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****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

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Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#31

Post by throwaway2016a »

tchaffee wrote: post #24
throwaway2016a wrote: post #22

It's too bad this got flagged. I think it could have good discussions. My problem with bootcamps is that is not how the human brain works. No one can absorb 12 hours a day of information for 12 weeks. Things get lost. We need experience and repetition. We need to shoot ourselves in the foot by accident a few times. You don't get that in a 12 weeks. Which is fine. I've hired plenty of people with no college but years…

Agreed with most of what you said, especially that this would be a good discussion. My problem with filtering based on bootcamp training is that you occasionally find someone who has been programming their whole life (as a kid) an d finally decided to get a certificate. If there is one thing I've learned about interviewing, it's to not limit your options. Instead, talk to people for a few minutes on the phone and ask…

To be clear, I do not agree to filtering out bootcamp people.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#32

Post by ajross »

Barrin92 wrote: post #30
ajross wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women can complete and do deserve to get a full education. We do not need to funnel them through rushed education systems To paraphrase: "Women who didn't get a CS degree in their 20's can shove off, they're beyond hope and shouldn't try to break into a profession where they aren't qualified" One man's (heh) objective and rational criterion is another's instrument of oppression. All we hippies want you to do is jus…

that's not what I said at all. All I want to avoid is that women pick up bootcamp educations in the hope to get a job, fall short in interviews based on merit, and then end up stigmatized as second grade candidates. Which can easily happen if only certain demographics pick up a specific education path, that can't objectively compete with the expectations these people face in their jobs. Don't sacrifice the quality of…

> that's not what I said at all

Whoosh, as it were. The point is that when you say that, it is what some other people hear. And that forcing disadvantaged demographics to read your mind to tell whether you're simply naive or a sexist jerk is hurting all of us. There are principles at work here beyond "sacrificing the quality of education".

The bottom line is that you aren't being nearly as welcoming as you think you are.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#33

Post by timthelion »

JazCE wrote: post #28
timthelion wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It is harder for me as a white man to talk to a woman or a minority because I am thinking about their gender or race > is not normal. Perhaps you don't do so. But how do you know it is not normal? If you don't let me share my internal battles without attacking me, then how can you know the internal psychology of others?

Because everyday millions and millions if not billions of transactions go on between humans of all genders and races, if your view was in the majority, then society would be different. You need to talk to someone about your world view and get help.

When you read my comments you have a set of assumptions that you have made about me. You cannot escape that. For one thing, you assume that I know English (which I do). Another thing you probably assume is that since I am on HN, I am a computer programmer. You assume that I know the word "transaction" since you use that word. You don't explain its meaning to me. Neither do you explain to me what a human is. You assume that I know what humans are. You assume that I am human, though you cannot see me. Assumptions are everywhere.

When we meet someone, we begin with a default set of assumptions about them and what they know. You cannot even communicate with a person without assuming something about their level of knowledge, of language, culture, and technology. The question is, whether these in-avoidable default assumptions should differ based on a person's race or gender or nationality. I believe that they should. If I come up to you, knowing that you're from the UK, and start talking to you about the post communist privatization process in the Czech Republic, without first explaining to you what it is, you are bound to be confused. I assume that you do not know about the privatization process.

That doesn't mean that I believe that citizens of the UK are fundamentally incapable of understanding the privatization process. If I ask you if you know about this process and you say you are an expert on post communist economics than my assumptions about your knowledge on the subject will quickly change. But for now, since I know nothing about you, it is safe for me to assume that you know nothing about privatization and that in order to be polite, I should not spend the next 30 minutes talking about the current value of privatization coupons without ever asking if you know what the hell I'm talking about.

