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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

#21

Post by Kalium »

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…

> where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from?

A better question, perhaps, is why this is assumed to equate to coding-based jobs.

Anyone can learn to cook. This shouldn't be equated to everyone being equipped to become a chef de cuisine.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#22

Post by DoctorOetker »

tyingq wrote: post #4

Not 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.

I totally agree about the 16 weeks = 4 months being insufficient:

I think we can all agree that most of the coal miners went to school in a different era, and so probably never had much of a high school education, and even if they did we can all agree that half a career in the coal mines (combined with the prospect of working there until retirement) would pretty much obliterate the motivation to keep up your high school knowledge.

So essentially (without pointing fingers) if the goal is to end up with a programming job, we can say that at entering this course they are pretty much at the level of midway highschool.

The problem is not re-educating these people to become programmers (which I believe could work). The problem is the claim it can be done in 4 months without proof or trials. It's unethical to trial and thus social experiment this on people who may be giving up their current status and jobs believing it is already proven.

If the technology was available today to achieve such a feat in 4 months, why are people going to colleges and universities? Why isn't this already being done in high schools, so that they can always become a programmer as a backup job? Because the feat has not been achieved yet.

4 months seems very short, but I do believe such a feat is certainly possible in a few years. Perhaps even within a year if it's really intensive and education technology would become so advanced that software recognizes your mistakes in thinking, can answer why questions, etc...

But that is not today.

This was just a fig leaf proposal to abdicate social responsibility...

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#24

Post by commandlinefan »

snazz wrote: post #8
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.

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.

Ok. Yes, you’re right. There are proficient programmers who never went to college and complete idiots who did go. However. Most decent programmers do have a four-year degree, mostly in computer science (or something similar like math or physics) and most people who couldn’t hack it in college also can’t hack it solving coding problems 8-10 hours a day, all day, for decades. Stop acting like college degree _means_ moron.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#25

Post by fopen64 »

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…

Nobody cared about coding when there was no potential of making big bucks. It was something that geeks did. Now everybody wants a piece of the action.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#27

Post by learc83 »

snazz wrote: post #8
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.

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.

People regularly say this. But there is no way you made it through my program without literally paying someone else to do your entire degree without being able to code FizzBuzz. And I went to a no-name state school.

I don't doubt that you've seen it, but my guess as that it either was someone from a very poor program, their degree was long time ago and they haven't been doing actual programming since then, or they just get nervous in interviews.

Degrees aren't equal and you should definitely at least look through the curriculum if you aren't familiar with the program when evaluating a candidate.

I've noticed several times that a candidate will have a degree from a department of Computer Science and Computer Information Systems. And everyone will assume their degree is CS, but if you look through their transcript it's clear they concentrated in IT/sysadmin stuff.

Also, in general, their is a huge difference between someone who took the easiest classes and barely passed and someone who has a 3.0+ with challenging coursework. Look at transcripts.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#28

Post by detaro »

chillacy wrote: post #3

That’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).

Bootcamps aren't really a full "trade education", are they? You'd be looking more at an apprenticeship model, which is quite rare for coding (I know some examples here in Germany), or something else practical to follow up on the basics from the bootcamp.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#29

Post by kazinator »

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…

> but where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from?

As a wild guess, it may partially be inspired by the idea that coding is done in languages, and, hey, people from all walks of life use language.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#30

Post by matwood »

brianwawok wrote: post #9
chillacy wrote: post #3

That’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…

The NBA is a bad analogy. That would be closer to saying that anyone can get a job at Google. Most programming jobs are not Google, and more akin to rec league basketball. With desire and practice many people can be effective rec league players.
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