For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code. Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript. We have an active Slack community that members can join by pledging as little as $1 per month via Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode)
Episode 024: Seeing Programming Where Other People Don’t with Felienne Hermans
00:16 – Welcome to “The Netherlands Invented Gay Marriage, So We Should Be Scared of Them Now!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!”
01:28 – Origin Story
03:17 – Programming Perspectives From People of Different Backgrounds; Teaching Adults vs Children
06:12 – Teaching Programming as a Language; Aha! Moments
12:26 – Identity and why do we so often use the phrase “not real programming”? What do we define as software? Tooling
20:13 – Should everyone know programming? Why? What should they know/be able to do? (Digital Literacy)
28:27 – What is the programming equivalent of a library/librarian?
33:06 – Does STEM education make other forms of education obsolete? Why not?
35:15 – Things to Get Better at Programming Other Than Programming
48:58 – Fighting Against “Real” Programming and Being Hesitant to Let in Newcomers
50:40 – What can we do to help spread the knowledge?
Reflections:
Felienne: If people say they are programming, they are. Limit belittling and surprise. Do not contaminate others with what your own idea of programming is.
Jessica: Value on reading through code and forming a model of it.
Astrid: Thinking about programming as in thinking about writing.
Rein: Some programming does involved math, but it is not (for the most part) the math you hated in high school.
A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form by Paul Lockhart
Sam: You can be fluent at a very low level of proficiency and still be fluent.
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Special Guest: Felienne Hermans.