Ok here goes a 'diversity' thread! I ran a session on the weekend that was like a kind of reverse beginners' workshop. We talked about what it was like engaging with tidalcycles as a community as a beginner, trying to teach me how to improve things. It echoed a discussion I took part in with early career Black artists as part of a programme called 'algoafrofutures' - I learned there are huge hidden barriers to participation in the form of hidden hierarchies and norms that repel most people ('most', given that white men are the minority). It seems that many just don't want to post their questions to a forum or especially engage with a live chat system because of bad past experiences and the general attitude of the "men on the internet" who hang out there. It seems people who experience racism, misogyny etc are there, but are lurking or not participating (shout out to the lurkers! would love to hear what you think but, well..). Similarly with local live coding workshops in Sheffield, women-only workshops will be full but then only men will show up to open workshops and mansplain things to the woman co-running the workshop. This is serious I think - communities that repel most people in ways they don't realise, and which totally undermines their aims to e.g. find a future of coding for everyone (in the case of this community), or do something similar by connecting computer programming with performing arts and wider culture (in the case of live coding).
So what can we do about it, besides solemn introspection? I really enjoyed Emma Dabiri's work which challenges the response to BLM, from an Irish and UK perspective. I recommend her short book 'what white people can do next' and most recent appearance on the blindboy podcast - best to check that out than rely on my summary.. But her thinking is based on solid academic understanding of the nature of race, and argues not for allyship (which only re-enforces power structures) but coalition. I think I'll stop there as I'm interested in what other people think 'coalition' could mean in this context..
love that you are thinking and engaging with this alex, and you make an excellent point that a 'future of coding' must inherently/foundationally confront and address issues of racism, sexism, discrimination etc, as 'part of their work/definition' otherwise as you say, they are doomed to continue perpetuating the same....
all to easy to just 'build the things' without considering the social contexts within which ''the thing' will exist, and as you say, the social context WITHIN the thing (it's own community/team/etc)...
Another majority effectively discouraged from participating in technological development is people who don't speak English well enough. Ironically, they are also excluded from international communities working towards more diversity, because they use English as well.
A few weeks ago I saw a mention on Twitter of a workshop on "Programming In Languages That Aren't English" https://pilate-icer.github.io/. Held in English, of course.
Yes great point and that's a very telling example! I'm guilty of not knowing any language apart from English. The live coding conference tries to supply simultaneous translation between at least Spanish and English (there are really strong communities in Spain and across South/Central America) although we haven't been able to fund this professionally yet, it does help I think. I also make sure to edit subtitles for videos I make which helps hard of hearing folks as well as improving automatic translation to the point that they can be somewhat useful.. This is related to environmental breakdown and health emergency I think - as we get better at moving communications and conferences online we need to do it in a decentralised way that breaks down these colonial hierarchies.
It's good to see end-user systems like estuary that allow people to create live coding languages, and for people to use that to create non-English variants
and yep @tj I think it's super important to recognise that we're standing on very shaky ground. It's telling that the main reference is Bret Victor - of course I can't speak for him but as far as I can tell has pretty much disowned the programming community, or at least seems very disinterested in making tools for the currently existing community of programmers. I suppose the name "future of coding" is based on his "future of programming" talk, but as far as I can tell ignores that this title is (again, to my mind) clearly ironic - this (really excellent) talk was after all about the past.
I think interdisciplinarity is key here - interdisciplinary people are very used to standing on shaky ground. As far as I can tell, CS researchers hate it and perhaps this is why they tend to eject interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., by banning discussion of 'philosophy')
There’s a lot of research on this in the CS education community-- check out this recent conference: https://icer2021.acm.org/program/program-icer-2021/ which includes papers/presentations like “The Relationship Between Sense of Belonging and Student Outcomes in CS1 and Beyond” and “Incentivized Spacing and Gender in Computer Science Education”
Personally I recommend Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” for advice on how to achieve praxis (translations by Freire available in Spanish, English, and Portuguese)
@Alex Interdisciplinarity is an issue all over academia. Pretty much everyone agrees it's important in theory, but when it comes to important decisions (funding, hiring), interdisciplinarity always loses out. No need to invoke negative feelings to explain this, although you may be right about the specific situation in CS which I don't know, being in physics and chemistry myself. It's just group dynamics, of the same kind that creates obstacles to diversity elsewhere. Take a group of specialists from some disciplines, and let them discuss a project. The only aspects that they will all view favorably are the common aspects of their discipline, so that's what all projects have to adhere to.
