy? Software quality has been on a downhill trend that's steepened noticeably in the past ~15 years. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two

Inclusive of idiocy? Software quality has been on a downhill trend that's steepened noticeably in the past ~15 years. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together and see what's really happening but they'd rather we ignore the politically inconvenient elephant in the room. Your downvotes don't matter, we see the truth regardless.

yoyohello13 1y ago
[flagged]
- userbinator 1y ago
  There have always even been black women developers, perhaps not as many as the DEI-brainwashed would like, but that's fine because they're actually competent regardless of who they are.
  - yoyohello13 1y ago
    The narrative that DEI causes unqualified people to be hired is just false fear-mongering. I’ve been on several university hiring committees and the guidelines were always “if two candidates are equally qualified 1. Hire the veteran 2. Hire the minority” if a hiring committee chooses an unqualified individual to do a job that’s on them. No proponent of DEI I’ve ever talked to in real life has said we should hire unqualified people to meet some quota.
    - machomaster 1y ago
      And yet this constantly happens. "Major companies added more than 320,000 jobs to their U.S. workforces in 2021, and 94% of those went to people of color, according to Bloomberg."
      - defrost 1y ago
        It's considerably more often and vastly worse if you quote according to The Daily Stormer. How are the actual stats of employed in the trenches and in the C-Suites?
        machomaster 1y ago
        Funny how Bloomberg becomes The Daily Storm as soon as you don't like the facts and stats. :-D Please, make Google and AI your friend.
        defrost 1y ago
        These are the tools you recommend for reinforcing hallicinations and the stories you like? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876744
      - tristan957 1y ago
        This statistic means nothing without further context.
        machomaster 1y ago
        The explosion of DEI discrimination is the context you need.
        shadowgovt 1y ago
        Your response, "And yet this constantly happens," in context to the previous post seems to imply 'this' should be 'hiring of unqualified people.' The assertion that 94% of people hired were non-white does not immediately imply they were unqualified without further context.
      - pseudalopex 1y ago
        > "Major companies added more than 320,000 jobs to their U.S. workforces in 2021, and 94% of those went to people of color, according to Bloomberg." Searching for the quoted sentence found a NewsNation article. The NewsNation article linked the Bloomberg article.[1] The quoted sentence could create an impression 6% of newly hired workers were white. This would be incorrect. 2021 was the time of the Great Resignation. People who stopped working were older and white disproportionately. Both articles mentioned this. But not so clearly. The Bloomberg article said 2021 hiring included hiring back people the companies laid off in 2020. The jobs eliminated in 2020 were lower paying jobs disproportionately. And the workers affected were non white disproportionately. Amazon added over 200,000 jobs. This was over 60% of the total. Most were warehouse workers and drivers. Do you believe Amazon had diversity quotas for warehouse workers and drivers? Both articles said remote work changed where companies hired people. Do you believe they did this for diversity or money? Bloomberg's charts illustrated some of the problems of reducing the data to 1 or 2 numbers even if you ignore resignation. Nike decreased white people at all levels. This was because they decreased jobs at their Oregon headquarters. CVS's professional, managerial, and executive jobs hiring appeared to favor white people. Amazon's professional hiring appeared to favor Asian people. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-e...
    - busterarm 1y ago
      Not true. Work for a large public tech multinational. We had a several year run where every time we tried to hire onto our team, HR would force severely unqualified people into our interview pipeline. Then after they failed the interview HR would stress that we should strongly consider hiring the person on DEI grounds. We don't do technical interviews on culture fit -- we've gone through significant effort to make sure our interviews are objective and generate good signal regardless of background. None of these were junior positions, they were all basically senior and staff engineer positions, based on the nature/criticality of the work. We had to interview a wide variety of people all of whom had never had a professional software engineering role before and some who didn't even speak a language shared by any members on our team.
      - zahlman 1y ago
        It's strange how people will ask for citations of the phenomenon and then downvote people who actually provide such citations.
wiml 1y ago
Are you saying you think trans people are causing software quality to decrease? How exactly? Please state your belief clearly.
- userbinator 1y ago
  No, it's the focus on whatever rainbow-coloured culture war crap that has nothing to do with software engineering that's creating a distraction and allowing incompetence to thrive. I don't care if developers are cis trans black white male female or dogs[1] if they are competent. But there seems to be a recent trend of some who cry discrimination when their sub-par work is called out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
