See Anorak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_(slang)
Posted on 06/19/2014 8:04:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
#YesWeCode looks to close the coding inequality gap
Shortly after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February 2012, liberal activist Van Jones was talking with his friend Prince—yes, that Prince—about the circumstances of the shooting.
More “I think he made the observation,” Jones told TIME, “that when African-American young people wear hoodies people think they’re thugs, but when white kids wear hoodies you assume that they’re going to be dot-com billionaires,” a reference to the outerwear favored by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk. “We just started thinking: ‘Well, how do we turn that around?’”
Out of that spark was born Yes We Code, an ambitious initiative of Jones’ Rebuild the Dream organization aimed at preparing 100,000 low-income children for careers writing computer code. While good-paying blue-collar jobs continue to disappear in the U.S., computer science is a rare bright spot of opportunity for people without a college education. “This is another opportunity for people to make a really serious, solid middle-class income,” said Jones, a former environmental aide in the Obama Administration.
It’s an old yarn by now that computer science is one of the fastest-growing, highest-paying career paths in America. By 2020, half of all jobs in the STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) fields will be in computing, according to the Association for Computer Machinery. The latest salary survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers says the average starting salary for computer science majors in 2014 is more than $61,000—just about $1,000 shy of the top earners, engineering grads.
Contrast that with the fact that computer science education in STEM has seen a decrease in enrollment in the last 20 years, with a particularly precipitous drop in the past decade as school districts have reconfigured curriculums....
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
If they gave you a choice, the program wasn’t ABET accredited. Also, I said Computer Science, not similar degrees like IT, Computer Info Systems or Management Info Systems.
True. My degree is Information Technology with Project Management focus. I get hit with both business as well as information technology courses.
On a good note, I haven’t taken calculus in 40 years. If I can CLEP statistics that would be great. Discrete Mathematics will present a challenge that hopefully my brain can handle it.
See Anorak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorak_(slang)
Why not just teach them to read and write English. Then they could do anything they want.
when African-American young people wear hoodies people think they’re thugs, but when white kids wear hoodies you assume that they’re going to be dot-com billionaires
_______________
It has to do with what’s in the hoodie!
Someone with an 85 IQ can be a code monkey if they have the work ethic to do so.
That is the part that will be the greatest challenge, because most of these kids have been raised to believe
“work ethic” = “actin’ white”
I worked on a project where we had one of them (with an “engineering” degree from an HBCU) who was supposed to design and code one section of the software.
Unfortunately, that person was remarkably ill-suited for the job, and wasn’t interested in doing anything other than working on “black issues” that had nothing to do with the project.
Even if they were successful is there a demand for 100,000 software coders in this country? Did they even think of that?
w "Hello world"
Cursive code not applicable
Discrete math is actually pretty useful for programming. Much more useful than Calculus, IMHO. Statistics is also very useful for someone in the field to know.
A lot of kids confuse being a proficient computer user with programming ability. While it doesn’t hurt, they are NOT the same thing.
I lost track of the number of kids who are good at playing video games, but can’t even begin to program them. You should see their faces when it dawns on them how much work is involved in writing even the must rudimentary games.
On the flip side, the array of languages, tool and websites available now is amazing. Likewise, being able to Google solutions to problems on the Internet. I started programming in the late 70s—looking back, it was the equivalent of the Stone Age.
The guy in the article who said that this is all “privileged knowledge” couldn’t be more wrong. There is a mind boggling number of websites and tutorials (including YouTube videos)—all freely available to ANYONE who wants to learn. You also have environments like Scratch and the MIT Appp Inventor, which are totally browser based. The real problem is having the underlying skills and motivation, not a lack of learning resources.
I’m an old systems programmer and I remember when:
To code or debug in ALC was a special skill. You needed to look and feel the part. You needed an old Hawaiian shirt, a pocket protecter and leaky pens and pencils of all types, jeans (no shorts during office hours), worn out sneakers or cowboy boots, a continuous supply of caffeine or No-doze, and at least a two-pack-a-day habit. Facial hair was optional but could be used to indicate how many days you had spent on the project.
It helped to be creative, slightly masochistic, a free thinker (rule breaker), and a knack for knowing when to stay out of sight (hide from) management and fellow programmers.
No cell phones or personal e-mail back then, only posted notes pinned to your workstation (while you were gone to those never ending meetings), outdated by now voice mails, and memorandums posted on the office bulletin board. We had to hide-out, mostly after hours, to get any work (code/debugging) done.
