They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia • Hacker News Board

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#121

Post by mcguire » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

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

Sometimes

    x = x + 1;

is meaningless drudge work and sometimes it's going to cost tens of millions of dollars, a company's reputation, the private data of thousands of innocent bystanders, and sometimes lives.

Unfortunately, it's also not immediately obvious which case is which.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#122

Post by ip26 » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #21

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.

At the same time, just because not everyone is chef de cuisine material, doesn't mean there's no point in their learning to cook.

The theme in this comment thread seems to be something like, "Only rockstars should learn to code, it's pointless for normal people".

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#123

Post by mcguire » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

y4mi wrote: post #31

learc83 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

well, our chief architect at my day job (with a degree) "designed" a system with several points of failure, each of which would kill the whole platform if even one of them failed. honestly, a degree really doesn't show competence -- nor does experience from what i've seen. Its clearly hard to create a fault tolerant system, but its just as hard to quantify what makes people able to do just that

Would it have made a difference if your architect had to take personal, professional, and financial liability for the system?

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#124

Post by ip26 » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #44

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…

> Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity > By all means subsidize a laptop If you have a certain drive and curiosity for coding the price of a used low-end laptop is unlikely to be a significant barrier, when adequate new ones are available from Walmart for $159. I just found a 3 year old Chromebook on ebay for $57, or around 10 hours work at the federal minimum wage after taxes. And there's a salutary pride o…

A wonderful world we live in. The best I could come up with as a kid was a used Xbox running Linux and a homemade VGA cable for something like $150. A then-modern machine for $50, I sure couldn't find one. (Of course adult-me is better at bargain-hunting)

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#125

Post by mathattack » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

mothsonasloth wrote: post #54

mathattack wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did your company fall for this? The only logical reasons I’ve seen are an inability to hire otherwise, and staff moonlighting at the boot camps. Both are bad reasons.

I believe the main reasons were: * The local management are non-technical and have a rudimentary equation that 1 developer = 1 productivity unit * The bootcamp has some really great salespeople * Hiring is generally difficult for great dev talent, so their logic is just to hire anyone for the numbers, otherwise their budget gets constrained by kafkaesque finance practice from the companies HQ. * Local political and P…

On point 1, perhaps it’s time to whip out the Mythical Man Month?

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#126

Post by teunispeters » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

snazz wrote: post #39

matwood wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That certainly happens, but is it the norm?

No, but it happens often enough that I think that requiring a degree doesn’t significantly improve the quality of the average candidate you receive.

Speaking as a programmer without a degree .. yes.

never had access, so taught self from references. I'm working as a firmware developer now and pretty much do "full stack" so I think it worked out in the end. I have blind spots I know, but working on them as I can.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#127

Post by wool_gather » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #21

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.

Good analogy. But to extend it, part of the disconnect is that management/business side wants a lot of coders that are the equivalent of line cooks at a chain restaurant: just competent enough, with someone more educated/competent overseeing, and most importantly: easily replaceable.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#128

Post by dvtrn » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

For anyone here, that went through one of these CodeSchools/Bootcamps/training.jargon[2] courses, I have a question:

At any point in these camps was there a section on interviewing and job seeking?

I'm asking as both a hiring manager who has seen a very fair share of...sorry, BAD resumes coming from people who finished a local code school, who struggled through the interview (only one made it to a technical assessment, he struggled on the syntax but seemed to grok the concepts. He ultimately did not get hired)and as a friend of someone who went through a code school and has absolutely zero interview skills,.

Their resume-upon reading-would have you wondering if they've applied for a "Junior React Developer" by mistake (restaurants, service industry jobs, stints at hotels, and at the very bottom: "React Bootcamp, Chicago - 2017-2018"). The generic cover letter this friend had me read jumped from topic to topic and was at least 5 paragraphs and two pages long, their only portfolio item was a single page "Hi I'm Bob" they made in the class.

It just makes me wonder what else these schools are doing to help their students actually succeed.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#129

Post by john_moscow » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

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…

The key to handling such environments is to not care about the result more than the others. So socialize with the newbies, maybe go have some beers, be a pleasant person and absolutely don't give a damn that they are utterly completely useless. It wasn't your decision to hire them and you shouldn't be wasting your passion and energy on rectifying it. If you care about what you're doing, it consider starting a side project and growing it into a fully-fledged business instead.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#130

Post by mratzloff » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #40

commandlinefan wrote: post #15

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 j…

You can learn it in a few months in your spare time if you're cut out for it, which the vast majority are not. CS education for programming jobs is mostly a very expensive formality to convince hiring managers you know what you already knew before enrolling, or at least it was in my case.

"You can learn how to be a lawyer in a few months in your spare time if you're cut out for it" would be considered a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you could learn enough to be an assistant to a legal secretary.

The same applies to programming.