  - brendoelfrendo 1y ago
    Yeah, it's usually white guys complaining that they got passed over for some trans person or whatever who insist that there's discrimination when they get called out for sub-par work.
  - terminatornet 1y ago
    > But there seems to be a recent trend of some who cry discrimination when their sub-par work is called out. This sounds like you worked with or heard about 1 trans person who did shoddy work and now it's a "recent trend" that all trans software devs are saying it's discrimination.
- JuniperMesos 1y ago
  I actually think that part of the increased prevalence of trans women (i.e. AMAB people who identify as women) in the software industry, is AMAB people who would otherwise be considered men for DEI purposes changing their own conception of their own gender in a way that would make them be counted as women for DEI purposes. I don't think this is the only thing driving gender transition in a general sense, but I know a fair number of trans women and other AMAB genderqueer people in programming-adjacent spaces, and I suspect that the general cultural currents that incentivize gender-based DEI programs also affect people who are otherwise gender-questioning in some fashion. ---- "The doctors are sympathetic, and I think some of them even understand—regardless, they can offer no solace beyond the chemical. They are too kind to resent, but my envy is palpable. One, a trans woman, is especially gentle; perhaps because her own frustrations mirror mine, our cognitive distance sabotaging her authenticity." - https://ctrlcreep.substack.com/p/knowing-ones-place https://ctrlcreep.substack.com/p/knowing-ones-place
VerminOctopus1 1y ago
Please put two and two together for the rest of us clowns who can’t quite figure it out. State your beliefs plainly so we can come up with some solutions.
catlover76 1y ago
[dead]
scuff3d 1y ago
... What? So your assertion is that trans people, gay people, people of color, and women are inherently worse at engineering jobs then straight white men, and companies/institutions that hire them are somehow producing worse software? Ignoring all other economic and technological trends that have materialized over the last two decades? Also, just for the record, some of the most brilliant engineers I have worked with in my time fall into many of those categories.
- wakawaka28 1y ago
  Jumping in here. Nobody (or almost nobody) is saying that these demographics are inherently worse engineers. But the policies to promote them are inherently discriminatory. You can't promote people based on what they look like without compromising on other attributes like skill. There are companies out there literally saying "We need less white people" and listing off every possible demographic as "welcome" except for white men, in the job posting.
  - scuff3d 1y ago
    Care to link to a few? Every single one of these policies that I've seen over the last 20 years, including my role as a hiring manager in my past career, were aimed at leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities to people who aren't in the majority. The only effect I've seen is that now people who look like me actually have to compete with others. Edit: For the record I'm asking for links from reputable companies who would realistically be setting the tone for the industry. Not some random ass listing for contract work.
    - wakawaka28 1y ago
      This outlines 3 separate lawsuits against IBM over this: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/6465642/3-anti-white-discrimination-lawsuits-pending-against-ibm-red-hat https://lunduke.locals.com/post/6465642/3-anti-white-discrim... Other companies I can think of are Google and Microsoft. Many huge open-source projects have openly promoted specific racial outcomes. I might dig up links later but if you actually care about this stuff, Lunduke is a great source of references. >Every single one of these policies that I've seen over the last 20 years, including my role as a hiring manager in my past career, were aimed at leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities to people who aren't in the majority. That is how it's sold, but in practice it means you have to turn down perfectly good white people (especially white men) to get arbitrary demographic outcomes. If 13% of the population is black and almost none of them study engineering, you won't be able to get 13% representation without passing up on better white candidates. The same can be said about women and other minorities. Different demographics have different preferences and that is reflected in what they study and how hard they work at it. Yet we are supposed to think there is something nefarious if there is even a minor discrepancy in outcomes. Give me a break. This isn't the 1950s. Nobody would risk discriminating against a minority because it could cause a lawsuit. But discrimination against whites and men is not treated the same way, even when it can be proved positively. One of those 3 lawsuits against IBM was dismissed by an activist judge with a one-sentence non-explanation for example. If you complain about this stuff publicly your career is going to be damaged and everyone will at best think you are a bad sport.