Computer operators hated to see us commandeer the console, banned us from computer rooms, and constantly complained to management about our bad grooming and attitude.
It took a real programmer to code down to the metal. But somebody had to do it. And it paid a princely sum in those pre-H1B times.
By contrast, COBOL programmers were pussies. /s
BTW. Somewhere one of my old ALC programs is still being executed. Probably at a federal computer center in the Twilight Zone.
You are dead-on with all of your observations. As you say... resources to learn to “code” are currently available to everyone through a vast array of online resources. Because it is hard work to create even rudimentary applications it takes a great deal of interest, motivation, aptitude and creative desire to be successful.
This is one area where affirmative action cannot ever be of much assistance in real life. The fact that certain ethnic groups effectively do not participate in any meaningful way has little if anything to do with resources available to them.
From the article, “In 11 states last year, not a single black student took the Computer Science Advanced Placement exam for college credit.” To me this demonstrates that dyed in the wool liberal, Ms. Stephenson's efforts as the executive director of the Computer Science Teacher’s Association have been a complete failure and waste of resources.
I have always thought that it is funny that in so many science fiction movies and television series... they disproportionally have a black person portraying the most technically proficient person in the cast. This flies in the face of the statements made in the article by Van Jones who said that black kids have no role models in this area and, or Ms. Stephenson who said, “The haves have continued to get access and the have-nots, however you want to define that, have not.”
It has been over 50 years since John F. Kennedy first signed Executive Order 10925 on March 6, 1961 officially starting a social experiment know as “affirmative action”. More than anything else this exercise has demonstrated that the government interfering with the free market system by advocating promotional opportunities based on race rather than merit is a complete failure. The negative effects of this folly on our country's economic development and ironically race relations are immeasurable.
50 years later we are still burdened with people trying to explain away every statistical anomaly between the races and the sexes with racism and sexism. At what point as a society do we finally admit that the explanation for these discrepancies are something other than racism and sexism and move on?
Helping disadvantaged people is an admirable pursuit, but we should acknowledge that trying to “turn a sows ear into a silk purse” is a waste of resources. I get so sick of these race baiters blaming every discrepancy on racism. This has gotten much worse since Obama, our first "affirmative action president" took office.
And I've used a half dozen different editors. Emacs, VI, Xedit. Kedit for Windows is the best of all of them, and I don't apologize to language bigots for using it.
Bingo!!! From the article, “in the U.S., computer science is a rare bright spot of opportunity for people without a college education.”
And why is it that classes are not a good way to learn programming? I would suggest that it is at least partially because affirmative action and government unions have hobbled the ability of our educational institutions to teach challenging subjects. With a little help from Hollywood... they do just fine at indoctrinating our children with leftist ideals and revisionist history. But in general most schools now fall flat on their face when trying to teach useful skills and critical thinking.
Higher education used to be (pretty much before 1800) basically like this: teacher gives student book to read, student gets to periodically meet with teacher to ask questions and be asked questions about the book. Teacher hands student next book, rinse, repeat. After a while, student “gets” the subject and can pass a very tough test on the subject. But even if there is no specific written test, teacher can tell from their conversations when student has a good grasp of the subject.
I’ve done quite well in programming since the late 80’s, and the only formal class I took was a 6-week in-house company class which was a complete waste of time, but was also required for me to start my career in programming at the company and transfer to their IT area.
Classes today are either lecture or lab based and have periodic tests and projects. Lectures are far slower than simply reading the book. If the teacher has to add quite a bit of their own information on the subject being taught by the book, then the problem is that the book is not a good book. If the book is a decent book, the teacher need not lecture. It does help to be able to ask the teacher questions as they arise. Trouble is, the personal question-asking is only a small part of the time the students will spend with the teacher. Large classes in education works about like educating a herd of cattle. But quality has never really been sought under this system. It was purported to be sought, but in reality the cattle system was being used as a way to achieve just enough skills to be useful to major corporations, but with a mass indoctrination that removed all that pesky “thinking for one’s self”, that is, any thinking contradictory to the total program of the world’s financial elites.
For computer science in particular, the labs and projects are usually not that hot, especially when one considers the very good examples that are available out there to the independent studier. One that I came across early on was Peter Norton’s Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC, by Peter Norton and John Socha. It gives you every program to type in, chapter by chapter, explaining as you go, and the exercise ? A hex/ascii disk display utility, a very good example. Each chapter you keep adding features, at the end you’ve got a neat little tool and an great start on understanding what’s going on inside a computer.
