From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way • Hacker News Board

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#121

Post by walshemj » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 11:25 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #78

gvd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in the Netherlands. It's changing, but when I went to "high school" (age of ~12) you could go to a vocational school to become e.g. carpenter, electrician, etc. When you are 16 you are set to get into that profession. You will still attend school until 18, 1 day a week. You can also level up and go to a higher level vocational school all the way up to university.

Changing how? And why?

The German style vocational track that effectively locked you out of going to university later was ruled illegal by the EU so those systems had to change.

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#122

Post by onion2k » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 11:26 AM UTC

farhannyc wrote: post #84

I don't think you can be a developer in 8 - 12 weeks, as mentioned in this article. Software Development is a skill as much as anything else, and there is no time frame. All you can use to assure yourself is if you have practice, and the confidence in yourself by that practice. For some people that confidence comes after a year, maybe even two years. But then again, that confidence can even come in 2 months.

I don't think you can be a developer in 8 - 12 weeks, as mentioned in this article.

8 - 12 weeks spending 8 hours a day in a classroom is between 320 hours and 480 hours learning time, plus whatever additional effort the student puts in during evenings and weekends. It's plausible that a 12 week bootcamp could equate to 1000 hours of structured development time with a decent mentor. There are 3 year CS degrees that give a student far less.

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#123

Post by walshemj » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 11:29 AM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #5

A bit of background: in Austria, many people do an "Apprenticeship" ("Lehre") instead of going to high school. You work at a company and visit a vocational school (about 20% of time). This is great for practical people -- less theory, more real world experience. But there is a major downside: If you didn't go to high school, you are not allowed to go to university without first completing preparatory courses that can…

But are these craft "Apprenticeships" is there an associate professional track which is what developers are

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#124

Post by taman999 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 12:33 PM UTC

kirse wrote: post #88

ChuckMcM wrote: post #81

The thing that struck me is "anyone who is fascinated by computers and spends all their free time playing with them can be a developer." Back before developers were perceived as 'rich' and 'pampered' there were people who were fascinated by computers and spent all their time playing with them and were called 'nerds.' Then it became "cool" to be a developer or "you can get rich as a developer at a startup!" and then y…

they are often just working a day job. I used to be snooty about this too until I had a member join one of my teams who is exactly this type of person... Treats it like a day job, and absolutely rips through well-defined coding tasks as long as I do the general solution-finding and lay the architectural groundwork ahead of time. They don't burn out either, because it's just work to them and they take regular vacation…

What's with the vacation shaming?

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#125

Post by Infinitesimus » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 12:57 PM UTC

taman999 wrote: post #124

kirse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are often just working a day job. I used to be snooty about this too until I had a member join one of my teams who is exactly this type of person... Treats it like a day job, and absolutely rips through well-defined coding tasks as long as I do the general solution-finding and lay the architectural groundwork ahead of time. They don't burn out either, because it's just work to them and they take regular vacation…

What's with the vacation shaming?

I think your parent meant it as more of a "They get their stuff done and don't need to skip on vacations to do it". Perhaps a sign of better balance but still productive?

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#126

Post by greggyb » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 1:00 PM UTC

SapphireSun wrote: post #54

greggyb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (you don't have to pay this back, and there also is no tuition) You likely pay taxes.... No qualitative judgment here, except against a view that conflates "no explicit costs" with "no costs".

Of course, maybe the economy as a whole does better if workers can easily retrain, which would be a net gain for the tax base, so it's not really as clear as that. Explicit tax costs aren't the same as actual costs. ;) For instance, if a worker loses their job and wants to retrain, one policy (that of the united states) forces them at the worst possible time to take on additional debt, and one (that of austria) socia…

Again, I made no qualitative statement about whether the system is good or bad. I merely pointed out that there are costs.

You are arguing that the costs are worth it. Great. I don't want to have that conversation online again. You have acknowledged that there are costs. We are in agreement.

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#127

Post by chefkoch » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 1:28 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #123

jakobegger wrote: post #5

A bit of background: in Austria, many people do an "Apprenticeship" ("Lehre") instead of going to high school. You work at a company and visit a vocational school (about 20% of time). This is great for practical people -- less theory, more real world experience. But there is a major downside: If you didn't go to high school, you are not allowed to go to university without first completing preparatory courses that can…

But are these craft "Apprenticeships" is there an associate professional track which is what developers are

At least in germany there is " Fachinformatiker Anwendungsentwicklung (software development)" where you geht taught programming.

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#128

Post by ones_and_zeros » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

smileysteve wrote: post #73

jakobegger wrote: post #5

A bit of background: in Austria, many people do an "Apprenticeship" ("Lehre") instead of going to high school. You work at a company and visit a vocational school (about 20% of time). This is great for practical people -- less theory, more real world experience. But there is a major downside: If you didn't go to high school, you are not allowed to go to university without first completing preparatory courses that can…

I did an apprenticeship in high school, Georgia has an official program. I got to leave school early, work the internship I had already found, develop professional skills, and get paid. The only requirements for the program (for school credit) were to log hours and write a few essays.

My high school in Massachusetts had a school to work program too. I left school early to go bag groceries at my local supermarket...

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#129

Post by PakG1 » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

taman999 wrote: post #124

kirse wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are often just working a day job. I used to be snooty about this too until I had a member join one of my teams who is exactly this type of person... Treats it like a day job, and absolutely rips through well-defined coding tasks as long as I do the general solution-finding and lay the architectural groundwork ahead of time. They don't burn out either, because it's just work to them and they take regular vacation…

What's with the vacation shaming?

They don't burn out either, because it's just work to them and they take regular vacations.

Where's the vacation shaming?

Re: From Secretary to Software Developer: The Hard Way

#130

Post by twic » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 1:54 PM UTC

farhannyc wrote: post #84

I don't think you can be a developer in 8 - 12 weeks, as mentioned in this article. Software Development is a skill as much as anything else, and there is no time frame. All you can use to assure yourself is if you have practice, and the confidence in yourself by that practice. For some people that confidence comes after a year, maybe even two years. But then again, that confidence can even come in 2 months.

You can be a junior developer in 8 - 12 weeks. It's not guaranteed, though.

I worked with a guy who came through a bootcamp. Before he did it, he'd learned enough PHP to build basic sites, so he didn't come in cold. In the bootcamp, he learned Rails, and proper development habits like TDD and source control. He was a good junior developer when he started, and with two or three years of work at Pivotal Labs under his belt, he's a good journeyman developer. He taught me a lot of what i know about iOS development!

However, he mentioned that a lot of other people who came through the bootcamp with him have gone on to work at quite low-skill 'chop shop' web agencies, where they're mostly slinging HTML and CSS to match a photoshop drawing, rather than doing real programming as such. So, it doesn't work for everyone.