But when the basis for my assumption of shared knowledge is gender, this leaves an interesting question. If I know that most women who I meet in technical contexts are not computer programmers should I immediately assume that they are computer programmers and start talking about in depth concepts or should I ask first? Is it more rude to assume that my conversation partner understands what I am talking about or to assume that they do not understand? Especially when many newbies are so eager to show that they do understand, that they find themselves unwilling to say out-loud that they do not.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#34

Post by Barrin92 »

ajross wrote: post #32
Barrin92 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not what I said at all. All I want to avoid is that women pick up bootcamp educations in the hope to get a job, fall short in interviews based on merit, and then end up stigmatized as second grade candidates. Which can easily happen if only certain demographics pick up a specific education path, that can't objectively compete with the expectations these people face in their jobs. Don't sacrifice the quality of…

> that's not what I said at all Whoosh, as it were. The point is that when you say that , it is what some other people hear. And that forcing disadvantaged demographics to read your mind to tell whether you're simply naive or a sexist jerk is hurting all of us. There are principles at work here beyond "sacrificing the quality of education". The bottom line is that you aren't being nearly as welcoming as you think you…

sorry but my job when interviewing someone isn't to be welcoming. My job is to be fair, assess the person's qualification and experience because businesses work with restricted time and information.

The interviewer will never know your entire backstory and needs to make a decision relatively quickly. If I would start to be overly empathetic or sensible, I would arguably start making biased and bad decisions based on personal gut feelings. That's what I need to avoid, not encourage.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#35

Post by monaghanboy »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #15
Barrin92 wrote: post #5

Not a great article. I can completely understand the rejection of bootcamp applicants. I've personally interviewed people for algorithm / math heavy positions (explicitly mentioned in the article) and bootcamp applicants just do not cut it. The genuine knowledge in a field like this cannot be conveyed to anybody over the course of a few months. Teaching someone with a stats or physics background to code is pretty doa…

I've been curious about this issue, because I've been relatively successful in my so-far short career as a web developer. Yet I'm self-taught, and can't math my way out of a paper bag. I'm good at logic so that's gone a long way in helping me. I always wonder, though, whether I'll eventually run into a math-critical issue and cannot just reason my way through it. It's a terrifying prospect, but luckily in my 5 years…

I'm always surprised when people try to connect math and physics to CS/programming. I studied differential geometry in grad school, wrote proofs and read dense textbooks daily (very rarely missing a beat), then taught myself programming/CS. I'm now four years into my career, doing pretty well.

I see almost zero connection between the two:

* CS/programming: techniques (a mathematician might refer to these disparagingly as "tricks") used to make machines do things

* mathematics: foundational truths on the study of space, quantity, structure, change etc.

The most mathematics I've ever used on the job was basic (read: finite-dimensional) linear algebra, which is a part of every undergrad math student's basic toolkit.

If you're concerned about holes in your knowledge as a self-taught web dev, I'd study core CS courses like architecture, operating systems, networks. Know what you don't know that matters (hint: it's not "math").

EDIT: there may be a strong connection between computability theory and math https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability_theory, but I don't think this field is mainstream in either core CS (could be wrong here?) or math. I've certainly never encountered it on the job.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#36

Post by dogma1138 »

tchaffee wrote: post #23
Barrin92 wrote: post #5

Not a great article. I can completely understand the rejection of bootcamp applicants. I've personally interviewed people for algorithm / math heavy positions (explicitly mentioned in the article) and bootcamp applicants just do not cut it. The genuine knowledge in a field like this cannot be conveyed to anybody over the course of a few months. Teaching someone with a stats or physics background to code is pretty doa…

Teaching someone with a physics background to code while on the job is doable if you are willing to throw the code out. Programming is as much of a learned skill as any skill and expecting someone with no programming experience to quickly catch up to someone who has been studying and actually coding for a few years is not realistic.

I haven’t met anyone with a physics degree in the past 10 years that cannot program.

Programming is required today to attain a post graduate and even graduate at physics since you’ll be programming a lot of math problems and more importantly simulations.

