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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

#211

Post by orclev »

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…

As someone who both interviewed bootcampers, and also partnered with a local bootcamp (IronYard) this is pretty much exactly my experience. The bootcamps can take someone who had an interest in programming before hand, and give them a fast leg up to get into programming professionally, and that's great. But the vast majority of people in these programs are just there because they heard you can make a lot of money as a programmer and have no real interest, or talent with programming, and it shows in their work.

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

#212

Post by [deleted] »

larzang wrote: post #118
Alacart wrote: post #80

Who gives a shit where or how you learned to code. What a stupid and indirect way to filter candidates. Just show me what you've done. Send me repo links, production code, or even just the end result with some sort of proof that you actually built it. That's the best part about any craft - practicing or building something creates tangible results. If you don't already have a portfolio, get to work on that before you…

That's great for front-end guys, but it's frustrating to me as a back-end developer to have expectations that I can show live examples of my past work to potential employers when I've spent years designing and building enterprise internal systems which have no visible result outside of the code itself, which is under strict NDA. I get it, development is a craft, it's easy to judge the quality or experience level of a…

[deleted]

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

#213

Post by YCode »

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 bit off topic, but what skills should front-end web developers be working on right now?

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

#214

Post by RandomOpinion »

sn9 wrote: post #191
atom-morgan wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Many of the greatest programmers in history started programming in adults. See anyone you can think of from the 60s and 70s like Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.

> See anyone you can think of from the 60s and 70s like Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.

Ken Thompson had a MS in EE/CS and Dennis Ritchie had degrees in both physics and mathematics, all of which are far more difficult than programming. Most of the other great names of the '60s/'70s have similar backgrounds, invalidating your point.

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

#215

Post by harwoodjp »

_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.

Nothing to add but I did CS/Phil also. I think they complement each other nicely.

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

#216

Post by m3rc »

Eridrus wrote: post #207
m3rc wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

I think it varies and a lot of companies do it differently. I had a part time internship with a software company over the spring semester which "ended" at the end of the semester but that was just a formality to start a new internship contract full-time and with a pay raise for the duration of the summer. Most software companies use internships as "junior-junior" developer positions, I was still writing code that was impactful and used by the company, it was just understood that it was going to take a couple months to get me to a point that I was semi-autonomous.

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

#217

Post by therealdrag0 »

_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.

I have English and CS majors, French and Philosophy minors. Always been into computers and always been a big reader. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#218

Post by JBlue42 »

harwoodjp wrote: post #215
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nothing to add but I did CS/Phil also. I think they complement each other nicely.

I think it's also why I have friends that did Philosophy before going to Law School. Despite what was said above, good philosophy papers do take some rigor of thought.

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

#219

Post by JBlue42 »

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…

People can also gain more interest even if it was "just a job" before.

I fell into IT and struggled with feeling overwhelmed the first year or two but once I found the things within that field that fit my personality, that's when I felt more comfortable and could push myself more and ignore the BS that I didn't really like.

I completely agree about the "passion" thing. You can develop curiosity and interest about anything.

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

#220

Post by forgottenpass »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #41

Can someone remind me why boot camps were even a thing? What employer wouldn't be more impressed by a work sample? One possible plan: 1) Define success before doing anything. Pick specific companies or a specialty you want to end up with first. 2a) Take the three months (or however long you can afford to invest) and work backwards. Figure out the most impressive and relevant project that can be reasonably be accompli…

Can someone remind me why boot camps were even a thing?

There was a sense among some that webdev had advanced to a point where the skill of labor needed had declined to cogs that could be squirted out by a crash course.

Ofc, there were always people willing to take the opposite perspective: that advances in the state of the art of development are continuously folded back into development processes. And there aren't roles that still require man-time after driving the skill barrier to zero because that becomes tooling given to the internal customer that specializes in a different part of the business.

But payroll and management salivate at the cog idea. So we got to see the idea be tested in the marketplace and prove out what was fantasy and what wasn't.

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