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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

#121

Post by sundvor »

sundvor wrote: post #49
jcoffland wrote: post #10

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

When transitioning from two decades of mainly Coldfusion (mvc) and some Php to C# last year I spent a few hundred dollars on Pluralsight. Best money I ever spent. SOLID, the full asp.net framework, CQRS, a bunch of common patterns, etc etc. I feel like I've learned more in the last 18 months than I did in the decade that preceded them. It has totally rekindled my childhood passion for programming (Vic20/C64 basic, Am…

>> Reading HN every day.

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

#122

Post by dalacv »

dalacv wrote: post #120
aphextron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What about learning something like bubble.is?

I have this course. I'd be willing to provide free coupons to vets

https://www.udemy.com/bubble-course/learn/v4/

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

#123

Post by fictioncircle »

ma2rten wrote: post #91
aphextron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Many people think that most developers don't actually need CS (and much less math) fundamentals in their every-day work life. That's why coding interviews like big tech companies tend to do are controversial ("Why would an iOS developer need to able to balance a binary tree?"). Can you give some examples where you hid road blocks because of your lack of education?

They are controversial because they frequently don't let you look anything up and most developers are used to being able to do that as part of their normal process.

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

#124

Post by panzer_wyrm »

vivekd wrote: post #115
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.

There's no reason we can't have an accreditation program to ensure that only reputable schools can get access to GI bills. This whole problem of predatory colleges doesn't seem like an insurmountable one. It seems more an issue with legislative inertia and poor implementation rather than an intrinsic failing of GI education plans.

I am not sure that would even help. The current culture war on the elite campuses and the dominating narrative would probably not be welcoming to a lot of straight masculine males with somewhat conservative leanings and on government dime that participated in the US wars. And not be able to give them the environment and support to reintegrate them into society.

Very shitty situation. The reason post WWII GI bill worked that well was that there were veterans everywhere from WWI and the draft that they could relate to and get help.

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

#125

Post by sandworm101 »

tyingq wrote: post #116
sandworm101 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met many on the GI bill at my 'brick and mortar' school. They still did not do well. I honestly think people who have only known the military since highschool need a step down program to reintroduce them to civilian-style learning. The concept of sitting in a class for months then writing one all-or-nothing exam was terrifying. They needed constant reassurances that they were keep pace. They wanted weekly testing a…

That isn't universally true. The enlisted ranks have some pretty good training in many cases. Navy electronic techs take months of classes that are quite intensive. Similar for other technical tracks like aircraft maintenance. The bar to entry for these kind of jobs are minimum ASVAB test scores that aren't easy to make. You may have encountered a lot of ex infantry or similar. They get intensive training as well, ju…

But the ASVAB tests are precisely my point. They are rapid-fire multiple choice questions asking the taker to bounce between subjects. Doing well in that sort of test means nothing to the standard undergrad assignment of "pick a topic and write a 10-page paper". I once spent an hour explaining IRAC style to a former special forces soldier. Everything he had ever done in the armed forces was to prove that he knew material. He had never been asked to write a paper or give a speech with the intent of convincing others, never imagined that structure was as important as facts.

PSA: While IRAC is generally associated with law school and lawyers, anyone can learn and use it. It really does works.

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

#126

Post by nkozyra »

fictioncircle wrote: post #123
ma2rten wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people think that most developers don't actually need CS (and much less math) fundamentals in their every-day work life. That's why coding interviews like big tech companies tend to do are controversial ("Why would an iOS developer need to able to balance a binary tree?"). Can you give some examples where you hid road blocks because of your lack of education?

They are controversial because they frequently don't let you look anything up and most developers are used to being able to do that as part of their normal process.

The actual algorithm is irrelevant, so looking it up wouldn't be helpful. The point is to find out if the developer understands complexity well enough that they won't build bad things, that they'll know how to avoid nested loop if they can, that they'll know what the cost of one approach is compared to another.

If you look something up and the interviewer asks you what the O() of your approach is and you don't know, how can they feel assured you grasp these fundamentals?

I understand why these are contentious, but I find people tend to miss the forest for the trees when criticizing the practice.

