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Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

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11–20 of 62 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#11
post #8

Ask ten people to write a hello world in js, and they all will do it, and do it the exactly same way - this is great for a production language. On that point, JS is as good as C/Cxx The downside - ask 10 people for an example of proper use of advanced oop in js, and out of these 10 you will get 5 passible anwers all of which will be drastically different - horrid thing for production

document.write("hello world"); document.querySelector("body").innerHTML = "hello world";

alert("hello world"); prompt("hello world");

console.log("hello world"); console.info("hello world"); console.warn("hello world");

process.stdout.write("hello world");

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#12
post #5

Programming concepts come more easily the more gradually they are revealed. Nobody has any concept of what a stack overflow is or why it's important on day 1. Ruby is approachable and fairly forgiving and (at least in MY opinion) VERY readable. Full disclosure: I went to engineering school for 2 degree and then later attended (and currently work for) a code school. I can say that I can see a marked difference in stud…

Because if you can understand Ruby, you can understand anything.

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#13
post #8

Ask ten people to write a hello world in js, and they all will do it, and do it the exactly same way - this is great for a production language. On that point, JS is as good as C/Cxx The downside - ask 10 people for an example of proper use of advanced oop in js, and out of these 10 you will get 5 passible anwers all of which will be drastically different - horrid thing for production

How many ways do people write Hello World in C, Java, Ruby, Python?

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#14
post #7

My guess is that they are the flavor of the month (knowing only Rails+JS is widely employable), and have a low enough barrier to entry that you can realistically teach someone enough to be useful in the timescale of a bootcamp. Add a little HTML/CSS and you can do front end as well. I think the auto-magicness of Rails helps, since it gives you so much even if you are relatively inexperienced. Then you have a jumping…

Rails is not that employable anymore. Sure, you can find gigs for it in tech hotspots, but that's true for any language. For people living in the Real World outside of the tech bubbles, Rails jobs have mostly died out and been replaced with Node jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#15
Web is the most accessible medium. If you can view it in your browser, so can anyone else. There is no complex configuration or build process (though it seems the JS community is dead set on changing that). What You See Is What You Get. It's an immediately useful and intelligible medium and you mostly stay away from the really scary things. Teaching simple web dev first makes sense.

Rails is probably chosen mostly out of the false tradition that Ruby is a good beginner's language or the also-false tradition Rails is a good framework.

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#16
I think it hardly matters which language you learn first. I went to a Ruby bootcamp but Ruby is #4 or 5 on the list of languages I've used most since then. I didn't use it at all in my first job after the bootcamp.

Those programs are three months out of your life and then you're back to learning on the job and in your free time like everyone else.

I think a dynamic OO language like Ruby or Python is a great place to start but it doesn't really matter. Any mainstream language would be fine.

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#17
post #8

Ask ten people to write a hello world in js, and they all will do it, and do it the exactly same way - this is great for a production language. On that point, JS is as good as C/Cxx The downside - ask 10 people for an example of proper use of advanced oop in js, and out of these 10 you will get 5 passible anwers all of which will be drastically different - horrid thing for production

How many ways do people write Hello World in C, Java, Ruby, Python?

for letter in 'hello world?': print(letter, end='')

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#18
post #7

My guess is that they are the flavor of the month (knowing only Rails+JS is widely employable), and have a low enough barrier to entry that you can realistically teach someone enough to be useful in the timescale of a bootcamp. Add a little HTML/CSS and you can do front end as well. I think the auto-magicness of Rails helps, since it gives you so much even if you are relatively inexperienced. Then you have a jumping…

Rails is not that employable anymore. Sure, you can find gigs for it in tech hotspots, but that's true for any language. For people living in the Real World outside of the tech bubbles, Rails jobs have mostly died out and been replaced with Node jobs.

Is that true though, it seems Multiple Survey said Rails and Ruby Jobs is still on the rise. And Scaling Ruby Rails is expensive.

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rails is not that employable anymore. Sure, you can find gigs for it in tech hotspots, but that's true for any language. For people living in the Real World outside of the tech bubbles, Rails jobs have mostly died out and been replaced with Node jobs.

Is that true though, it seems Multiple Survey said Rails and Ruby Jobs is still on the rise. And Scaling Ruby Rails is expensive.

It's true in my experience trying to help a fresh boot camp grad find local employment. We even emailed the organizer of the local Rails user group and he said no one around here was hiring for it anymore. I'm in Central FL.

Haven't looked up the surveys so can't speak for them. I guess they'd be interesting? But unless they're excluding SF, SEA, NYC, and maybe Boston/Austin it's not really an equivalent comparison.

Re: Ask HN: Why do coding bootcamps teach Ruby on Rails and JavaScript?

#20
Most actual work is in "php". But, it isn't 'hip' anymore. So, they teach ruby. Ruby is more difficult and less clear. Rails itself is a land of 'gotchas' (I have 10 years exp in both). After learning ruby/rails it will be difficult to find work and understand basic database constructs.

/end rattling my cane

https://www.google.com/search?q=php+vs+rails+stats&ie=utf-8&...

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