yoyohello13 1y ago

[flagged]

userbinator 1y ago
There have always even been black women developers, perhaps not as many as the DEI-brainwashed would like, but that's fine because they're actually competent regardless of who they are.
- yoyohello13 1y ago
  The narrative that DEI causes unqualified people to be hired is just false fear-mongering. I’ve been on several university hiring committees and the guidelines were always “if two candidates are equally qualified 1. Hire the veteran 2. Hire the minority” if a hiring committee chooses an unqualified individual to do a job that’s on them. No proponent of DEI I’ve ever talked to in real life has said we should hire unqualified people to meet some quota.
  - machomaster 1y ago
    And yet this constantly happens. "Major companies added more than 320,000 jobs to their U.S. workforces in 2021, and 94% of those went to people of color, according to Bloomberg."
    - defrost 1y ago
      It's considerably more often and vastly worse if you quote according to The Daily Stormer. How are the actual stats of employed in the trenches and in the C-Suites?
      - machomaster 1y ago
        Funny how Bloomberg becomes The Daily Storm as soon as you don't like the facts and stats. :-D Please, make Google and AI your friend.
        defrost 1y ago
        These are the tools you recommend for reinforcing hallicinations and the stories you like? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876744
    - tristan957 1y ago
      This statistic means nothing without further context.
      - machomaster 1y ago
        The explosion of DEI discrimination is the context you need.
        shadowgovt 1y ago
        Your response, "And yet this constantly happens," in context to the previous post seems to imply 'this' should be 'hiring of unqualified people.' The assertion that 94% of people hired were non-white does not immediately imply they were unqualified without further context.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      > "Major companies added more than 320,000 jobs to their U.S. workforces in 2021, and 94% of those went to people of color, according to Bloomberg." Searching for the quoted sentence found a NewsNation article. The NewsNation article linked the Bloomberg article.[1] The quoted sentence could create an impression 6% of newly hired workers were white. This would be incorrect. 2021 was the time of the Great Resignation. People who stopped working were older and white disproportionately. Both articles mentioned this. But not so clearly. The Bloomberg article said 2021 hiring included hiring back people the companies laid off in 2020. The jobs eliminated in 2020 were lower paying jobs disproportionately. And the workers affected were non white disproportionately. Amazon added over 200,000 jobs. This was over 60% of the total. Most were warehouse workers and drivers. Do you believe Amazon had diversity quotas for warehouse workers and drivers? Both articles said remote work changed where companies hired people. Do you believe they did this for diversity or money? Bloomberg's charts illustrated some of the problems of reducing the data to 1 or 2 numbers even if you ignore resignation. Nike decreased white people at all levels. This was because they decreased jobs at their Oregon headquarters. CVS's professional, managerial, and executive jobs hiring appeared to favor white people. Amazon's professional hiring appeared to favor Asian people. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-e...
  - busterarm 1y ago
    Not true. Work for a large public tech multinational. We had a several year run where every time we tried to hire onto our team, HR would force severely unqualified people into our interview pipeline. Then after they failed the interview HR would stress that we should strongly consider hiring the person on DEI grounds. We don't do technical interviews on culture fit -- we've gone through significant effort to make sure our interviews are objective and generate good signal regardless of background. None of these were junior positions, they were all basically senior and staff engineer positions, based on the nature/criticality of the work. We had to interview a wide variety of people all of whom had never had a professional software engineering role before and some who didn't even speak a language shared by any members on our team.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      It's strange how people will ask for citations of the phenomenon and then downvote people who actually provide such citations.

wiml 1y ago

Are you saying you think trans people are causing software quality to decrease? How exactly? Please state your belief clearly.

