Hello World

This compelling film originally was, by Wildermuth's own admission, going to be different than the way it ended up. His initial plan was to make it about how computing saved him from a life of poverty and limited choices. Ironically, the issues Wildermuth faced growing up are similar to the issues facing many women and people of color. Yet thanks largely to being a White male, Wildermuth was able to escape his initial life trajectory and find success -- without a college degree and without facing the kind of institutionalized gatekeeping that prevents others from achieving the same ends, including slyly-crafted "aptitude tests" that focus more on advanced math than actual coding skills. While Wildermuth does a good job of pivoting from his original viewpoint, it's still apparent from how much he focuses on his own journey and love for coding that he faced challenges balancing the two sides of the film.

Wildermuth's foray into learning more about the racism and sexism that permeates his profession is admirable, and it's heartening to see so many White or White-passing men in the film acknowledge the industry's problems, their own biases, and ways they might have inadvertently kept the "boys' club" of computing going. Wildermuth himself admits that he's been prejudiced in how he viewed who could or couldn't be a coder. The voices from marginalized communities are welcome, offering first-hand context for the issues Wildermuth explains to the audience. It would have been nicer to have had even more voices from these communities interviewed -- perhaps limitations came from time, from Wildermuth's circle of friends, or both. But the fact that the subjects interviewed still skew mostly toward White and male shows that there's still a lot of work to be done in the computing industry. Overall, though, viewers should come away with a better understanding of how the issues facing this profession are much like the ones facing America at large. If we can figure out how to fix the imbalance in the industry, then there's hope for fixing the imbalances and inequities in our daily lives.