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

#127

Post by tyingq »

sandworm101 wrote: post #125
tyingq wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't universally true. The enlisted ranks have some pretty good training in many cases. Navy electronic techs take months of classes that are quite intensive. Similar for other technical tracks like aircraft maintenance. The bar to entry for these kind of jobs are minimum ASVAB test scores that aren't easy to make. You may have encountered a lot of ex infantry or similar. They get intensive training as well, ju…

But the ASVAB tests are precisely my point. They are rapid-fire multiple choice questions asking the taker to bounce between subjects. Doing well in that sort of test means nothing to the standard undergrad assignment of "pick a topic and write a 10-page paper". I once spent an hour explaining IRAC style to a former special forces soldier. Everything he had ever done in the armed forces was to prove that he knew mate…

A special forces guy isn't the best example of someone with the kind of training I'm talking about.

I mentioned the asvabs not as a comparison to writing a paper, but to note there is a bar to get into the highly technical jobs. Similar to the bar created by things like minimum SAT scores for some schools.

Talk to an ex military person that had a highly technical job that required 6+ months of military tech school. They have the skills you are talking about.

Talking about ex military like they are one homogeneous​ group just doesn't make sense. Skills vary, just as with recent high school grads.

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

#128

Post by wutbrodo »

narribbi wrote: post #96
aphextron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fundamental knowledge of math and science that separates engineers from 'coders'. Only math. Furthermore, someone with years of coding instinctively develops such mathematical understanding, while the very same understanding will be lost on someone who just graduated, but has never coded.

> Furthermore, someone with years of coding instinctively develops such mathematical understanding

FWIW, this isn't my experience. I have a CS/math background, spent the first few yrs of my career at Google, and then moved to a startup as the first employee. We had a lot of difficulty sourcing good candidates, and our first two hires were 1) a guy with no engineering experience and domain knowledge that had programmed during his Master's (and had some useful domain knowledge) and 2) an engineer with ten years of experience. I supported the first guy's hire and the second guy was hired against my recommendation.

The first guy hasn't yet had occasion to put his actual specialty to use, and yet after a month of some pretty hands-on guidance to teach him basic engineering habits, he is pretty much crushing it. He's dependable, he's creative, he's hardworking, he can implement stuff quickly but also think about the big picture: he's certainly exceeded even the fairly high expectations that I had of him despite having no eng experience and relatively limited programming experience. I had the exact same experience with a math PhD who worked under me at Google: he was hopelessly unproductive for the first month or two (Google is really, really, REALLY shitty at ensuring that new hires with potential get the guidance they need). I noticed this and took him under my wing to teach him the basics of engineering (which are truly not very difficult to learn) and in a month or two he was one of the best engineers on our team.

Our other hire is.....the opposite of all of that. He's basically been reduced to the only thing he's shown himself able to handle: he spends two days working on okay-to-have changes on the margin that no one really needs but that I could've taken care of in half an hour. 90% of the time he ends up breaking stuff that I have to spend 20 minutes fixing anyway.

TL;DR: my experience has been that there are certain skills and ways of thinking (and perhaps innate talent? I dunno) that are incredibly useful for engineering that some people go years and years and years in industry without ever acquiring or strengthening. On the flipside, someone with these capabilities can become a solid engineer in very little time. Good CS and math depts tend to instill or select for pretty much exactly this set of skills, in my experience. The main gap they have is a set of best practices for being a little more meticulous about their code, and this is shockingly easy to teach.

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by sheepmullet »

georgemcbay wrote: post #94
dang wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we've put that edit in. But please don't drop partisan tangents into HN comments. It's basically trolling, as you can see by the destructive effects on this thread (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14277404 ) and, even with the edit, mars your otherwise fine comment.

This is why reasonable, rational people are losing and will continue to keep losing. Because we accept calling Trump unscrupulous and incompetent as a partisan opinion when it is actually clearly a statement of fact based on ample amounts of evidence.

There are certain topics that destroy otherwise rational discussions.

You know this. We all know this. So why bring it up in an unrelated thread?

All it does is damage the quality of conversation.

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