Outreachy Deadlines Are Due Next Week For Winter Open-Source Internships

[ParticleBoard]

There are also generic trolls that post completely 0-content 360-degree-offensive trollposts like you, let's not forget that.

My post wasn't directed at you, hell it was hours before it even showed up. But feel free to post another ten replies about it in your own special way.

[nils_]

I agree people should only get employed on skills alone. But in the IT world, there is a stark imbalance; encouraging women to join IT fields helps correct this.

Is that solving an actual problem though? I have never been in a situation in IT where we all thought "if only there were more women on our team, $problem would be solved by now".

I think outreachy is a pretty clever idea, mostly because it makes it easier to elicit donations from the social justice crowd who would otherwise not give to open source projects.

[starshipeleven]

My post wasn't directed at you, hell it was hours before it even showed up.

I react to bullshit, not just to people attacking me directly.

But feel free to post another ten replies about it in your own special way.

Thanks, doing things with your permission is very important to me.

[Hamsterkill]

Is that solving an actual problem though? I have never been in a situation in IT where we all thought "if only there were more women on our team, $problem would be solved by now".

It is, actually. Diversity is important in problem-solving professions as it's almost always beneficial to have more different perspectives on a problem. The homogenizing of the engineers who write software, for instance, leads to ignoring sections of users' needs -- not on purpose, but just because it didn't occur to them. As a white male who doesn't get forgotten about often, the example I often use is colorblindness. Users with visual impairments are routinely ignored in the making of software when no one with those impairments is on the team. Good user testing can mitigate this, but it costs more and is often not part of the process outside of large systems.

[Hamsterkill]

Cultural and gender homogenization can also be a source of similar problems.

[starshipeleven]

It is, actually. Diversity is important in problem-solving professions as it's almost always beneficial to have more different perspectives on a problem. The homogenizing of the engineers who write software, for instance, leads to ignoring sections of users' needs -- not on purpose, but just because it didn't occur to them. As a white male who doesn't get forgotten about often, the example I often use is colorblindness. Users with visual impairments are routinely ignored in the making of software when no one with those impairments is on the team. Good user testing can mitigate this, but it costs more and is often not part of the process outside of large systems.

While diversity is indeed important, it's for different approaches to the problem, not because one in the team knows already of issues.

That example about color blindness is a case of bad design, period. Having a team composed of people with all possible issues the users can have is a stupid idea as you are ALWAYS going to leave out someone (as your core team isn't made of hundreds of different people).

Only solution is to have someone that knows principles of good design, and having a good wide beta-testing phase to catch everything else.

[schmidtbag]

Bullshit. There's no such things as "Jobs that average educated certified citizens would never take", and the economy operates at the minimum wage level at a very substantial labour surplus not a labour deficit resulting in lines half a mile long in situations where a major store declares that they're hiring for seasonal work just to apply.

Yes... there are. Tell me - how many college graduates do you know of are willing to mop floors of gas stations, pick berries, work in an oil field, mine for coal, etc? Many businesses would willingly pay less for someone (not just their wage but also taxes) who can do the exact same job just as well as a legal citizen. You have a naive sense of the world if you think your job opportunities are impacted by the vast majority of illegal immigrants.

The reason that illegal immigrants can take jobs away from normal educated citizens is that...

Everything you said there is true, though I don't understand how that supports your point or disagrees with mine.

[schmidtbag]

Is that solving an actual problem though? I have never been in a situation in IT where we all thought "if only there were more women on our team, $problem would be solved by now".

I completely agree - women are not a solution to IT sectors. Obviously, they aren't a detriment, either. But, the purpose of Outreachy isn't meant to address that.

[starshipeleven]

Yes... there are. Tell me - how many college graduates do you know of are willing to mop floors of gas stations, pick berries, work in an oil field, mine for coal, etc?

Don't know about USA, but here, everyone. I know young engineers that are working as truck drivers, and God forbid if you get fired and you are 40+ yo regardless of the skills. The work situation here is around the level of "total shit".

Many businesses would willingly pay less for someone (not just their wage but also taxes) who can do the exact same job just as well as a legal citizen. You have a naive sense of the world if you think your job opportunities are impacted by the vast majority of illegal immigrants.

Job opportunities (where immigrants can compete anyway) ARE impacted by immigrants, as if a company decides to hire immigrants it's because the wages they want to pay are too low for legal citizens to live. Immigrants routinely live in shitty conditions and for the sake of not dying of hunger can afford of doing anything.

[Hamsterkill]

While diversity is indeed important, it's for different approaches to the problem, not because one in the team knows already of issues.

Different ways of saying the same thing, in my opinion. My point was that having a team of more diverse experience will expose flaws that would otherwise be overlooked. The ways team members approach problems is part of that, the way I see it.

I suppose I should have explicitly mentioned the reverse situation of team members putting forth better ideas that would have been overlooked as well, that's fair enough.

That example about color blindness is a case of bad design, period. Having a team composed of people with all possible issues the users can have is a stupid idea as you are ALWAYS going to leave out someone (as your core team isn't made of hundreds of different people).

Only solution is to have someone that knows principles of good design, and having a good wide beta-testing phase to catch everything else.

No, you can't have a team that addresses every possible section of users, but I didn't say that you could. I said it's almost always beneficial to have a team that addresses more. Finding flaws in beta is always more costly than being aware of them earlier and not even always possible in smaller projects. Good design is important, but good design isn't always obvious. If an engineer has to choose between performance or flexibility on a module he doesn't expect to change, he's not making the wrong decision based on the information he has when he chooses performance, but he may be making an inadequately informed one. As you said, this is impossible to eliminate -- no project is perfect. But diversity on a team does mitigate the risk.