The larger lesson is that opening up a group to be more inclusive (in whatever sense: social, thematic, ...) probably requires incentives coming from the outside.
I'm currently on a well funded project with a weaver/mathematician, a philologist, and a sociologist. We are able to collaborate well.
My PhD was in a computing department, but was partly practice-based. My supervisor had a PhD in both computer science and music composition, and the group also included serious psychologists.
I simply do not understand single-disciplinary thinking. Considering your work in terms of only one system of academic rigour just seems sloppy to me.
The gift of computer science is that it allows us to work in abstractions, making it easy to collaborate with others. Otherwise we are just computer programmers making tools for computer programmers.
@Alex Interdisciplinary collaborations can work very well indeed. My comment was about (mono-)disciplinary groups, such as program committees, university department panels, etc. Group cohesion is so important for them that they easily see interdisciplinary minded people as heretics.
Oh yes I can certainly agree with that. But it is possible to break through, and I think it's worth fighting for.
My current project is ERC (European Research Council) funded and my next one will be even more interdisciplinary and is funded in the UK. Both projects got past large panels of senior peer reviewers. I can understand the cynicism with the hierarchical structures of academia but I think interdisciplinarity is the future.
I do kind of think that interdisciplinary people are those who are used to making new, perhaps temporary disciplines.. Finding new territory between disciplines and developing a new, dynamic discipline there
Still I agree it's very tough. An interdisciplinary proposal has to stand up against multiple disciplines at the same time, and this is tough.
I'm not the most active person (FoC is pretty much the one community where I say stuff), but I do make a point to, say in podcasts, seek out voices that I would not otherwise hear, along multiple dimensions: profession, gender, ethnicity, nationality. You can tell you're getting a different perspective when you say to yourself, "you know I do not see this that way at all." Then the trick is to suppress the dismissal reflect, to sit with the other person's point of view, imagine the framework required for that novel perspective to make sense.
@Alex Runs an amazing livecoding community that is open and inclusive. However I find myself becoming slowly pessimistic about this whole affair of inclusivity. While I don’t consider myself particularly well read on the subject, it seems the problem is fundamentally intractable and not easy to solve by mere handwaving.
Given two groups X and Y … there are 4 social outcomes
- X over Y
- Y over X
- X and Y live in peace while keeping their identities separate and independant
- X intermixed with Y forming a new identity as XY
I find that 1, 2, 4 create monocultures because the original identity is lost. Ways in which groups can be separate yet be totally co-operative are missing. When anthropologists go to a tribe, they don’t force their views on them ... they operate in 3.
To take programming languages as an example ... I am arguing for single paradigm languages without forcing every language to accommodate every style. Python doesn’t have types and that’s OK. Every community has strengths and I fear tying to create a “common community” is a bad attempt to create 1 language that is forced on everyone for their own “good”. An organisation that uses multiple programming languages interacting via a common REST protocol is better than enforcing 1 language. While it looks inefficient, what I would like to point is that monocultures suck.
As far as I understand, that's a outdated view of anthropology which has been grappling with its colonial past for a while and I believe no longer views themselves as separate from their subject?
I don't really follow your analysis - what are these two groups? Aren't there instead thousands of overlapping groups, some contained within others?
Just to be extra contrary (sorry) I also wouldn't say I 'run a community', although I do enjoy collaborating on creating spaces (festivals, conferences, fora etc) for communities to grow around
It could be any two groups. I think it is better to use programming communities as examples.
