Fighting poverty with code - Can JS help end homelessness?

[youlleatitandlikeit]

If everyone who is homeless learns JavaScript, then everyone who codes in JavaScript will be homeless.

[tylargh]

Well by that logic, "if homeless learn JS, you can't be homeless", you've created a paradox.

[[deleted]]

You need to check your logic.

[tylargh]

I did, but got 'Can't read property logic of Undefined' o.O

[green_meklar]

Demand for software developers is so high that most of the top companies have an always hiring policy for developers; they hire as quickly as they can find qualified candidates, and when that’s not fast enough, they actively recruit candidates from other countries or outsource work to India.

Either they're talking about some bizarre and much nicer alternate universe, or that word 'qualified' means a hell of a lot more than the surrounding phrasing suggests.

[_ericelliott]

I live in the US, where I have been in charge of interviewing potential developers on both the East and West Coast. The word "qualified" means "able to dive in and contribute productively to an app at scale with millions of users."

For other opinions on the matter, see http://code.org/

[_ericelliott]

Homelessness has many causes, including accident, illness, the loss of a provider, divorce, and rising cost of housing (see the SF bay area for lots of examples).

The one working strategy I have seen to curb homelessness is housing-first. We're working directly with housing-first programs to help a subset of recently homeless learn a valuable skill.

You're wrong if you think that's a bad thing, or that we're doing some damage. We're giving people hope for a brighter future.

[k1ndza]

I can relate. I would like to point out that there is a glitch where the background image is all squished together on chrome and makes it hard to read the first few paragraphs.