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I had issues with the way the article made the following argument: 1) If computer programming was a meritocracy, we'd only have the best computer programmers i

by Lazare 14y ago

I had issues with the way the article made the following argument: 1) If computer programming was a meritocracy, we'd only have the best computer programmers in the field. 2) Most computer programmers are white males. 3) Most people are not white males. 4) Ergo, computer programming is not a meritocracy. I trust most people saw the logical flaw - the author is assuming that the ability to program is currently evenly distributed. This is not the case. Pick 20 people at random, off the street in Palo Alto, put a gun to their head, and tell them they must solve FizzBuzz, in ANY language. FizzBuzz is famously hard, but it's not that hard; you've got a good chance of getting a few solutions. Now do the same thing in Bangui (capital and largest city of the Central African Republic). Odds are you'll get a lot fewer. Probably none. This doesn't tell us anything about whether white males are unusually good at programming; it tells us a lot about the availability of computers and programming training in the 179th (out of 187) poorest country in the world. In other words, the central argument of the blog rests on conflating ability with opportunities. Because a black female from the CAR is every bit as capable of being a good programmer as a white male from Brooklyn, it follows that black females ARE just as good as white males, and since there are more black females than white males in the world, if a tech company has more white males than black females, it is clear proof of racism and sexism. Except no; in the world we actually live in, the number of people who have the skills, background, and experience to work at, e.g., Google is quite small, and (sadly) mostly male and a mix of white and asian. And yes, that is due to racism, but it isn't itself racist. But the article seems unable to make that last step, and as such it renders the whole thing rather pointless.

