"As a scientist, I must follow my obligation to the truth, reporting what I find in my experiments, whether I like the results or not. My focus is not on determining whether I like or approve of something; it matters only that I can unveil it."
I get the scientist part, the dispassionate reporter of what happened, regardless of what I want to have happened. That last phrase though - "it matters only that I can unveil it" - bothers me. I think this is a fundamental error of science. The pendulum has swung too far, to say that it is not only ok, but indeed required to ignore morality. To not ask even "should I be attempting to unveil" this. The opposite side of the spectrum is dangerous as well (not venturing into questions ever, because of overly strict moral codes or dogmas).
Interesting to see that an AI researcher holds much the same set of fears I'd expect many computer science type workers to hold. I was expecting a set of counter-culture fears instead of what I consider the "typical" positions.
" then closer to the lesser end might be things like holding meetings at strip clubs, company cultures where team bonding means getting black-out drunk, having an almost exclusively male leadership team, or naming all your conference rooms after male scientists" ... this is close to the lesser end?! We have a lot of work to do.
Overall I appreciate the article's approach and recommendations. There are unfortunately no easy answers but we can work to make things better around us.
(Internally we intentionally renamed our conference rooms diversely, avoiding that last mistake. It would have been easy to make though!)
disclaimer: I am an instructor for Big Nerd Ranch, teaching our various iOS courses. That said, I came to BNR after being blown away by the quality of their Mac programming book, years ago. I believe deeply in what we do.
tl;dr: Big Nerd Ranch offers short retreats for intermediate and advanced instructors. They are not cheap but they are thorough and powerful, as long as you're willing to put in the work.
Details:
We have short (typically 5 day), intensive courses. The instructor leads the class through a series of lectures and intense labs, building out real applications throughout the week. The instructor works with each student to help them maximize what they can learn and achieve during the week.
There is no magic for scaling across different ability levels, but there are ways to do this better or worse. Our courses target intermediate to advanced level learners. We intentionally build our chapters, demonstrations, and lectures to be very dense with material. For the advanced students, they're able to glean API gotchas and sharp corners, as well as real world tips (pretty much all our instructors are also active consulting developers), and lots of looks at different working practices. Seeing another developer work is a great way to learn new techniques.
For intermediate or closer to beginner students, they won't that level of detail as much, as they're still absorbing all the new APIs, design patterns, and details necessary to just get apps building and shipping.
Our courses allow you to get out what you put in. In other words, there's not any particular magic to leveling up. You have to put in the hard work yourself. But I believe our retreat-style approach - where we remove or take care of all possible distractions, and provide expert aid at your call - gives you the best chance to maximize how much you can learn in a week. Food and lodging is included. You'll spend the week learning, programming, and going for hikes every day. It's sort of my ideal world. :D
We don't call them bootcamps half-heartedly. You'll be exhausted by Friday. But if we've done our job right, you'll feel like you've just shortcut several months of work in leveling up as a developer.
I get the scientist part, the dispassionate reporter of what happened, regardless of what I want to have happened. That last phrase though - "it matters only that I can unveil it" - bothers me. I think this is a fundamental error of science. The pendulum has swung too far, to say that it is not only ok, but indeed required to ignore morality. To not ask even "should I be attempting to unveil" this. The opposite side of the spectrum is dangerous as well (not venturing into questions ever, because of overly strict moral codes or dogmas).
Interesting to see that an AI researcher holds much the same set of fears I'd expect many computer science type workers to hold. I was expecting a set of counter-culture fears instead of what I consider the "typical" positions.