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Gina, I think the first part of your essay is inspirational. I liked and related to your experience learning to code. I'm sure many others on HackerNews would agree. The second part was the opposite though. I had to read it a few times to fully grok what you were actually mad about: 1) the "inspiration award" winning team's built something without writing code.
2) the judges "lied" to these women that they were/could-be coders.
To the first point, I would say, expand your definition of hacking. This team defined a problem, worked on a solution, pitched it to a jury, and got awarded for it. Isn't that what a hack-a-thon is all about?And it really seemed contradictory for you to say, "a real hacker is someone who tries to code all night, and regardless of how shitty it looks, stands up there and says proudly, “Yeah, I made this. It didn’t work out very well, but I learned a lot." Then to turn around and bash their submission for not meeting your own standard of hacking. Why? Because they aren't "real" programmers? Because you doubt they will ever be "real" programmers? Because the judges awarded them for being women who tried? Because you felt slighted? You come off as self-interested, snobby, elitist, and bitter. As a woman and engineer, what kind of role-model are you projecting for your community? I hope the promise of more women in engineering is to change the dominant "brogramming culture" to be less homogenous and more inclusive of alternative people, ideas, and processes. Don't you? |
It's about fairness towards the other participants of the hackatons.
Otherwise ,if hackatons were about ideas, most people wouldn't bother coding.