They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
nytimes.com
They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
1–10 of 341 posts
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#2I find it very important to analyze cases like these when CEOs sound off about how you shouldn't need a degree to work in the industry. These code camps have no credibility.
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#3That’s disappointing. I remember I was very supportive of coding as trade education when I first heard of it but it hasn’t really panned out. I can’t quite decide if it’s because we’re bad at teaching (the example in the article seems like an execution failure) or if it’s fundamentally infeasible (programming is hard and unintuitive for most people).
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#4Not terribly surprising that 16 weeks of training doesn't make you ready for a coding job. The only way I see that working is a pretty aggressive pre-test that washes out most of the candidates. You'd need some related experience and programming aptitude for 16 weeks to make you employable.
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#5I know I'll catch flak for this, but where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from? Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity, without delving into the capability side. What makes anyone think that they can take a bunch of people who never or barely passed highschool and have been working in a mine for a decade+ and teach them this?
By all means subsidize a laptop and point them at some great online (free) resources, but beyond that if they won't/can't help themselves...
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#6I know I'll catch flak for this, but where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from? Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity, without delving into the capability side. What makes anyone think that they can take a bunch of people who never or barely passed highschool and have been working in a mine for a decade+ and teach them this? By all means subsidize a laptop and point them at some great onli…
I think your last line goes to far in the other direction. You do not need to able to self-teach from zero to become a useful programmer, teaching can be very useful (but, as you rightly say, is no guarantee of success. Especially if done incredibly badly like the article suggests)
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#7I find it very important to analyze cases like these when CEOs sound off about how you shouldn't need a degree to work in the industry. These code camps have no credibility.
But... You really don't need a degree for most programming work I've seen at my day job?
It's basically just creating various APIs in order to wrap them into some service you can sell. You can do most of that with maybe 1 year of coding at home. Though code review should be done at least in the beginning to make sure the produced code is maintainable
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#8I find it very important to analyze cases like these when CEOs sound off about how you shouldn't need a degree to work in the industry. These code camps have no credibility.
I’ve seen many super-talented self-taught programmers who never received any formal education, and I’ve seen college graduates who can’t get FizzBuzz working. Of course the code camps are scams, but a degree isn’t much better for many people who have very little internal motivation to learn.
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#9That’s disappointing. I remember I was very supportive of coding as trade education when I first heard of it but it hasn’t really panned out. I can’t quite decide if it’s because we’re bad at teaching (the example in the article seems like an execution failure) or if it’s fundamentally infeasible (programming is hard and unintuitive for most people).
It’s weird. No one says anyone can be a basketball pro, here’s a play basketball boot camp to get you into the NBA.
But clearly there is demand for a lot more programmers than NBA players. The kind of people who make good programmers are competing with people going into law and finance. More programmers means less lawyers and less business people. Which I guess is fine, but it is weird to just assume anyone can do it.
Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia
#10We can discuss code camp pro/cons all day, but the article spells out that there was little coding being taught here.
Instructors with little tech experience, high rate of firing and stuff turnover, students being told to "google it", operating without licenses, all while the founder has fancy offices in Chicago with rapacious and alcoholic parties.
Amanda Laucher, the founder, essentially stole funds from governments and made false promises and is now going to Law School in Chicago. Meanwhile, these people quit their jobs on false hope and now are unemployed or have to rejoin at the bottom of the rung.
Assuming the article is fair, this is a sad situation and Laucher should be prosecuted.