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Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

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31–40 of 69 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#31

I'm sure there are online communities that would provide what you're looking for. I've been a member of cboard.cprogramming.com for over a decade and that community is exactly like what you're looking for. It's focussed on C/C++, but people who post their code either with specific questions or asking for general feedback will get a wealth of advice on how to avoid common pitfalls, how to do things better, and how to…

Online communities are useful, but not what I am looking for. I already have access to online communities. Coaching is different - it is more personal, more focused, and is based on a longer term relationship.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#32
post #4

I've been approached by 2 people to mentor them in coding, and neither worked very well, but it was primarily my fault. In one case, we just had a lot of communication problems for a few weeks (probably mostly my fault) but expectations weren't set on both sides early on (regular times to meet, goals, etc). In the other case, we ended up discussing things a bit more and decided that's not what he was really after. Th…

I will check out that site, PHP is one of the languages I work in regularly. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#33
post #11

This is something I've offered informally before. Is it something you'd pay for?

This is something I'd insist on paying for. Investment in a relationship like this goes both ways, and having a coach that was not incentivized to continue would be a deal-breaker for me.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#34
post #28

I've often thought about doing this. I have been coding for a LONG time, and during that time I, like most programmers, have learned through others and experience that the practical lessons that are difficult or impossible to teach in more formal settings (and that includes the usual training programs that companies put their new recruits through) are much easier explained in a one-on-one setting, often at the whiteb…

I couldn't agree more with all you've said. I've been coding for a while, but only recently had the desire to want to turn it from a skill into a craft. I relish the challenges that I come up against and delight in finding solutions to them. Apart from the areas in which I know I'm deficient, I also want to uncover the unknown unknowns in my coding, since I am self taught and have doubtless developed poor habits alon…

I am also self-taught. I was lucky to have many mentors in my professional life, but I also had the foresight to know that I should use my skills as an autodidact to teach myself the things that lie beyond the endless tutorials and self-help programming books. There is genuine value in those things, but they only take you so far.

I think it's wise to study the great open source projects of the world and, if possible, to contribute to them. It is also wise to continually take on projects and challenges just outside your current skills and comfort levels. Who says you can't write a database? A compiler? A video game? Your first attempts may not be professional quality or even usable outside your own little world, but they will help you grow.

A programmer wakes up in the middle of the night and asks "gee, I wonder if I could boot Linux inside a web browser on top of an emulator written in JavaScript?" An average programmer says "Ha! Maybe if I were a wizard." A master knows that anything but attempting it is an excuse in mediocrity. And then Fabrice Bellard shows us all what can be done when the shadow of "The Great Wizard" is cast aside and replaced with the pain and slow but inevitable rewards of real work and productive failure.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#35
post #2

This is a great idea. I'm not sure if others work the same way, but I know my coding-brain is much more receptive to learning and improvement when the feedback is on code that I've already (tried to have) thought through. I could read 100 books on Advanced Ruby Theories and "learn" a lot, but take a block of code I've already written and tell me how I could make it better and my synapses will go wild :)

I couldn't agree more. This is exactly the experience I had being coached with poker. Sometimes you get some insight or way of looking at a problem that you probably would have never worked out on your own no matter how much time you were given. Having an external person who is invested in your success is really powerful as a tool for learning.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#36
It's funny that this turned up today. Last week I was browsing craigslist for quick side gigs, and came across a post of someone wanting a Django/python tutor. I pinged the person - and decided to help her out. The problem is: I am not comfortable taking money to help someone learn something, since I am not a professional tutor or teacher. Fortunately in this case she was also about to apply for a job at the university I work at, so payment for the tutoring couldn't happen at all (due to potential conflict of interest issues). So instead we worked out a deal where I will help her learn if some of her learning projects are stuff we need to do at my local hackerspace, and helps me with some of the pages I do as volunteer work for charities.

We were talking and have come to the conclusion that this arrangement might be somewhat scalable for learning - an apprentice model for coding, that benefits 3rd parties. It certainly gets around some of the weird power dynamics of traditional apprenticeship/mentoring and paid tutoring. Further it is a good way to get some needed talent to good non-profits that may not be able to otherwise arrange such a thing.

Finally, and this is the kicker - it gives novices practice in real development, and it gives experienced people (who may be hiring) access to people to see how they are at problem solving in a real environment, rather than interview tests, potentially faked code samples, etc. (Not to mention, someone willing to go through the effort of something like this is probably already a great candidate on the strength of "wants to learn more and actually takes effort to do so", which I have found to be a strong indicator for a good employee).

I don't know where you are located, but if you want to get into some more discussions about setting up something like I described above, feel free to email me:

  $HNUSERNAME at gmail.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#37
I kinda like the idea but...

Coaches for online poker had that convenient that you could get a coach whose prices would always been within your reach: if you were a regular winner (or break even) at, say, $25NL then you probably had a few $25 buy-ins you could use to pay a coach begin a regular winner at, say, $50 NL or $100 NL and both of you could find value in doing that.

Then there was also this idea that you could learn from someone only a bit better than you: someone who was beating one or two levels above yours had already stuff to teach you and would be unlikely to give you bad habits.

But for programming I'm not too sure: it's not really a good idea to learn from someone who's just "a bit better" than you. And if you want to learn from someone who can do $100/hour consulting then it may cost you an arm and a leg to learn anything from him.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#38
post #5

I would like for a site to exist where I can go and find an expert on whatever I need and consult with them over whatever communications method they prefer (Skype, Google Hangout, Phone, etc). The experts would work for tips/donations, an hourly/15 minute fee, wishlist items, credits, bitcoins, barter, etc. If anyone is interested, I have a more detailed roadmap for this idea, a couple of domain names that would work…

http://www.allexperts.com/ http://www.google.com/search?q=related:www.allexperts.com

Google Answers was awesome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Answers

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#39

It's funny that this turned up today. Last week I was browsing craigslist for quick side gigs, and came across a post of someone wanting a Django/python tutor. I pinged the person - and decided to help her out. The problem is: I am not comfortable taking money to help someone learn something, since I am not a professional tutor or teacher. Fortunately in this case she was also about to apply for a job at the universi…

Thanks for your reply. It sounds like what you are doing is admirable but not along the lines of what I'm after.

I don't think that there is really any weird power dynamics in this kind of coaching, at least not in my experience. On one hand we are dealing with a domain in which reason is the ultimate method of arbitration, and a good coach would not be presenting me with opinions or ideas that I could simply disagree with due to some difference in personal belief. Instead, they would be challenging me with different ways to think or different ways to approach a problem, and be able to explain its benefits if they weren't obvious to me.

On the other hand, the trust that can be built in this type of relationship can be quite useful for the learning process. Having someone that I respect as a programmer as well as a coach allows me the comfort to know that I could come to them with either a specific problem of general deficiency and get the kind of response that will give me the most enlightenment in the long term, which is often different to what you'd get when asking a question online.

Re: Ask HN: Do coding coaches exist?

#40
post #33
post #11

This is something I've offered informally before. Is it something you'd pay for?

This is something I'd insist on paying for. Investment in a relationship like this goes both ways, and having a coach that was not incentivized to continue would be a deal-breaker for me.

The problem is this. Any coach who you want to listen to can make more programming for themselves than you can afford to pay them.

Getting the incentives right is tricky. Money is often not going to be the right incentive here.

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