I remember once after a performance with my friend Dave, a CS guy came up to us and couldn't believe that Dave was using scheme, I was in Haskell, and that we were even in the same room. Personally I find these hard cultural boundaries funny (well maybe this guy was joking a bit too, but I think was also a bit serious).
I still don't really understand your point - python isn't a single paradigm language.
what I want to point to with my analysis is that protocols for communication are a better way to organise disparate communities. In algorave we use supercollider as the base and have multiple lang communities python, ruby, haskell use it. for scientists this is math. for commerce this is numbers and english.
and we're talking about race and gender which is not in the same category as programming style. Race is a concept invented by slave owners to keep Irish servants and African slaves apart
i assure you tribes have been hating each other for a long time and fighting wars over whose hat has had more feathers. the defeated were always kept captive and separate 😁 what however I would like to point is places where disparate tribes have been able to keep peace with each other - commerce, festivals being one way that happened
Just to check.. are you suggesting that the future of coding community predominantly consists of white men because we hate everyone else and this is impossible to change?
If you'd like to talk about relationships between programming communities perhaps it's best to do that in a different thread then as otherwise things are going to get confusing!
It seems you are taking things too literally. musicians of every race are connected by music and thats sufficient. for the case of programming communities, it is sufficient to have platforms that connect them where cultural exchange can happen. for commerce too a market is a sufficient place to ensure exchange between different groups. rather than focus on group dynamics, which is an endless struggle of A over B …. I lament the discussion could be geared towards protocols. where groups can intermingle, where each group does its own thing rather than saying everyone should think the same way.
I think unfortunately commerce has it's own dynamics, works much better for some groups better than others, and if not kept under control will grow to a point where everyone dies.
i merely classify them as groups. irish programmers, female programmers and black programmers could perhaps be at a programming festival / competition. the groups are separate, proud of their past and hopeful of the future than having bad guilt inducing debates, that is frankly turning the whole world nuts.
So you think that e.g. calls for racial justice that are turning the world nuts?
nope, i am merely suggesting there are alternative approaches to dealing with groups.
such as putting them in a competition against each other so they can be proud of their past as long as they don't mention oppression, slavery, indentured servitude, misogyny etc
Basically I'm far more optimistic than you. I am no expert but in a lot of areas, at least in the west, social justice, diversity, and understanding of our past crimes is on the up. This hasn't come about by anyone 'sorting out groups' but for those groups fighting for their own freedom and justice. This just all looks like the world is going nuts to people who feel threatened by giving up power.
mentioning them repeatedly creates a war like atmosphere. my sympathies lie with the IRA in any case. more like getting everyone to agree on formal rules. the greeks fought each other like cats and dogs … but then they resolved to put an end to endless disputes with olympics and democracy.
Mentioning racism and sexism creates a war like atmosphere? You think if we don't talk about that it'll just go away? That's the POV of a white male right there.
i don’t think it will ever go away and mentioning them and only them in every conversation is circular reasoning at best. as I said we are programmers, we already live with diversity with our protocols. that would make a better discussion.
shrugs … I think we are talking past each other. there are better protocols IMO. i don’t think we two can solve these complex problems here. just the reparations alone are a complex math problem. as i said my goal is peace between groups rather than X over Y or Y over X …
i think there are good solutions in the programming / music communities that already support complex diversities.
Improving inclusion in programming communities is something many of us care about. Doing that in the absence of meaningful discussion about racism / sexism / ableism is unrealistic (at best).
To rephrase my position, merely as a thought experiment … I argue for completely exclusive clubs that keep common grounds in selective venues. This also ensures that each club can protect their group from intrusion and ensure its members are adequately protected, according their own needs decided democratically than by an external agent.
Each club keeps their identity separate and is organised around group achievements rather than artificial guilt induced by selective readings of history.
