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The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

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Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#21

Post by savanaly »

jdhawk wrote: post #2

Has anyone done a coding bootcamp? With the plethora of relatively cheap/free resources out there from Universities, to professional institutions, all the way to YouTube, what is the appeal? Do the certifications count for anything to hiring managers? Do you need someone to kick you in the ass on a daily basis to keep moving? Do you need the higher touch Q&A thats not available in Forums/StackOverflow type places?

I did a coding bootcamp. It helped in a combination of all the ways you mentioned. Most importantly, I think I needed a way to commit myself to spending 8+ hours every day on learning coding for awhile. I don't have the personality/willpower to do that on my own, although once I made the commitment I never felt like skipping a day of class. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

It was App Academy by the way, a bootcamp that was appealing to me because of its tuition-conditional-on-employment payment scheme. Which meant that I was only risking my own time and effort in learning, not an additional 10k like the poor students of the guy in the article.

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#22

Post by davidhariri »

"He had a penchant for oversharing personal information and sometimes ripped hits from a colorful glass bong during video lectures with the students."

"I did learn some stuff," Johnson says. "I can write some code, and I didn't know anything before I started."

Oh jeez. I feel really bad for his students.

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#23

Post by ubernostrum »

throwsincenotpc wrote: post #3

I don't get it, people paid $100k to this guy to get courses through slack and online videos ? The article says 19 students, who paid $5k each for that ? are you kidding me ?

People pay as much, or more, to go to a room a few times a week and have someone lecture them, then assign work which will be evaluated and eventually produce a piece of paper. Some don't even have physical rooms much anymore, and just charge to watch videos!

We call it "college", and it can also be risky (especially some of the shadier ones).

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#25

Post by zelias »

jdhawk wrote: post #2

Has anyone done a coding bootcamp? With the plethora of relatively cheap/free resources out there from Universities, to professional institutions, all the way to YouTube, what is the appeal? Do the certifications count for anything to hiring managers? Do you need someone to kick you in the ass on a daily basis to keep moving? Do you need the higher touch Q&A thats not available in Forums/StackOverflow type places?

After a year trying to teach myself on the side, I enrolled in Fullstack Academy (coincidentally, a YC company) because it was quite difficult to figure how to progress on my own -- not because individual topics were difficult, but because I found it difficult to figure out where to proceed next.

The curriculum was well structured, flowed logically, and emphasized best practices that employers would look for during interviews. More importantly, you have access to the instructors, who do a great job helping you work through any questions you might have. Worth every penny.

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#26

Post by bdcravens »

throwsincenotpc wrote: post #3

I don't get it, people paid $100k to this guy to get courses through slack and online videos ? The article says 19 students, who paid $5k each for that ? are you kidding me ?

Crazy considering that Launch School (formerly Tealeaf) has an online program for $199 a month (working at it full time you should complete in about 4 months)

(we have a junior dev using it)

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#27

Post by xiaoma »

danso wrote: post #16
throwsincenotpc wrote: post #3

I don't get it, people paid $100k to this guy to get courses through slack and online videos ? The article says 19 students, who paid $5k each for that ? are you kidding me ?

Yeah, this was a crazy story, but the fact that people were paying what amounts to college tuition for learning-via-Slack-from-a-guy was the biggest shock to me. And I am a fan of bootcamps and think that there are bootcamps where you will get far more out of your $10,000 than you would for a year in college. But those bootcamps are physical places, with hands on instruction from a variety of instructors. I don't kee…

It's clear evidence of market demand. Even in 2016, it's likely a good bet to start a bootcamp, especially outside of the US.

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#28

Post by twblalock »

jdhawk wrote: post #2

Has anyone done a coding bootcamp? With the plethora of relatively cheap/free resources out there from Universities, to professional institutions, all the way to YouTube, what is the appeal? Do the certifications count for anything to hiring managers? Do you need someone to kick you in the ass on a daily basis to keep moving? Do you need the higher touch Q&A thats not available in Forums/StackOverflow type places?

I know companies and hiring managers who have hired from certain boot camps they consider to be good. They consider the certifications from those particular boot camps to be an indicator that the person they are interviewing can join a fast-paced team and start producing Rails or Node.js web apps with minimal extra training.

The boot camp grads often don't understand a lot of fundamental computer science, but the kind of programming work they are hired to do does not require an understanding of fundamental computer science, so lack of understanding is not a drawback. If you just need someone to churn out web apps, a boot camp grad can do that.

It's also often the case that self-taught programmers tend to write hacky, tightly coupled, non-modular code, don't like writing tests, don't know about CI or version control, don't work well on teams, etc. At good boot camps, the students learn to do those things, and work on projects that are similar to the ones they will work on if they find jobs in industry. So, some people consider boot camp grads superior to self-taught candidates.

However, all of the people I know who hire boot camp grads have a short list of boot camps they consider to be of good quality.

Re: The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder

#29

Post by mikeleeorg »

jdhawk wrote: post #2

Has anyone done a coding bootcamp? With the plethora of relatively cheap/free resources out there from Universities, to professional institutions, all the way to YouTube, what is the appeal? Do the certifications count for anything to hiring managers? Do you need someone to kick you in the ass on a daily basis to keep moving? Do you need the higher touch Q&A thats not available in Forums/StackOverflow type places?

I can speak from the employer's point of view. It offers me another channel for finding possible qualified talent. I don't treat it much differently from other channels, and interview these candidates just like any other candidate. But I've hired a few developers from bootcamps and they've worked out well.

I can't say that these hires are necessarily better than other hires from other channels (e.g. universities, self-taught, etc). From my standpoint, it's having the extra channel that I find useful.

And after that, it comes down to the individual and how much potential & ability to learn each has.

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