userbinator 1y ago
No, it's the focus on whatever rainbow-coloured culture war crap that has nothing to do with software engineering that's creating a distraction and allowing incompetence to thrive. I don't care if developers are cis trans black white male female or dogs[1] if they are competent. But there seems to be a recent trend of some who cry discrimination when their sub-par work is called out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
- brendoelfrendo 1y ago
  Yeah, it's usually white guys complaining that they got passed over for some trans person or whatever who insist that there's discrimination when they get called out for sub-par work.
- terminatornet 1y ago
  > But there seems to be a recent trend of some who cry discrimination when their sub-par work is called out. This sounds like you worked with or heard about 1 trans person who did shoddy work and now it's a "recent trend" that all trans software devs are saying it's discrimination.
JuniperMesos 1y ago
I actually think that part of the increased prevalence of trans women (i.e. AMAB people who identify as women) in the software industry, is AMAB people who would otherwise be considered men for DEI purposes changing their own conception of their own gender in a way that would make them be counted as women for DEI purposes. I don't think this is the only thing driving gender transition in a general sense, but I know a fair number of trans women and other AMAB genderqueer people in programming-adjacent spaces, and I suspect that the general cultural currents that incentivize gender-based DEI programs also affect people who are otherwise gender-questioning in some fashion. ---- "The doctors are sympathetic, and I think some of them even understand—regardless, they can offer no solace beyond the chemical. They are too kind to resent, but my envy is palpable. One, a trans woman, is especially gentle; perhaps because her own frustrations mirror mine, our cognitive distance sabotaging her authenticity." - https://ctrlcreep.substack.com/p/knowing-ones-place https://ctrlcreep.substack.com/p/knowing-ones-place

VerminOctopus1 1y ago

Please put two and two together for the rest of us clowns who can’t quite figure it out. State your beliefs plainly so we can come up with some solutions.

catlover76 1y ago

[dead]

scuff3d 1y ago

... What? So your assertion is that trans people, gay people, people of color, and women are inherently worse at engineering jobs then straight white men, and companies/institutions that hire them are somehow producing worse software? Ignoring all other economic and technological trends that have materialized over the last two decades? Also, just for the record, some of the most brilliant engineers I have worked with in my time fall into many of those categories.

wakawaka28 1y ago
Jumping in here. Nobody (or almost nobody) is saying that these demographics are inherently worse engineers. But the policies to promote them are inherently discriminatory. You can't promote people based on what they look like without compromising on other attributes like skill. There are companies out there literally saying "We need less white people" and listing off every possible demographic as "welcome" except for white men, in the job posting.
- scuff3d 1y ago
  Care to link to a few? Every single one of these policies that I've seen over the last 20 years, including my role as a hiring manager in my past career, were aimed at leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities to people who aren't in the majority. The only effect I've seen is that now people who look like me actually have to compete with others. Edit: For the record I'm asking for links from reputable companies who would realistically be setting the tone for the industry. Not some random ass listing for contract work.
  - wakawaka28 1y ago
    This outlines 3 separate lawsuits against IBM over this: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/6465642/3-anti-white-discrimination-lawsuits-pending-against-ibm-red-hat https://lunduke.locals.com/post/6465642/3-anti-white-discrim... Other companies I can think of are Google and Microsoft. Many huge open-source projects have openly promoted specific racial outcomes. I might dig up links later but if you actually care about this stuff, Lunduke is a great source of references. >Every single one of these policies that I've seen over the last 20 years, including my role as a hiring manager in my past career, were aimed at leveling the playing field and providing equal opportunities to people who aren't in the majority. That is how it's sold, but in practice it means you have to turn down perfectly good white people (especially white men) to get arbitrary demographic outcomes. If 13% of the population is black and almost none of them study engineering, you won't be able to get 13% representation without passing up on better white candidates. The same can be said about women and other minorities. Different demographics have different preferences and that is reflected in what they study and how hard they work at it. Yet we are supposed to think there is something nefarious if there is even a minor discrepancy in outcomes. Give me a break. This isn't the 1950s. Nobody would risk discriminating against a minority because it could cause a lawsuit. But discrimination against whites and men is not treated the same way, even when it can be proved positively. One of those 3 lawsuits against IBM was dismissed by an activist judge with a one-sentence non-explanation for example. If you complain about this stuff publicly your career is going to be damaged and everyone will at best think you are a bad sport.