sliverstorm 14y ago
2) Most computer programmers are white Maybe in the USA, but in that context this is not surprising, as 72% of the USA is white. (The male part is a separate discussion) Do you have proof that when considering the entire world, most computer programmers are still white?
001sky 14y ago
If a middle-class white boy who literally never had a job before getting a sweet internship at some cutting edge technology company can eventually, through practice, become a passable computer programmer, anyone can do it. -- This is not of the form you reference, though This is an argument about barriers to skill acquisition, and thus representative expression, not one of either innate or even actual ability or qualification level. Its not "conflating ability with opportunities" anymore than it is saying "there is learning by doing" and since the "doing is not evenly distributed"[1], therefore neither is the "learning".[2] Author is in part arguing that the only "doing" that matters is "branded doing" (ie, doing it for XYZ company or school), as as that is how the next level of doing is rationed, and there is therefore a recursive effect. This may or may not be a great argument, but I think its different than the one you allude to. In particular the low-threshold state and the (implied) recursive mechanism seem to have a more interesting dynamic. ______ [1] Or the option, etc. [2] This depends on (or implies) a certain elemental/relative triviality of the task.
- natrius 14y ago
  "This is an argument about barriers to skill acquisition" I don't see that argument in her post.
  - 001sky 14y ago
    getting a sweet internship at some cutting edge technology Author is arguing/implying that overcoming this "gate" was the source of [the example's] later (developed, proven,etc) skill. It might not be a perfect argument, but its there IMHO. I think if you believe it's not a good argument/ point, its best to attack it directly. That is all.
    - natrius 14y ago
      I don't think she's saying that. Do white males without programming skills get programming internships at a higher rate? Are there even a significant number of people who take that path? Hiring is not the problem. Getting underrepresented folks to choose computer science in the first place is.
      - 001sky 14y ago
        Now I think you are attacking the point directly. I can't speak for the author but it seems to me that the person does believe this. viz "it’s a pretty fucking easy job..." etc [1] ___________ [1] The whole context is as follows: If there’s one thing I’ve learned after thirty-three years of being alive, it’s that if you see middle-class white boys flocking in droves to a particular career path, it’s a pretty fucking easy job and you should try and get yourself one like that. I guess that’s a little mean. Sorry, middle-class white boys. I’m not calling you dumb. I’m calling you soft.
- mc32 14y ago
  So then, are table tennis, boxing and basketball or gymnastics not meritocracies either and thus deserving of more representative demographics? Should those sports seek to find more balance in their professional profiles? Should leagues try to find and be incentivized to fill their ranks with underrepresented demographics? Are industry responsible or is the educational system responsible for developing interest and providing guidance to the newer generations (in addition to initiative by the student body)?
pron 14y ago
I think you're missing the point, which is not calling you racist, but opening your eyes to the fact that much of what you have achieved (and I don't mean you specifically, but the class of people the article adresses) is not a direct result of your effort but largely due to privilege. Thus, as a person of privilege you should use whatever political power you have - and you have quite a lot of it - to help rectify the situation, or, at least be constantly aware of it.
- natrius 14y ago
  Merit does not require effort. I haven't heard anyone claiming that their ability to program is a measure of their worth as a human being. It is, however, a measure of one's usefulness to a development team.
  - pron 14y ago
    Ok, but isn't it in the interest of all software employers to use their political power to create more capable developers? This is simple economics; I'm not even touching ethics or justice here. And isn't it the immediate interest of current developers to maintain their value by blocking others from entering this profession? Sometimes we adhere to hidden interests without even realizing. Let us first open our eyes to how society works and how we may, inadvertantly, keep others down.
    - natrius 14y ago
      Those incentives are there, but the linked post isn't about that, nor is it a particularly useful starting point for that discussion.
  - anthonyb 14y ago
    Probably not directly, but that's implied in the word merit, and in the higher pay and better conditions afforded to programmers.
dschuler 14y ago
Most places I've worked at really do want to hire a diverse group of engineers. At one company, one of the managers was asked by his manager to hire e.g. more black women. His response was "you show me one, and I will hire her". Personally, I'd like more women in the field as well. I wouldn't mind working somewhere where, I don't know, even 1 out of 3 people were women, instead of 1/10. But I think availability has a lot to do with it.
ktizo 14y ago
"FizzBuzz is famously hard" Are we talking about the thing of writing "fizz" for multiples of 3 and "buzz" for multiples of 5 and "fizzbuzz" for both, for the numbers 1 - 100? If that is famously hard, then the definition of hard must have changed massively while I wasn't looking.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  If the vast majority of people applying for programming jobs can't solve it, then it qualifies as hard by definition.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    It is hard, only in the sense that programming anything is hard, if you don't know how to program. If you can program at all, you can solve it. It definitely wouldn't qualify as 'famously hard'. Things that achieve fame for being hard are usually very very difficult indeed. If anything, in the narrow circles in which it has any fame at all, it is famously easy.
  - sopooneo 14y ago
    I agree with your analysis. However I've only ever sat in on a few programmer interviews, and was lucky enough to get only the few that had already made it through several screens and were quite sharp. However, if so many people can't do FizzBuzz, that's baffling. If they can't do that, what can they do? I mean that literally. Do they just have knowledge of certain specific frameworks or something? Can anyone shed light on this? I know this may be derailing the conversation, and it bothers people, I'll not mind deleting this post.
    - snogglethorpe 14y ago
      One issue I've had is that if a question is too easy, I start out thinking "this must be a trick question..." and then tie myself up in knots trying to find the (non-existant) catch... Of course in an interview, one should presumably just say "hey this seems too easy, is this a trick question?" but ...
btilly 14y ago
FizzBuzz is famously hard, but it's not that hard Every time I see something like this, I cringe inside and wonder at how memes get distorted. FizzBuzz is not supposed to be hard. In fact it is supposed to be as EASY as you can possibly make an actual programming task. So easy that most programmers would have trouble believing that there are people calling themselves programmers who can't solve it in their sleep. Seriously if you know enough of a programming language to print output, run a loop, take remainders, and write if tests, then you can write FizzBuzz. Put another way, if you can't write FizzBuzz, then you probably can't write ANY useful program. And your interview can safely stop right there because you failed.
jessedhillon 14y ago
... trust most people saw the logical flaw - the author is assuming that the ability to program is currently evenly distributed. I don't see anything from the author which can be construed as the statement, "ability, is at present, evenly distributed." If you withdraw that stipulation, what you have is: 4. Ergo, opportunities to become a computer programmer [e.g. education] are not distributed according to merit [e.g. by identifying and cultivating potential in individuals.] Which is entirely defensible as a conclusion.
- Lazare 14y ago
  The "at present" stipulation doesn't really change anything. The author is claiming that the ability to program is evenly distributed, but the plain truth of the matter is that more white English-speaking males in their 20s can program than can <fill in demographic here>. Which is because of, yes, racism, sexism, inequality, and a host of other societal ills, but it dosn't change the fact that Joe's House of Discount Programming in Des Moines Iowa gets a lot of resumes from people that look like us here on HN, and very few resumes from middle-aged black women who speak Swahili. The HR department at Joe's House of Discount Programming may well be biased, but you can't conclude that from the evidence presented. More broadly, you cannot tar the programming profession as racist and sexist because we don't hire people who don't actually exist (even if, yes, the reason those people don't exist is because of racism and sexism and all the rest).
  - jessedhillon 14y ago
    Um, you don't think that calling the given situation meritorious would be racist/sexist? 1. Construct a system to deliver engineering educations. For whatever reason, white males are overrepresented in this system. 2. Place those engineers at top engineering firms and startups, where they succeed. 3. Conclude that the system rewards effort and ability fairly, and therefore the current beneficiaries are the best and most deserving. Step #3 is ignorant and stupid. To cast this another way, this would be like going back to a pre-Jackie Robinson period of baseball history, or the pre-integration period in basketball history, and concluding that the best baseball players in the world are white. Yes, in a very literal sense that is true, if you define basketball players as only those people who can right now play basketball professionally, in a system which is accessible only to a small subset of the population. Even if there were people playing amateur or street ball, who had great raw potential, without being able to enter programs where they could hone and refine their skill they would be inferior in many ways to the pros. And a person who would hew to that literal rendering would be considered myopic, shallow and intellectually dishonest. Similarly, to say that the current crop of engineering talent represents the most deserving talent in the world is a backhand to all the people who are excluded from participating in the system to begin with. So yes, you can't say "programming is a racist institution because it doesn't hire people who don't exist." You can, however, say that programming is a racist institution because it benefits from a lopsided system of selection, and then arrogantly declares that the selection system is fair, that those selected received no undue benefit in their selection, and therefore those selected are the best.

