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They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

nytimes.com

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Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#11

Post by chomp »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #5

I 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…

To adapt a quote from one of my favorite movies: "Not everyone can become a great coder; but a great coder can come from anywhere." That's what (in my opinion) you should take away from "everybody can code."

I think it's obvious that not every single person in the world has the external characteristics to be a great software developer. But those with passion and curiosity will be able to make a great career for themselves.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#12

Post by learc83 »

y4mi wrote: post #7
shiburizu wrote: post #2

I 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

There's some truth to that. There definitely is plenty drudge work that can be done by supervised noivices.

But I think we tend to overestimate how much of our jobs that work entails, and what exactly can be done independently.

A master carpenter can have an apprentice do most of the physical work, but the apprentice is still very much working under the master and relying on them to guide their work.

Good bootcamps can prepare someone to be an apprentice, but we shouldn't pretend 12 weeks is enough to produce a useful employee. And it's not a wholesale replacement for a degree. Good graduates are going to have at least as much practical experience as good bootcamp graduates from internships, hackathons, personal projects, group projects etc... Plus they are going to have significantly more theoretical knowledge.

Even more "professional" jobs like lawyer and capital E Engineer can be learned throughout apprenticeship, so there is value there. But we should stop acting like our profession is just hooking up wires. Other professions aren't nearly as self effacing as we are, it's like we've all internalized the disdain that upper management feels for us because of the power that we hold.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#14

Post by dsfyu404ed »

BlackJack wrote: post #10

We 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 government…

Won't happen. Unless some WV politician makes a crusade out of it nobody is going to get prosecuted for ripping off poor people.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#15

Post by commandlinefan »

I guess people believe what they want to believe, but it should be obvious that if programming is really something you can learn in a few months in your spare time, it’s not going to be a very valuable skill. Either programming requires extensive education and experience to be really proficient (read: employable) in, or it’s going to be a minimum wage “we can throw a rock and replace you this afternoon” call-center job.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#16

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

BlackJack wrote: post #10

We 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 government…

> “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.”

Hmmm sounds like pretty much every start-up I’ve ever heard of.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#17

Post by maxxxxx »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #5

I 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 don't get it either. A lot of people also would find coding as very tedious and boring. You have to be cut out for it.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#18

Post by iguy »

BlackJack wrote: post #10

We 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 government…

It sounds uncomfortably close to a cynic's view of aid projects in poor countries. The customers aren't the students, but rather the Commission, and they were apparently sufficiently impressed with the TED talks to part with $1.5 million to start this thing. Maybe someone trying to get re-elected got to cut a ribbon on TV too. And I bet this also made a great story for the founders to tell in their law school applications.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#19

Post by crispyambulance »

chomp wrote: post #11
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #5

I 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…

To adapt a quote from one of my favorite movies: "Not everyone can become a great coder; but a great coder can come from anywhere ." That's what (in my opinion) you should take away from "everybody can code." I think it's obvious that not every single person in the world has the external characteristics to be a great software developer. But those with passion and curiosity will be able to make a great career for them…

I think people got too hung up on "greatness" and some vague idea of "coding" as a kind of gold-rush job (pardon the pun).

Could the school have instead focused on more boring general job skills with a special focus on using software effectively? I think so. I think it would have been more successful than teaching "the LAMP stack" or whatever it was they did. Not that software development is rocket science, but it's true that it's not for everybody, and neither is accounting, nursing, engineering, teaching or plumbing.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#20

Post by erentz »

The “anyone can code” and “just learn to code” phenomena needs to die in a fire. This reminds me of many other scams in our education system, it’s disgusting how much money is being leeched out of people on private “schools”.

This “anyone can code” idea is actually an easy thing to test if we were serious and honest about it. But we are not. And I believe boot camps give a false sense that more people are successful at it than aren’t. It really seems boot camps are in reality is a very expensive filtering system to separate those with some ability to teach themselves coding from those who can’t.

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