Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never wrote "think before you code", and agree that's not always the most suitable way to go about a problem, although I believe a lot of programmers would benefit from doing that more often. I wrote "think about what you're doing".
I'm sick of dealing with code written by people that had no clear thought process before they started coding. It comes through in the code, it's messy, there are entire classes and functions that are never used. The logic is all over the place. The code is messy to look at. There are edge cases that haven't been handled. Well engineered code I should be able to look at understand what the developers thought process w…
42 (school)
121–130 of 152 posts
Re: 42 (school)
#122Having interviewed a bunch of 42 graduates, my main issue with 42 is that it doesn't teach their students to think about what they're doing, encouraging them instead to rush to the keyboard and emit as much code as they can as if programming for the last day of their project. This seems to resonate well with the culture of piscines at 42. To me, this is as silly as training Biathlon athletes to not even aim before th…
It wouldn't even be that difficult to have a series of examples of developing tests, cleaning up, trimming down, and debugging other people's code. Almost all of the classes I took didn't allow collaboration, even though that's probably the most important working use case. Lines of (useless) code removed is at least as powerful a metric as lines of (usefull) code added when developing.
It wouldn't directly teach them to think before writing, but they might learn the downside of failing to design the program structure well, and the pain of refactoring. It would be hilarious to give them back one of their early projects and slightly change the (marketing) requirements... (then require functionality can't be broken for testing more than X min-hours), just like real life. They'd learn they ARE the jerk writing unmaintainable code.
Re: 42 (school)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
You forgot to mention the private schools are expensive and use a somewhat pyramidal scheme where older students teach newer ones to repaid part of their school fees. In public education all teachers hold PhD or engineer titles so they have more years to think about what they teach than the guy who is only year+2 of the teachee. Edit: I checked Epitech tuition fees, it's around 40k€ for the whole 5 years curriculum.…
> private schools are expensive > I checked Epitech tuition fees, it's around 40k€ for the whole 5 years curriculum $9100 a year is indeed expensive for French schools, but I'm sure some Americans on the other side of the ponds are chuckling right now.
>$9100 a year is indeed expensive for French schools, but I'm sure some Americans on the other side of the ponds are chuckling right now.
Good public schools are about that much - or less. At Ann Arbor it would be $8000/year for tuition.
Re: 42 (school)
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The older copy of the US site at https://web.archive.org/web/20180206011840/https://www.42.us... is very clear: "I AM NOT BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18 AND 30. CAN I COME TO 42? No. While we do not have anything against those who are over 30 years old, when opening a new location, we have decided to concentrate our where they can be the most efficient and where we have a great deal of experience." On the current site this i…
Have you tried applying to a publicly funded phd program or med school @age > 45?
I don't know about PhD, but I know several who went to med school after the age of 40. Lots of weird midlife crises out there.
Re: 42 (school)
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, they modelled it after Epita which was also about code, code, code. I don't know where you last got your information about Epita, but this has been less and less true for around 10 years now. They sought to have a state certified engineering degree for a long time and implemented a lot of changes around 2003-2007 that made the cursus a bit less about code a more about common engineering stuff (maths, physics,…
Coming from Epitech, I would say that you are right. The code, code, code mind is more Epitech and less Epita nowadays.
I've also been through Epitech which is the school that greatly inspired 42 (same founders) and I would like to add some details on top of that.
Even if it's true that Epitech us mainly about coding, the program enforce a coding standard that is a huge part of the final grade of each coding project (small functions, 80 char per line of code...). Fom the second year, components decoupling and basic design patterns are part of the program.
Nevertheless, the school doesn't really make the most to teach basic good engineering practices or at least I don't remember (doc, tests, vendoring, observability...) and this is one of the main pain point.
Re: 42 (school)
#126For anyone that is considering attending the school I recommend reading also some criticism: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/91bjlr/sc... That being said I met some super smart people from 42 that had built extremely interesting and technically challenging projects! For example a first year student I met had built a 3d rendering engine in C without using any external library.
This is at least the second time someone posts this link. I read it the first time, and found it not convincing: that person failed to get in, is telling a bunch of second hand stories that are probably wildly exaggerated. Not much to see there...
Re: 42 (school)
#127Having interviewed a bunch of 42 graduates, my main issue with 42 is that it doesn't teach their students to think about what they're doing, encouraging them instead to rush to the keyboard and emit as much code as they can as if programming for the last day of their project. This seems to resonate well with the culture of piscines at 42. To me, this is as silly as training Biathlon athletes to not even aim before th…
> This seems to resonate well with the culture of piscines at 42 I do not understand this. What does "culture of piscines" mean? I assume it's not literally pool culture.
It equates to (more or less) the method of teaching to swim by throwing them in a pool: swim or drown. In 42's case, it's code something or fail your class, but without any (or much) guidance, mostly in self-taught way.
Re: 42 (school)
#128Sounds somewhat similar to https://www.recurse.com
totally different. 42 is a real school with a, I believe, 3-year program.
I'm not saying it's the same, I'm saying they share a similar ethos:
"The school does not have any professors, does not issue any diploma or degree, and is open 24/7. The training is inspired by new modern ways to teach which include peer-to-peer pedagogy and project-based learning."
Re: 42 (school)
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coming from Epitech, I would say that you are right. The code, code, code mind is more Epitech and less Epita nowadays.
I've also been through Epitech which is the school that greatly inspired 42 (same founders) and I would like to add some details on top of that. Even if it's true that Epitech us mainly about coding, the program enforce a coding standard that is a huge part of the final grade of each coding project (small functions, 80 char per line of code...). Fom the second year, components decoupling and basic design patterns are…
They have the same rules at 42 to code, 80 columns, 25 lines for a function, ect...
Where Epitech is better is that from the middle of the third until the end of the beginning of the five year, you have to work on a end study project. You need to prepare everything before coding, database schema, how will you do your tests, ect..
Even tough I find Epitech better than 42 on this, Epitech is also lacking a lot of things. Some teachers to explain to you the best practices, code review, ect.. would be really nice.
Re: 42 (school)
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m typing this comment as I sit inside the 42 Fremont campus and I’ve personally seen students here that have to have been older than 45.
Most likely they are younger than 45, but didn't age well :) I work with guys who in their late 20's but look way over 45...
They were significantly older than 45, by over a decade, closer to two. There’s 0% chance.