Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

backchannel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 269 posts

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#51

Post by CalChris »

dmix wrote: post #45
CamperBob2 wrote: post #42

However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary. Sorry, I disagree. It's time to start calling out these people and holding them responsible for their actions, which affect us all. Voting for a demagogue needs to carry a heavy social cost, or nothing will change.

> Voting for a demagogue needs to carry a heavy social cost, or nothing will change. To me this means anyone who found either top US candidate as a viable option, so am I supposed to dismiss the majority of Americans merely because they voted? Personally this was an off-topic and non-relevant aside that served no purpose but to start flamewars. Politics is a mind-killer. Not to mention hardly everyone who visits HN i…

> Politics is a mind-killer.

If you think this is so then don't talk politics. But if you're asking us to be Good Germans that's not going to happen.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#52

Post by jlarocco »

muninn_ wrote: post #13
ar15saveslives wrote: post #2

> I could not use my GI Bill to go to code school. That was the number one roadblock Nobody needs a "code school" to learn how to write code.

Right, but as the article mentioned the veteran needed an accelerated timeline because of family obligations and couldn't afford the time not working to attend a traditional 4 year university.

That's unfortunate, but coding schools don't come close to covering what a regular degree program covers, and they're not a substitute.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#53

Post by rezashirazian »

cbhl wrote: post #11
rezashirazian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think established and accredited universities should set up two year coding programs that can teach the trade as opposed to pop up overpriced bootcamps that usually operate without much accountability. Then the GI Bill can pick up the tab for such programs.

But those programs wouldn't meet the accreditation requirements, which usually require minimum numbers of teaching hours. Plus, established universities don't teach the trade, they teach you how to think about learning the trade. You actually learn the trade in co-ops and internships and by doing it.

I don't mean create a CS like curriculum that would lead to an official degree, but build a continuous education program which teaches the trade.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#54

Post by dmix »

CalChris wrote: post #51
dmix wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Voting for a demagogue needs to carry a heavy social cost, or nothing will change. To me this means anyone who found either top US candidate as a viable option, so am I supposed to dismiss the majority of Americans merely because they voted? Personally this was an off-topic and non-relevant aside that served no purpose but to start flamewars. Politics is a mind-killer. Not to mention hardly everyone who visits HN i…

> Politics is a mind-killer. If you think this is so then don't talk politics. But if you're asking us to be Good Germans that's not going to happen.

Shoehorn your politics into conversations all you like. That's why we have downvote buttons on HN.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#55

Post by abeyer »

rebase wrote: post #38
jcoffland wrote: post #10

All the resources to learn coding are freely available. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to make a buck.

Quite frankly, if a person has any sort of formal education in their background such as college or even taking coding classes in high school, they are then entirely unqualified to offer such an opinion. It may be easy to learn new languages online due to having learned the foundations, but unless you can say you learned all the foundations online, this type of comment isnt helpful. As many others have mentioned learn…

People have been self teaching since before online was a thing, and the materials available online today are vastly better and more complete than what was available pre-web. You could just as well argue that someone isn't qualified to offer an opinion if they didn't teach themselves to program from photocopied systems and hardware reference manuals. (That's the way some of us did.)

There can be advantages to a formal program, especially for some people, but claiming that formal education is somehow a prerequisite is a gross exageration.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#56

Post by CalChris »

aphextron wrote: post #50
polpo wrote: post #3

Whether you believe code schools are good or bad (I lean somewhat towards good), I wonder if we have not fully learned the lesson from the rash several years ago of fly-by-night for-profit colleges preying on vets and providing substandard education and inflated job promises, all on the GI Bill's dime. I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again.

> I worry that if the GI Bill was extended to code schools, we'd see the exact same thing happen again. This is dead on. I am a veteran currently going back to school for an engineering degree on the GI bill. When I got out of the service I didn't even consider going back to school, and just taught myself how to code and started working as a web developer. Once I made it to the point of working with other software en…

The JC system is awesome. From there you can transfer just about anywhere. We had vets as reentry students at Berkeley.

I can't imagine taking a coding boot camp student seriously. And these fly by night schools have a history of fleeing vets.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#57

Post by jlarocco »

RandomOpinion wrote: post #28
jlarocco wrote: post #15

"Coding schools" are a sham, and I'm glad they're not covered by the GI Bill. There's nothing stopping these veterans from going to a regular university, college, or community college and getting a real degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field.

> There's nothing stopping these veterans from going to a regular university, college, or community college and getting a real degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field. Nothing? Have a little empathy, buddy. While I have some sympathy for your opinion of coding bootcamps, just bear in mind that it's not easy giving up something you've been doing for a couple of decades and going back to co…

Okay, I phrased it too strongly, but that doesn't change my point.

They'd have exactly the same problem with any other profession that requires a degree, and lowering standards isn't the answer.

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#59

Post by mikekchar »

One thing I was surprised about was the price. Can you really get $10K per student in a boot camp/coding school? Googling I found [0]. It's looking like about $1K per week. What kind of student to teacher ratio do they have? I assume they also take referral fees with their placement programs?

It occurs to me that I'm in entirely the wrong industry. I'll be honest, I work with a few people out of boot camps, and I really like them. Having junior people on your team that are driven and excited about learning is so beneficial to the overall team dynamic. However, the knowledge deficit is pretty large and it's pretty easy to fall into the trap of "this is good enough" (when it isn't) due to a lack of perception of the scope of the field.

Like I said, the people on my team who come from boot camps are really excellent and I would hire them again in a heartbeat. I just have a hard time believing these aren't the cream of the crop. I would feel bad taking $1K a week from general students knowing that they are unlikely to succeed.

[0] https://www.coursereport.com/blog/coding-bootcamp-cost-compa...

Re: Thousands of Veterans Want to Learn to Code But Can’t

#60

Post by elihu »

sidlls wrote: post #23
E6300 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to learn much CS from a code school.

Many, if not most, software jobs require very little CS knowledge. At such jobs the ability to compare numbers and read a chart (a matrix of algorithms and data structures vs. time vs. space complexity) will cover almost every possible use case. "Mid-level development as a skilled trade" jobs, for example.

Right. Most programming jobs aren't asking for 5+ years experience in because they're looking for someone who knows how to balance a red-black tree, they're looking for someone who already knows all the workarounds and kludges you'll need to know to do the work they want you to do.

Learning a programming language is relatively easy. Knowing which of several libraries that offer similar features is the right one for your particular task takes time.

Post reply on HN