We have 8 CUDA programmers at my work place and only one of them has a degree in computer science/SE the rest got post grads in Physics Chemisty or Biology.

On a grad/undergrad level for the most par CompSci students would not have much advantage in programming today over Physics or other exact science/engineering students.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#37

Post by capkutay »

tzs wrote: post #26
jstanley wrote: post #3

> I spent twelve weeks, ten to twelve hours per day, of my boot camp working primarily on algorithms and data structures, and was tested on that knowledge every three weeks. So that can’t be the skill I’m missing. Wow, 3 whole months ? I wonder why they didn't want bootcamp applicants... But, in general, I agree. They should be filtering by ability rather than putting a blanket ban on people who have done a bootcamp.…

At the school I went to, Caltech, a typical computer science class was supposed to take 9 hours per week (3 hours in class, 6 hours outside of class for reading and homework). 12 weeks @ 10-12 hours/day on algorithms and data structures would be more time than one would have put into those subjects getting a CS degree from Caltech [1], so I wouldn't dismiss it based solely on it only being three months. [1] well, it…

there's no way those boot camp programs spend 10-12 hours a day on data structures and algorithms. that's hyperbole. they need to give their students vocational education on how to build web or mobile apps...how could they spend 100% of the time on algorithms?

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#38

Post by capkutay »

timthelion wrote: post #20

Unrelated to bootcamps, but one thing really jumped out at me in the article. The author's discussion of BigO time: "The post went on to detail a need for an understanding of BigO time complexity, which is completely fair. No one wants a double loop in production code. What a bulky monstrosity that would be (imagining a giant disgusting swamp monster made of 0’s and 1’s, eeek!)." "I certainly don’t want to make a mes…

> But it does seem that this quote demonstrates a tendency I see among female advocates of women in tech, and that is to slightly awkwardly use technical terms in order to try to prove that they are part of the "in group" of people who understand technical concepts.

That has nothing to do with being a female advocate of women in tech. That has everything to do with being 12 weeks into programming. That's the main reason I don't like this article.

I'm lucky enough to know a lot of incredible software engineers who happen to be women (and were also CS grads or PhDs), much smarter than me, and I don't like this attempt to associate all women engineers with people who clearly only have a superficial understanding of code.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#39

Post by monaghanboy »

JazCE wrote: post #25
timthelion wrote: post #20

Unrelated to bootcamps, but one thing really jumped out at me in the article. The author's discussion of BigO time: "The post went on to detail a need for an understanding of BigO time complexity, which is completely fair. No one wants a double loop in production code. What a bulky monstrosity that would be (imagining a giant disgusting swamp monster made of 0’s and 1’s, eeek!)." "I certainly don’t want to make a mes…

> I know I suffer from the assumption that women don't know how to code. How the hell do you come to that assumption? I don't understand at all how you can make an assumption that a person knows or doesn't know something based on race or gender. You need to check yourself because: > It is harder for me as a white man to talk to a woman or a minority because I am thinking about their gender or race is not normal.

I thought his points were thoughtful and honest, even if a bit personal. Bias exists, in all parties (even you). No point in shaming him.

Re: ****** No Bootcamp Applicants ******

#40

Post by monaghanboy »

duiker101 wrote: post #9

While I agree it's definitely something that should not go on a job posting, I can see what it stemmed from. And it's probably the fact that they did indeed give bootcamp grads a test. The author seems like a motivated person and while she speaks inclusively of all the bootcamp participants(a lot of "we"), I am willing to bet that many of them do not share her drive. It's also worth noting that just because someone t…

>I am willing to bet that many of them do not share her drive

The flip side to this: I'm self-taught and I've worked with plenty of CS graduates from good schools who didn't strike me as particularly driven or value-adding. On the theory side, I'm not sure they could talk through a basic DS&A problem if I gave them one as well (that they hadn't seen before).

To your point, it's not where your knowledge comes from, but what you do with it that counts (and I might add, that the foundational bits exist).

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