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

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

#61

Post by ajarmst »

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.

Exactly. The goal of the regulation isn't to prevent veterans from learning to code, it's to prevent them for being preyed upon. The OP has an unexamined premise: that the "code camps" described are an effective entry point for a programming career. As the readers on Hacker News are well aware, that's a pretty shaky premise.

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

#62

Post by CamperBob2 »

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…

To me this means anyone who found either top US candidate as a viable option

There was certainly nothing "non-viable" about Clinton. If you didn't like her, fine. Neither did I. But if you live in a swing state, you are partially responsible for the consequences of your decision. It wouldn't be a problem if those consequences were limited in scope to you, your family, or the people of your state. But they aren't.

...so am I supposed to dismiss the majority of Americans merely because they voted?

The majority of Americans did not vote for Trump. Approximately 26% of them did. Source: https://mises.org/blog/26-percent-eligible-voters-voted-trum...

Out of respect for HN's commenting guidelines I'll leave it at that.

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

#63

Post by aykm84 »

aaronchall wrote: post #27
killjoywashere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online unive…

I agree on the brick-and-mortar schools suggestion. I wrote this in favor of them: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 > Students overwhelmingly report retaining and applying less from online courses versus face-to-face courses. > However, this may be due to a difference in factors other than distance learning. However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary.

Reminder: Trump University probably falls under the category of 'sketchy school'.

www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/31/522199535/judge-approves-25-million-settlement-of-trump-university-lawsuit

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

#64

Post by anonemouse145 »

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.

Punch those Nazis. Someday we will find a final solution to the Nazi problem.

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

#65

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

abeyer wrote: post #55
rebase wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem with self-teaching is that you don't know what you don't know, so you don't realise where the gaps in your knowledge are.

There's quite a difference between programming, in the sense of knowing how to put (say) Python code together, and being a professional developer.

The latter should include a whole extra set of analytical, algorithmic, social, and professional skills.

In practice it may not - but it does often enough for the distinction to be real.

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

#66

Post by gerdesj »

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…

"it needs more engineers" - absolutely.

I'm a small business owner in the UK - IT consultancy. When I'm running through a load of CVs for a technical position I instinctively move the Engineers and Technicians up and the others down the pile. I have other criteria obviously but as a graduate civil engineer myself I appreciate the discipline that an engineering quali brings and the sort of mindset as well (more concrete/steel/timber or bigger plant will fix most problems.)

Good on you for being a self-starter and having the perception that there is no short cut to becoming gainfully employable in civvy street (an old UK forces name for the other side) and being prepared to put in the work. I wish you all the best and suspect you will do fine.

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

#67

Post by dpwm »

aaronchall wrote: post #27
killjoywashere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online unive…

I agree on the brick-and-mortar schools suggestion. I wrote this in favor of them: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 > Students overwhelmingly report retaining and applying less from online courses versus face-to-face courses. > However, this may be due to a difference in factors other than distance learning. However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary.

> However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary.

I read it without placing the emphasis on the colon and I'm sure it's less barbed and strengthens the point:

They are like [the] Trump voters willing to throw their lot in with whomever tells them "it will be okay", regardless of how unscrupulous and incompetent those promise-makers are.

That there were some, not all, trump voters who were actually quite vulnerable and were manipulated. Just as there were some Clinton, Johnson and abstaining voters who were vulnerable and manipulated.

The key difference was that Trump dropped a shockingly honest hint about the desire to exploit the manipulable: "we love the poorly educated," arguably has a hint of suckering about it. I suspect this is something some Trump supporters are uneasy about by appealing to symmetry (i.e. if the other side had done this).

I found the analogy I misread quite useful as it linked two phenomena that I had previously believed to be disparate. It would be a shame for that to be lost for the sake of a missing word and a superfluous colon.

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

#68

Post by pavedwalden »

aaronchall wrote: post #27
killjoywashere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was general medical officer in the Navy, among other clinic duties, I did exit physicals for sailors, sometimes 20 a week. I would always try to talk to them about their plans for the future. Some seemed to be squared away. But I can't tell you how many times someone told me their plan was to take online classes from some sketchy school I'd never heard of. I'd google it with them, it would be some online unive…

I agree on the brick-and-mortar schools suggestion. I wrote this in favor of them: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/14833/9518 > Students overwhelmingly report retaining and applying less from online courses versus face-to-face courses. > However, this may be due to a difference in factors other than distance learning. However, I find your insult to Trump voters gratuitous and unnecessary.

"Gratuitous and unnecessary" is well put. Because it's not like I disagree with the comment, but I cringed a little.

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

#69

Post by Apocryphon »

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.

And yet, most software jobs interview for CS knowledge. Maybe there should be code camps for interview CS knowledge.

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

#70

Post by spc476 »

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…

Okay, I'll bite. I learned programming entirely on my own, both from the manuals that came with my computer and from magazines, both computer specific and general purpose (Byte mostly---it was a fantastic magazine in the 80s).

But this was in the 80s, when computers came with decent documentation and a guide on programming. It also helped that I was in high school and thus, had the time to devote to self study without having to worry about supporting myself.

So I think it's possible, but it requires a degree of discipline and self-motivation to learn. Not everyone has that.

But to say that "if a person has any sort of formal education in their background ... they are then entirely unqualified to offer such an opinion" comes across as arrogant.

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