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Sort of related, reminded me of this: a friend of mine who is a very skilled lady, attended some "programming for women only" type events, her intention was to

by mwill 11y ago

Sort of related, reminded me of this: a friend of mine who is a very skilled lady, attended some "programming for women only" type events, her intention was to meet people and pitch in to lend a hand. She told me that 4 out of 5 that she went to were charging exorbitant amounts and teaching things like how to configure a pre-hosted Wordpress install and maybe basic HTML+CSS, and calling it programming. She was pretty pissed about the whole ordeal, I remember her saying something like: When you compare the content of some 'women only' events in tech to the non-specific counterparts, it's condescending and borderline exploitative (ie, charging for pretty limited services) Kind of a raw deal, especially for a beginner, I imagine.

tehfedaykin 11y ago
I'm a woman who runs these kind of events. We did one on Saturday night, and I was criticized(by other mentors even) for "making things too hard" and "scaring women away". We were using node and the command line. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
- duckmysick 11y ago
  Hey. I'm interested in the logistics behind hosting such events. How many people were present? Was this just a one-off event or is this a part of a longer workshop? Did everyone bring their own computers or did you provide them for the participants? If people brought their own, how did you deal with the fact that node.js is not pre-installed - was there any introductory period where you gave instructions how to install/configure the environment? If so, did you account for different operating systems? If, on the other hand, you provided the computers, who supplied them? A local library, a school, a private company, yourself? I don't need a specific name, just a rough category. I'm asking, because I'm interested in hosting a similar event, but for a younger crowd. I figured pure JavaScript would be the best choice because you don't need a fancy setup - it works straight in your web browser, no matter the platform. Using something like Python or Ruby (not to mention C++ or Java) would be more difficult to coordinate.

by mwill 11y ago

tehfedaykin 11y ago

I'm a woman who runs these kind of events. We did one on Saturday night, and I was criticized(by other mentors even) for "making things too hard" and "scaring women away". We were using node and the command line. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

duckmysick 11y ago
Hey. I'm interested in the logistics behind hosting such events. How many people were present? Was this just a one-off event or is this a part of a longer workshop? Did everyone bring their own computers or did you provide them for the participants? If people brought their own, how did you deal with the fact that node.js is not pre-installed - was there any introductory period where you gave instructions how to install/configure the environment? If so, did you account for different operating systems? If, on the other hand, you provided the computers, who supplied them? A local library, a school, a private company, yourself? I don't need a specific name, just a rough category. I'm asking, because I'm interested in hosting a similar event, but for a younger crowd. I figured pure JavaScript would be the best choice because you don't need a fancy setup - it works straight in your web browser, no matter the platform. Using something like Python or Ruby (not to mention C++ or Java) would be more difficult to coordinate.