The book, of course, only cost a few dollars and you can get through it in a few weeks nights after work if you don’t dawdle.
Of course, today it would require a few changes to run on current operating systems. But you’d be shocked to see how much of the Intel instruction set from 1989 is still supported. MOV AX,BX and so forth is still the same.
Generally only the better CompSci graduates will have the work ethic (i.e., no short cuts, etc.) of a professional, the rest have the reality of needing to do in 3 weeks what would have been a 1/2 year project hit them in the face like a bucket of cold water. Of course, today that effect is lessening as companies increasingly offer jobs that consist of non-programming bs. The resulting lower productivity is actually desired by our elite masters at this point in time: it raises consumer prices, which is part of their current program of squeezing the sheeple in the advanced nations between stagnant wages and increases in their cost of living. Of course, the lower productivity and higher prices required to earn a profit are only possible with dramatic consolidation of industries into oligopolies or monopolies and the absence of competition, which, of course, they’ve largely achieved already in most key industries.
Studying programming does require a decent understanding of math up to the level of basic algebra.
What a horribly high expectation to inflict on people, right ?
Unfortunately for many, it is, like all engineering disciplines, highly reliant on being able to deal with designs in one’s mind, the same aptitude that’s needed for designing cars, homes, etc. This is why those fields are male-dominated.
Regarding schools failing to teach - it’s not a failure, they are succeeding at exactly at what they have been tasked to do by their masters.
Ever since the Peabody Education Fund and the General Education Board, and the takeover of elite universities by the secular-humanist eastern establishment, i.e., new world order, by the early 1800s, our entire educational system has been a tool used by those financial elites to move us towards a statism where they finance and control the state in the background.
Thank you for your observations and post. I agree completely. I have always been a do-it-yourselfer. I understand why, but I think it is too bad that heathkit and radio shack basically stopped producing kits to build your own useful electronic items. I learned an awful lot from working with those kits.
I had to drop out of college when I was 19 because my dad had purchased a large building and invested in a lumber remanufacturing business that he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on. I began working there and observing what was going on. I went to the library and began to study how the machinery was supposed to be operated. I discovered quickly that the “experts” my father had hired were doing nothing by the book. Their sloppiness was partially responsible for their almost complete lack of productivity.
The other major problem was that the large “squirrel cage blower” that sucked the chips and sawdust from the machines did not create enough suction and the machines were constantly having to be shut down to clear the clogs.
I had learned enough about three phase electric motors to realize that if the two of the hot wires were reversed the motor would run in the opposite direction. I asked the “experts” what would happen if the blower was running backwards. I was told that it would blow rather than suck.
I wasn’t sure if that was correct... so after the other employees went home I used a large ladder and removed a dozen large bolts that held the cover on the blower. When I turned it on I found that it had been running backwards for the previous four years. Needless to say I ended up working in the lumber business for the next eight years.
When I returned to a community college I began taking mostly math and computer courses. I preferred the lab type courses mostly because I could get through them so quickly. Even back then lectures tended to put me to sleep. I did learn some useful information, but despite the college being supported mostly by the state funds... it was still far more expensive than just finding a book and studying it independently.
I was offered a work study job in the computer lab. I ended up helping students with courses that I hadn’t taken myself but quickly picked up. It turned out that tinkering with home computers, reading books, and writing my own programs had put me at a level that was equal and in most cases more advanced than what was offered by the community college.
My life took an unexpected turn after I did well on a civil service test and was hired by a fire department. I got married... kids and even grandkids have now come along. Working for a fire department was rewarding for the first twenty or so years and the schedule allowed me to pursue other interests such bicycling, hang gliding, ultra-light and general aviation flying.
I believe that I still have a copy of Peter Norton and John Socha’s Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC, but didn’t apply myself after I put together an XT clone computer and was then hired by the fire department.
I am now retired from the fire department... I can’t tell you how many boring classes I had to take during career. More times than I can remember I spent hours struggling to stay awake and came away with less information that I could have absorbed in a fraction of the time by reading a book.
It seems like most of the innovators in the computer industry got frustrated with the system at some point and never completed their studies at an “institution of higher learning”. I have too many irons in the fire currently, but I still do have an interest in programming. Producing something useful and solving the problems that arise during the process is a creative endeavor that I find to be a rewarding challenge. I congratulate you for your success.
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