by Lazare 14y ago

sliverstorm 14y ago

2) Most computer programmers are white Maybe in the USA, but in that context this is not surprising, as 72% of the USA is white. (The male part is a separate discussion) Do you have proof that when considering the entire world, most computer programmers are still white?

001sky 14y ago

If a middle-class white boy who literally never had a job before getting a sweet internship at some cutting edge technology company can eventually, through practice, become a passable computer programmer, anyone can do it. -- This is not of the form you reference, though This is an argument about barriers to skill acquisition, and thus representative expression, not one of either innate or even actual ability or qualification level. Its not "conflating ability with opportunities" anymore than it is saying "there is learning by doing" and since the "doing is not evenly distributed"[1], therefore neither is the "learning".[2] Author is in part arguing that the only "doing" that matters is "branded doing" (ie, doing it for XYZ company or school), as as that is how the next level of doing is rationed, and there is therefore a recursive effect. This may or may not be a great argument, but I think its different than the one you allude to. In particular the low-threshold state and the (implied) recursive mechanism seem to have a more interesting dynamic. ______ [1] Or the option, etc. [2] This depends on (or implies) a certain elemental/relative triviality of the task.

natrius 14y ago
"This is an argument about barriers to skill acquisition" I don't see that argument in her post.
- 001sky 14y ago
  getting a sweet internship at some cutting edge technology Author is arguing/implying that overcoming this "gate" was the source of [the example's] later (developed, proven,etc) skill. It might not be a perfect argument, but its there IMHO. I think if you believe it's not a good argument/ point, its best to attack it directly. That is all.
  - natrius 14y ago
    I don't think she's saying that. Do white males without programming skills get programming internships at a higher rate? Are there even a significant number of people who take that path? Hiring is not the problem. Getting underrepresented folks to choose computer science in the first place is.
    - 001sky 14y ago
      Now I think you are attacking the point directly. I can't speak for the author but it seems to me that the person does believe this. viz "it’s a pretty fucking easy job..." etc [1] ___________ [1] The whole context is as follows: If there’s one thing I’ve learned after thirty-three years of being alive, it’s that if you see middle-class white boys flocking in droves to a particular career path, it’s a pretty fucking easy job and you should try and get yourself one like that. I guess that’s a little mean. Sorry, middle-class white boys. I’m not calling you dumb. I’m calling you soft.
mc32 14y ago
So then, are table tennis, boxing and basketball or gymnastics not meritocracies either and thus deserving of more representative demographics? Should those sports seek to find more balance in their professional profiles? Should leagues try to find and be incentivized to fill their ranks with underrepresented demographics? Are industry responsible or is the educational system responsible for developing interest and providing guidance to the newer generations (in addition to initiative by the student body)?

pron 14y ago

I think you're missing the point, which is not calling you racist, but opening your eyes to the fact that much of what you have achieved (and I don't mean you specifically, but the class of people the article adresses) is not a direct result of your effort but largely due to privilege. Thus, as a person of privilege you should use whatever political power you have - and you have quite a lot of it - to help rectify the situation, or, at least be constantly aware of it.

natrius 14y ago
Merit does not require effort. I haven't heard anyone claiming that their ability to program is a measure of their worth as a human being. It is, however, a measure of one's usefulness to a development team.
- pron 14y ago
  Ok, but isn't it in the interest of all software employers to use their political power to create more capable developers? This is simple economics; I'm not even touching ethics or justice here. And isn't it the immediate interest of current developers to maintain their value by blocking others from entering this profession? Sometimes we adhere to hidden interests without even realizing. Let us first open our eyes to how society works and how we may, inadvertantly, keep others down.
  - natrius 14y ago
    Those incentives are there, but the linked post isn't about that, nor is it a particularly useful starting point for that discussion.
- anthonyb 14y ago
  Probably not directly, but that's implied in the word merit, and in the higher pay and better conditions afforded to programmers.

dschuler 14y ago

Most places I've worked at really do want to hire a diverse group of engineers. At one company, one of the managers was asked by his manager to hire e.g. more black women. His response was "you show me one, and I will hire her". Personally, I'd like more women in the field as well. I wouldn't mind working somewhere where, I don't know, even 1 out of 3 people were women, instead of 1/10. But I think availability has a lot to do with it.

ktizo 14y ago

"FizzBuzz is famously hard" Are we talking about the thing of writing "fizz" for multiples of 3 and "buzz" for multiples of 5 and "fizzbuzz" for both, for the numbers 1 - 100? If that is famously hard, then the definition of hard must have changed massively while I wasn't looking.