From my limited readings, this is something the Maori people have achieved to some degree. “White people” thinking they are Maori is silly at best and them trying to patronise and mother Maori is intrusive and unwarranted.
The guilt induced reading is a very narrow reading of history. UK was raped and enslaved by Romans and Vikings and the French and the Germans. I would be more than happy to see UK and USA renamed to former slaves of the Romans and the French. English was considered a farmer’s language for quite sometime and the royalty spoke French but I digress.
I am absolutely not against inclusivity but I feel that there is a net loss when each group’s natural integrity is lost and replaced by an all inclusive “supergroup” that is poorly thought out and forced because of mere “good intentions” . The noble intentions of priests has done more harm than good, in many ways is the reason why we are in this mess the first place.
If I am not mistaken the Hacker ethic already proclaimed inclusivity as a corner stone. This chaotic but functional diversity is something we see in our programming tribes naturally and I wish more research was done in this area.
“good intentions” implies (to me) some type of moral component. While that is certainly present for some of us, I am also selfish: I want inclusive spaces because I want the thoughts, opinions, ideas, and challenges that a diverse group provides.
I’d wager temporary inclusive spaces like hackathons are preferable to permanent diverse spaces, to encourage diverse ideas.
Charlie Roberts Cultural context matters a lot for choosing one's priorities. You say racism / sexism / ableism, which makes me suspect you are US-based. For me as a German living in France, language-based exclusion is much more visible that it seems to be for you, whereas racism is a much lesser issue. Not that we don't have discrimination from the colonial days over here, but it's based more on name than on skin color.
I've thought a lot about this issue recently after I discovered how it changed the way I interact with people. 10 Years ago I discussed freely with everybody, don't even thinking about race and gender.
Today that's different. I always feel the risk of being seen as racist or mansplaining or even hitting on someone. It's for me impossible to talk freely now with people from other races or genders, it feels like walking thru a minefield. Even when talking about pure technical topics. So I tend to avoid interacting with people of other genders or races because then I can talk free without risking anything as long as I stay away from topics like politics.
Today I'm very aware of race and gender, which lead to me treating people differently depending on their race and gender. I think thats a very sad developement because I'm a big proponent of equality and think that races don't even exists. And after talking to other people, I know some who told me that they act similar. Not because they want to oppress someone, but simply out of fear to be called a racicst or misogynist if they say something wrong or behave a bit to dominant.
So I fear that this inclusion and diversity movement lead to the exact opposite: People are much more aware of race and gender now, instead or caring less. Which leads to seggregation instead of inclusion. And while everybody wants diversity and equality, many act in the opposite direction now and exclude others out of fear of losing their job.
Konrad Hinsen yes… although I just kinda rattled off three isms, I’m sure their choice was reflective of my cultural identity / privilege.
[Reading all of this, and folding it in to my ongoing thoughts on the subject. Thanks everyone.]
It's normal not to understand the impact of things we do to other people, especially when we were essentially protected from consequences for our formative years ("boys will be boys" "he means well" "he probably meant...")
Now that we are grown adults, it's much more more painful to make mistakes. We don't need to segregate ourselves, but we also can't just move forward without realising the impact we have and the power we wield. Just like writing code, we have to grow and learn to align our intentions with our desired impact. Trust that people aren't generally out to get you, they are just living their lives and always remember that feedback is a gift
@Don Abrams Your comment reminds me of what has always been bothering me about diversity and inclusiveness debates in tech: they tend to focus on the measurable and neglect the much larger but hard-to-quantify issues.
Example: gender focus (but plug in any other one if you prefer). Warning: numbers are made up.
The way tech is developed and deployed today excludes 95% of men and 99% of women from decisions that have an important impact on their lives. For me, the real issue is 3% (influential developers and their funders) vs. 97% (people who have to adapt their lives to tech). Can we fix that by focussing on the difference between 95 and 99? I doubt it.
TL;DR: End-user programming may well be the ultimate inclusiveness strategy.
