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

251–260 of 269 posts

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

#251

Post by [deleted] »

macspoofing wrote: post #213
philippoi wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest most people who excel at bike riding approach it with the same enthusiasm and drive as you attribute to the programmers who excel (to your credit, you mention "everything else" is the same, which would include cycling until you pick it out as an anecdote at the end of the paragraph) and that's before achieving a level where they can actually make money on their cycling ability. To run with your analogy th…

>There would be a significant portion of the working population that understood the idea of what their computers were made to do You don't need programming for that. A good mental model of modern computing is important but programming is overkill. >improve their ability ability to leverage these machines to assist them in achieving their tasks even more efficiently. Ok but it doesn't work like that. I don't know what…

[deleted]

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

#252

Post by gargalatas »

rvdavis wrote: post #248
gargalatas wrote: post #247

It's obvious that most of you didn't serve to the army of your country. If you did then you would know their level of IQ, perception, education (science in general, maths etc). These people have their brains washed in an irreversible level. Even their educational levels are very low. In the army school (or whatever it's called) they learn to make war not engineering. And their perception? Ohh.. It's simply distorted.…

Veteran here. Most of us are a humble bunch, but I've met some incredibly gifted individuals while serving... and I served in the US Army Infantry. I would encourage you to rethink your uninformed opinions of us.

In my country we serve to the army for 1 year totaly free. Yes, without a payment. I was asking my father to give me 50 bucks to buy a box of cigarettes and drink a beer in the bar. How I felt? Garbage... But here is the worst part. We had a commander A and All day we were serving ourselves. We were taking care of the gardens, making parade, straw broom stuff for hours and many other stupid things with very little education. Every day (and night ofcourse) we had service in the watchtower and every second day we were free and we could go out to town. But some day another commander came. The first day he said to us (he was just arrived in the camp and we were there for months) that the services were many and probably we would not have many "free" days. suddenly we started to have free of service days every 15 days! The law which they were abusing was saying that for the needs of the battalion we could make as many services in a row as it was needed. 15-20 days in a row for 1 day out. And this is a very small example of what army means. What was the diff from Commander A to B? You can spend many many hours thinking but noone can give me back that 1 lost year with all those people. I know them very well. First I thought that only my country's people were like that. But then I realized that everywhere is the same. "Incredibly gifted individuals" are always living in their world. I was lucky to meet some of them. They didn't even know what an FFT is and we were serving in the electronic intelligence.

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

#253

Post by nkozyra »

fictioncircle wrote: post #244
nkozyra wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2) and 4) and 5) are strawmen. It is -in fact- possible to understand the fundamentals and look things up. As to your assertion that there is one "true algorithm," the merits of that stand for itself, but regardless being able to explain WHY is what an interviewer should look for. "Go Google and implement some algorithm" does not provide a useful metric other than "can use a computer." All of this also ignores a more…

> Can the applicant draw on knowledge of complexity to distill their Google search? Without that types of test your answer is "hopefully." It isn't difficult to structure a complex question that requires research and have the answer you claim is impossible to find. > That's why Google, FB, etc start with whiteboard tests. Anyone can search and implement. I'm sure that is what you believe but that doesn't make it true…

> It isn't difficult to structure a complex question that requires research and have the answer you claim is impossible to find.

An answer? Sure. THE answer? No. Too much subjective reasoning in that; something that performs well with clock time may be far worse in some other metric. It always depends. You need to be able to explain it, and that's what complexity is about. Fundamental comprehension of the tradeoffs of approaches.

> I'm sure that is what you believe but that doesn't make it true.

Great. Same with you. Unfortunately, those companies agree with me and do fairly well filtering candidates.

> I've never met an engineer (or any professional implementing complex processes) who simultaneously grasped the fundamentals of all areas where they needed to possess competence from memory.

Me neither. But then again that's not what we're talking about.

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

#254

Post by jlarocco »

muninn_ wrote: post #235
jlarocco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They do fine for a lot of programming jobs. If you're going to work at a DoD contractor or something, work on the team maintaining a hospital website, or work in enterprise architecture you don't need a 4-year college degree in CS. I actually think you're better off getting a degree in something else and just learning to code on your own time for the vast majority of people.

> If you're going to work at a DoD contractor or something, work on the team maintaining a hospital website, or work in enterprise architecture you don't need a 4-year college degree in CS.

You've got to be kidding. The thought of somebody with only a coding school certificate writing software for missile guidance systems, aircraft, nuclear submarines, etc. is a bit terrifying.

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

#255

Post by giardini »

lithos wrote: post #214
giardini wrote: post #172

This is nuts. Only a small percentage of people can learn to effectively generate code. Thinking that veterans can be turned into developers is absurd - they'll get code-monkeys instead, with a few exceptions. I don't believe that, at this time in the USA or in the future, education will save people in software development from unemployment. The only thing that will do that is having some smarts. And if you're smart,…

I haven't seen a Nuke fail to learn to program enough to get stuff done, and the two that stuck with it were annoyed when they realized they were going faster by staying off the internet. (Though this is learning for a hobby). They're going to also do better in a tech interview than most programmers. Mostly because they've survived a program where they have a half dozen or so knowledge interviews a year (that to me w…

But US Navy nuclear power school grads ("Nukes") are not typical veterans. I should know, I've been lucky enough to have had several as bosses and co-workers. They were first-rate and far too valuable to use as software developers. Their knowledge of naval matters was much more important.

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

#257

Post by dzonga »

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?

clustering points on a map in iOS needs a good amount of data structures hint* Quad tree and a map like data structure

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

#258

Post by jcoffland »

philip1209 wrote: post #29
jcoffland wrote: post #10

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

I disagree. - It takes time to make high-quality resources. Teaching is a real job. - Asking for money can decrease churn (see: Sunk Cost Fallacy) - Programs that include synchronous mentoring cost money, but might be more effective

You are think only of passive was of learning.

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

#259

Post by ank2013 »

Qualifying for GI Bill funding is a long long process, and very challenging for newer organizations. I'm involved with Code Platoon, a non-profit coding school for veterans based in Chicago, that is about to graduate its second class ("platoon"). It's a robust program, at 20 weeks, plus optional internship placement at the end to keep learning - so I think pretty ideal. Companies sponsor 80% of the tuition cost, so the students pay only $2500 out of pocket. Finding sponsor companies is inherently a limiting factor on the program though - GI Bill funding would allow more veterans to participate.

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

#260

Post by jondubois »

crispyambulance wrote: post #199
jondubois wrote: post #191

There are already more coders than are needed. What there aren't enough of are leaders who are smart enough to recognize this. I cringe at the thought that software engineering could become a "blue collar" profession. Systems have become needlessly over-complicated and this is driving an increase in demand for coders. As companies hire more coders; their systems get more features but they also grow in complexity (par…

So you're taking a dubious theory (tech-debt => hire juniors => more tech-debt, repeat), applying it industry-wide and then using it as an argument against JUST VETERANS from pursuing a career-change into software?

I have no problems with veterans wanting to become coders. What I don't want more of are people who go into this profession only for the sake of making more money - These people are only driving up software complexity and not actually adding value to their companies.

Software engineering is one of the few professions that let you get more money by delivering a lower quality product (assuming that your manager is sufficiently non-technical).

Post reply on HN