From Prison to Programming

Oh yeah, that's gonna bring status to our profession!

Can you imagine "Prison to District Attorney". Or "Prison to Chief of Staff of Hospital".

Hi Rick, nice to see you here I was not expecting the subject of the piece to be here so that is pretty cool.

> I dont think anyone mistakenly believes that

Unfortunately many people do. I volunteer here in [redacted] teaching mostly teens the basics of programming but it is open to all and I quite often have adults that have been convinced they should know how to code by the "learn to code!" messages that seem to be everywhere the past decade or so.

Many of these people get upset when they struggle beyond the basics which is probably 60-70% of people going by how many complete the course. I did wonder if perhaps I just suck as a teacher but comparing the numbers not just across those I work with but across the whole country the figure is the same. Just seems two thirds of people can't or don't have an interest to push passed the wall once they hit it.

> It is a legit path to a rewarding job which is open to those without degrees and who might have felonies on record.

I 100% agree with you here. After all I myself have been a professional programmer for near twenty years now and love it so much I give my time to others to help them see if they have the same love for programming as I do. I have taught dozens of people from ~11 years old up to mid-40s how to code that have gone on to have careers as developers.

> With real commitment its very attainable.

This is a big point. It takes commitment. Many people can't or won't commit. Sometimes it is that they can't do it for whatever reason but many times they don't commit because they never had that spark which is clear you did. To them programming was boring. They didn't find it interesting solving some "silly" syntax issue instead they found it frustrating and would rather do something else.

> There are a lot of people who have had their entires life changed through that skill.

And that is awesome. Like I said in my first post I am very happy to see more good programmers enter the market. We need them.

> Definitely not the solution for everyone, but it is the solution for some.

The point in my original reply was that in my experience the whole "learn to code!" thing is talked about as a solution for everyone. What frustrates me is there is so much invested into the learn to code "solution" that I see hardly any other options with the same kind of drive behind it.

Now I can't talk about prison education systems as I have no knowledge of them. But I do know UK and [redacted] schools and my personal opinion it is unfairly pushed over almost everything else. Why? I am not privy to the decisions made higher up but from how I see things it is because it is cheap.

Computers are cheap, resources are almost all free or close to free (YouTube is free, books are cheap, etc), the software needed is almost always free for education, etc. It can be done pretty much anywhere you have a power socket and it doesn't require special single purpose hardware. I know you know all this getting started with Python and OpenCourseWare after all.

Simply put the financial barrier for entry to learning to code is very near zero and that is super attractive to schools.

Anyway my first comment wasn't in any way an attack on people learning to code. I apologise if you felt that it was and hopefully this reply better explains why I feel the way I do.

I am glad that learning to code has had such a positive impact on your life and wish you success in the future :)

> Colorado Senate concerning Assembly Bill 99 which will auto-erase the records of non-violent offenders

Being able to expunge records helps, but if you really want to help people with criminal records re-enter the workforce, you have to fix business liability insurance. Insurers often the ones forcing the issue in hiring practices by rate increase or by clauses that will not cover an ex-offender. A rate increase for a 200 employee company will cost what hiring 3-4 people costs, so everyone wants to help until they find out what the hidden costs are. In Indiana we fixed this, and it is much easier to hire people with records, and did more to help expunging records.

Removing records does not help much when asked "have you ever been convicted" and get caught telling less than the truth. The lie itself is often considered moral turpitude by the employer. Laws that make it ok to lie, never work as expected for anyone.

I think you're forgetting we're talking about felons. I'm an underdog who is now a full-time software developer (thanks to the Underdogs & Rick ;) and trust me if I could be a doctor that would take a felon I'd be happy to try. But here in America, it's not that easy. Especially when you have laws that flat out bar you. So though you might be right for your average citizen but once you get to our end it's not the same. Coding really is the best route for us felons. And thats from experiance.

> People seem to think everyone being a programmer is needed otherwise humanity will fall.

Programming is truly fun for a very select group of people. (I count myself as one of those( But even then, as a job it is almost always miserable in some form.

I encourage people to check it out if its for them, I dont think they should be gaslit into becoming programmers.