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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

#71

Post by throwaway413 »

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…

Linguini, is that you?

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#72

Post by hatchnyc »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #45

[Warning Exremely Controversial Post Ahead] I am currently working for a big corporate in the UK, who have been showing off their "pioneering" and "visionary" strategy to focus recruitment from code boot-camps. All I can say is that as a senior developer, it has made my life misery. I've gone from writing code and producing features, to a full-time mentor and babysitter. Half of the boot-camp graduates I believe have…

This has been my experience, and I'll add I have noticed there is a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software is. I remember beginning my career what I think used to be a quite common experience of being quite a bit overwhelmed by how much I had to learn, very aware that I didn't even know what I didn't know and this definitely motivated me. This awareness is completely absent from 100% of the boot camp grads I've encountered, who have been sold and apparently internalized the idea that "everything is easy" and are quite resistant to the suggestion that they might not fully grasp the scope and difficulty of the situation. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I also suspect these people would have found their way into software development without going to a boot camp.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#73

Post by Sharlin »

gingabriska wrote: post #58
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've no idea why coding should be anymore special than basic reading/writing skills. Code is a way to express solution to the problem which a computer can execute. If you can learn any language, you can learn coding too. Sure, not everyone can understand intricacies of the algorithm design and data structure gotchas but some of that can come as experience and curiousity. Question worth asking is that, does everyone n…

It’s the problem-solving, not the language part, that requires special aptitude. You might speak a dozen languages but it doesn’t help if you don’t know what to say.

Besides, have you tried to learn a new natural language in adulthood? A bootcamp won’t get you far. And natural languages are really forgiving in comparison because you’re communicating with a human-level intelligence that’s used to inferring meaning from low-bandwidth ambiguous datastream.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#74

Post by zaphar »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #65
jen20 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> developers have an easy life, getting into work whenever they choose Why exactly is that the wrong reason?

Nothing wrong with that, but if I ask you why did you become a developer and you list that as a main reason, then I will immediately dismiss you as not being serious.

Why? Nothing about that reason has any bearing on whether you will be any good at it. Passion provides motivation to gain skill but it's not the only thing that can provide motivation. It's not even the only reliable motivator. Having a better career or pay can also be pretty reliable motivator.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#75

Post by icegreentea2 »

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).

I think there's a few things going on. I think it's reasonable to assume that not all people who want to be able to program at a sufficient level to derive a living salary on will be able to. I don't know what the percentage is, but something exists, and we need to be aware of that. (I personally assume that 75% of people with a GED or equivalent can be eventually coached into some sort of useful position. I have no evidence for this, but that's just how I view the world. My office-mates like to call me an optimist).

The other is that ya, coaching and training is hard. There's a post somewhere else in thread about some guy hating his job cause he needs to coach up new bootcamp hires for like a year or something to get fully up to speed.

Let's not lie to ourselves about how long "eventually" (in eventually get good) is. I just took a quick look at my province's college of trades, and they quote 6000 hours (5280 hours on work and 720 hours in school) of apprenticeship/training before being considered "competent" at welding. If you go look at a bunch of the more technical "blue collar" jobs or trades (like mechanical draftsman, HVAC technician, etc), you all see numbers around that mark. Now, there's surely some fudgery going on. Very likely by the last year of their apprenticeships, you'll have many apprentices that are infact ready to just be done and are just logging hours for the book... but still, I think its a relevant guide. Even at half the length, you're talking roughly a year to a year and a half (which matches up well with other poster's experience coincidentally...) to train up.

Seems like the bootcamps might be a good subsitute for the "in class" portion of these apprenticeship programs, but nothing more.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#76

Post by gingabriska »

Sharlin wrote: post #73
gingabriska wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've no idea why coding should be anymore special than basic reading/writing skills. Code is a way to express solution to the problem which a computer can execute. If you can learn any language, you can learn coding too. Sure, not everyone can understand intricacies of the algorithm design and data structure gotchas but some of that can come as experience and curiousity. Question worth asking is that, does everyone n…

It’s the problem-solving, not the language part, that requires special aptitude. You might speak a dozen languages but it doesn’t help if you don’t know what to say. Besides, have you tried to learn a new natural language in adulthood? A bootcamp won’t get you far. And natural languages are really forgiving in comparison because you’re communicating with a human-level intelligence that’s used to inferring meaning fro…

How many times you come across a unique problem? Even when I come across a solution on my own, many times I find on stackoverflow or GitHub better designed solutions which address the corner cases which I didn't even think of.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#77

Post by jen20 »

zaphar wrote: post #74
mothsonasloth wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with that, but if I ask you why did you become a developer and you list that as a main reason, then I will immediately dismiss you as not being serious.

Why? Nothing about that reason has any bearing on whether you will be any good at it. Passion provides motivation to gain skill but it's not the only thing that can provide motivation. It's not even the only reliable motivator. Having a better career or pay can also be pretty reliable motivator.

Dismissing someone as “not serious” because of their reasons for following a particular career path says a lot more about the person doing the dismissing than those being dismissed.

By the parent’s criteria, I am “not serious”. My record on OSS and early work at companies which were acquired or have outsized valuations suggests the parent is 100% wrong, however.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#78

Post by scj »

fma wrote: post #69
mothsonasloth wrote: post #45

[Warning Exremely Controversial Post Ahead] I am currently working for a big corporate in the UK, who have been showing off their "pioneering" and "visionary" strategy to focus recruitment from code boot-camps. All I can say is that as a senior developer, it has made my life misery. I've gone from writing code and producing features, to a full-time mentor and babysitter. Half of the boot-camp graduates I believe have…

To a lesser extent, the same can be said for those who get an "IT" degree from a no name school from the college of business. I've spent a lot of my time training people who graduate from local small colleges instead of say, Georgia Tech or UGA (I'm in Atlanta) because management at my big corp is throwing cheap bodies at the solution. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed mentoring but done kids graduate with no clue and…

If you don't mind me asking, what is the ratio of mentors : grads where you work?

What do you think is an acceptable ratio?

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#79

Post by mothsonasloth »

hatchnyc wrote: post #72
mothsonasloth wrote: post #45

[Warning Exremely Controversial Post Ahead] I am currently working for a big corporate in the UK, who have been showing off their "pioneering" and "visionary" strategy to focus recruitment from code boot-camps. All I can say is that as a senior developer, it has made my life misery. I've gone from writing code and producing features, to a full-time mentor and babysitter. Half of the boot-camp graduates I believe have…

This has been my experience, and I'll add I have noticed there is a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software is. I remember beginning my career what I think used to be a quite common experience of being quite a bit overwhelmed by how much I had to learn, very aware that I didn't even know what I didn't know and this definitely motivated me. This awareness is completely absent from 1…

Completely agree, I would like to blame it on this dichotomy of "frontend and backend development".

Most of the bootcampers did three months of "frontend" work and are oblivious to what goes underneath in the murky world of business logic and services.

Until they have been able to demonstrate they are confident in:

* Presenting data to a user

* Validating inputs

* Making correct requests and understanding the interactions of an API (whether its REST, RPC, programmatic, internal)

* Processing requests

* Persistance and access of data

* Basic security

* Be able to document and explain all areas to a basic level.

* Debug and provide a root cause analysis.

Then they will remain a junior developer and I think that will be many of these bootcampers fate, as they are either unwilling or incapable of doing work outside their comfort zone.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#80

Post by grigjd3 »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #32
maxxxxx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've found the hardest part about coding to be accepting that there isn't enough time in a single lifetime to learn it all. I may be close to learning that learning it all is not possible with infinite time, but I am not there yet :)

This is largely true in any field.
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