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As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

nytimes.com

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Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#201

Post by jdc0589 »

otakucode wrote: post #176
phatbyte wrote: post #117

As someone who interviewed dozens of bootcampers I can give some insight. 1) Most of the bootcamps teach the basic of front-end, and a lot of them, teach by doing without explaining a lot of basic concepts. They are basically money grabbers and throw these people out of the door as fast as possible to get their money back. 2) A lot of the students are in for the money, not for the love of the job. Sorry, but it's tru…

I went to a smallish private university and in the first year, there were about 50 people who intended to go for a CS degree. By year 2, there were about a dozen left. Every single one that said 'I heard there were good jobs in it' was gone. CS and writing code is not like many different arenas in that if the homework takes you 8 hours to understand, then it takes you 8 hours to understand. If you don't understand it…

similar story here. small private college, there were maybe 25 people tops in intro to Java (2nd class you would take) I TA'd a few times; and that's mainly because it fulfilled a lab science credit somehow. I graduated with 8 other CS majors. I had a few classes that were 1:1 with the professor.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#202

Post by cossatot »

atom-morgan wrote: post #172
calvinbhai wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all the points you made, except for a part of the third one. This "started coding in middle/high school or college" is a misleading metric since it assumes everyone has equal access and support to learn that way. As some one from India who never had own computer until finishing college (the early 00's), along with no internet or cell phone, I find it hard to accept/respect those people who gloat about ho…

> but without fixing this attitude of "earlier you learn, better you are" attitude This mindset seems to work rather well for more objective areas like athletics. I don't see any reason why an intellectual pursuit like programming would be any different.

Athletes need to start early because they peak early (20s for most sports).

Architects do their best work very late in life.

I personally wouldn't want a surgeon that started cutting into people at age 9.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#203

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

barrkel wrote: post #72
babaganoosh89 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the boot camp, but a boot camper would probably write better code than someone that's self taught.

Someone who's self taught doesn't need a bootcamp. In reality all good coders are self taught - you can't really teach this stuff. You have to learn to play, to explore the solution space and figure out the different ways of composing your raw materials. And you need to do this over and over again throughout your career as new materials become available. Self-teaching never stops.

Coding is a skill, much like being a carpenter.

You can read about it all you want but unless you are doing it, you are not going to grow.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#204

Post by brooklyn_ashey »

allanbreyes wrote: post #42
Method-X wrote: post #23

Most coding bootcamps are a complete waste of money. Ever since I launched https://edabit.com , I've noticed a ton of traffic coming from these bootcamps and I'm not sure what to think of it. On the one hand, I like the free promotion but on the other, I can't help but feel as though these people are getting ripped off (considering they can access the site for free).

Bootcamp dropout, here. I 100% agree. I left The Starter League after the first semester when I realized the buyer's remorse of paying more per day than tuition at MIT. The prices for bootcamps simply aren't worth it, especially given the numerous online and self-paced options out there... many of which are free. How my story ended: I left the bootcamp and took a few Udacity Nanodegree programs for $200/month and (fu…

agreed. I started learning on my own with books and the internet, and Zed Shaw and Chris Pine. I loved it. I then went to a highly regarded bootcamp to find that there seems to be no value placed on teaching and hiring great teachers. I'd take the internet, stack overflow, zed, and chris any day over a bootcamp.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#205

Post by calvinbhai »

atom-morgan wrote: post #172
calvinbhai wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all the points you made, except for a part of the third one. This "started coding in middle/high school or college" is a misleading metric since it assumes everyone has equal access and support to learn that way. As some one from India who never had own computer until finishing college (the early 00's), along with no internet or cell phone, I find it hard to accept/respect those people who gloat about ho…

> but without fixing this attitude of "earlier you learn, better you are" attitude This mindset seems to work rather well for more objective areas like athletics. I don't see any reason why an intellectual pursuit like programming would be any different.

I don't know if it works. I dont know why it should be the same.

But at least, in athletics, there's no charade of trying to fix the gender/race bias by throwing money at programs that make other's catch up so that they can claim "equality".

Most Marathoners and NBA players often are African or have African ancestry. And no one says the same team should have an equal number of .