Alex3917 14y ago
If the vast majority of people applying for programming jobs can't solve it, then it qualifies as hard by definition.
- ktizo 14y ago
  It is hard, only in the sense that programming anything is hard, if you don't know how to program. If you can program at all, you can solve it. It definitely wouldn't qualify as 'famously hard'. Things that achieve fame for being hard are usually very very difficult indeed. If anything, in the narrow circles in which it has any fame at all, it is famously easy.
- sopooneo 14y ago
  I agree with your analysis. However I've only ever sat in on a few programmer interviews, and was lucky enough to get only the few that had already made it through several screens and were quite sharp. However, if so many people can't do FizzBuzz, that's baffling. If they can't do that, what can they do? I mean that literally. Do they just have knowledge of certain specific frameworks or something? Can anyone shed light on this? I know this may be derailing the conversation, and it bothers people, I'll not mind deleting this post.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    One issue I've had is that if a question is too easy, I start out thinking "this must be a trick question..." and then tie myself up in knots trying to find the (non-existant) catch... Of course in an interview, one should presumably just say "hey this seems too easy, is this a trick question?" but ...

btilly 14y ago

FizzBuzz is famously hard, but it's not that hard Every time I see something like this, I cringe inside and wonder at how memes get distorted. FizzBuzz is not supposed to be hard. In fact it is supposed to be as EASY as you can possibly make an actual programming task. So easy that most programmers would have trouble believing that there are people calling themselves programmers who can't solve it in their sleep. Seriously if you know enough of a programming language to print output, run a loop, take remainders, and write if tests, then you can write FizzBuzz. Put another way, if you can't write FizzBuzz, then you probably can't write ANY useful program. And your interview can safely stop right there because you failed.

jessedhillon 14y ago

... trust most people saw the logical flaw - the author is assuming that the ability to program is currently evenly distributed. I don't see anything from the author which can be construed as the statement, "ability, is at present, evenly distributed." If you withdraw that stipulation, what you have is: 4. Ergo, opportunities to become a computer programmer [e.g. education] are not distributed according to merit [e.g. by identifying and cultivating potential in individuals.] Which is entirely defensible as a conclusion.

Lazare 14y ago
The "at present" stipulation doesn't really change anything. The author is claiming that the ability to program is evenly distributed, but the plain truth of the matter is that more white English-speaking males in their 20s can program than can <fill in demographic here>. Which is because of, yes, racism, sexism, inequality, and a host of other societal ills, but it dosn't change the fact that Joe's House of Discount Programming in Des Moines Iowa gets a lot of resumes from people that look like us here on HN, and very few resumes from middle-aged black women who speak Swahili. The HR department at Joe's House of Discount Programming may well be biased, but you can't conclude that from the evidence presented. More broadly, you cannot tar the programming profession as racist and sexist because we don't hire people who don't actually exist (even if, yes, the reason those people don't exist is because of racism and sexism and all the rest).
- jessedhillon 14y ago
  Um, you don't think that calling the given situation meritorious would be racist/sexist? 1. Construct a system to deliver engineering educations. For whatever reason, white males are overrepresented in this system. 2. Place those engineers at top engineering firms and startups, where they succeed. 3. Conclude that the system rewards effort and ability fairly, and therefore the current beneficiaries are the best and most deserving. Step #3 is ignorant and stupid. To cast this another way, this would be like going back to a pre-Jackie Robinson period of baseball history, or the pre-integration period in basketball history, and concluding that the best baseball players in the world are white. Yes, in a very literal sense that is true, if you define basketball players as only those people who can right now play basketball professionally, in a system which is accessible only to a small subset of the population. Even if there were people playing amateur or street ball, who had great raw potential, without being able to enter programs where they could hone and refine their skill they would be inferior in many ways to the pros. And a person who would hew to that literal rendering would be considered myopic, shallow and intellectually dishonest. Similarly, to say that the current crop of engineering talent represents the most deserving talent in the world is a backhand to all the people who are excluded from participating in the system to begin with. So yes, you can't say "programming is a racist institution because it doesn't hire people who don't exist." You can, however, say that programming is a racist institution because it benefits from a lopsided system of selection, and then arrogantly declares that the selection system is fair, that those selected received no undue benefit in their selection, and therefore those selected are the best.