IMO, humans are adept at learning intellectually for a much longer time, compared to improving physically in 'objective areas' like athletics, which needs to begin very early in a human's life.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#206

Post by bluejekyll »

bluGill wrote: post #199
otakucode wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a smallish private university and in the first year, there were about 50 people who intended to go for a CS degree. By year 2, there were about a dozen left. Every single one that said 'I heard there were good jobs in it' was gone. CS and writing code is not like many different arenas in that if the homework takes you 8 hours to understand, then it takes you 8 hours to understand. If you don't understand it…

Math has the concept of non-compiling code: a proof that is wrong. You get partial credit if you get early steps right, and more if latter steps are right. The idea that code that doesn't compile is not worth partial credit is wrong in academics. In the real world the code needs to compile first, of course, then run. However if your professors cannot look at your code that doesn't compiler and decide how much partial…

I'm fairly certain that in my CS program, you could only get a passing grade with a compiling and partially working program.

75% of the grade was compiles and works, and the rest was style, readability, and performance.

If it didn't compile, you basically failed the assignment, if it didn't work you could get up to, but not more than a C, 75 out of 100.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#207

Post by Eridrus »

m3rc wrote: post #140
Eridrus wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why an internship and not just a super junior developer? Are you unsure about their skills and need time to evaluate?

Isn't a "super junior developer" an intern?

Interns are employed for a short fixed time period, rather than an ongoing basis.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#208

Post by ma2rten »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #197
otakucode wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a smallish private university and in the first year, there were about 50 people who intended to go for a CS degree. By year 2, there were about a dozen left. Every single one that said 'I heard there were good jobs in it' was gone. CS and writing code is not like many different arenas in that if the homework takes you 8 hours to understand, then it takes you 8 hours to understand. If you don't understand it…

Funny, I also studied CS and philosophy and always though it an execellent combination, most people I talk to find it odd.

PG also did that. Maybe that's why he's so good at writing essays.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#209

Post by orclev »

vonmoltke wrote: post #169
chrisco255 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This field changes so much that if you aren't passionate and investing in your skills continuously, you will find yourself obsolete or in a non-technical role within 5-7 years. Think about that. How many years does it take just to become technically proficient?

Why do you need to be passionate to improve your skills continuously? Why does being passionate guarantee you are going to develop the right skills rather than latch on to an academically-satisfying yet commercially-useless niche?

Because the academics ultimately drive the commercial, there's just such a delay between the two that the relationship isn't always obvious. Just take a look at Java, one of the most widely used programming languages for commercial development. It's hardly cutting edge, but if you step back and look at the way the language has evolved it's slowly been integrating all the design choices that have come to the forefront of academia. Generics? Check. Lambdas? Check. Streams? Check. Reactive design? Check. Non-nullable values? Eh, sort of, half marks there. Immutability? They're working on it.

I'm not sure about "passionate" programmers, but programmers who enjoy programming are generally always on the lookout for new trends, new tech, new libraries, and even if you aren't using those things, being aware of them is massively useful. If you're relying on the business and your coworkers to drive your skill improvements, then you're going to stagnate, guaranteed, because the business doesn't care at all about new technology and has no desire to improve or change anything, and your coworkers will only care if (shock) they enjoy programming.

When you put together a team of 9 to 5 only in it for the paycheck programmers, what you get is a snapshot, their combined skills and technical knowledge will be the sum total of exactly what all of them know when you hire them and it will never improve. Putting together a team of programmers that enjoy programming and are doing it not just for the paycheck but because they enjoy the craft gets you a constantly improving team. Their skills stay fresh and they're motivated to improve and keep your tech relevant and modern, which ultimately saves you in the long run from having to face massive rewrites of old creaky systems, or ending up stuck trying to hire massively expensive developers to work on ancient deprecated technologies.

Re: As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check

#210

Post by RandomOpinion »

vonmoltke wrote: post #124
phatbyte wrote: post #117

As someone who interviewed dozens of bootcampers I can give some insight. 1) Most of the bootcamps teach the basic of front-end, and a lot of them, teach by doing without explaining a lot of basic concepts. They are basically money grabbers and throw these people out of the door as fast as possible to get their money back. 2) A lot of the students are in for the money, not for the love of the job. Sorry, but it's tru…

> A lot of the students are in for the money, not for the love of the job. Who cares? Can they do the job or not? Do they have the work ethic and professionalism to continue to do so? The vast majority of people, including those who excel at their respective fields, don't love their jobs. This industry needs to stop using "passion" as a lazy signal for work ethic. > The most boring developers I work with, the the one…

> Do they have the work ethic and professionalism to continue to do so?

It is a rare person who has enough work ethic to force themselves to use their own free time to improve in a field they don't have any passion for. If that weren't so, we'd see a lot more self-taught physicists, mathematicians, and other STEM people.

> The vast majority of people, including those who excel at their respective fields, don't love their jobs.

People who excel in their fields don't love their jobs? As kids nowadays say, "[citation needed]".

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