Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 85 posts

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#21

Post by alexholehouse »

Not necessarily a response to this article, but more generally about "learning" (complex) things such as programming languages, the impact of impressionist art, particle physics etc.

With all these things, I would argue, that you through a kind of 3rd order polynomial experience of time vs. your confidence in your own knowledge. At first you know nothing, and you're aware you know nothing. After some short amount of time you've learnt a huge amount, relative to what you did know, so you feel like you have a good grasp on the topic. But, over more time, you begin to realize how much you actually don't know (which may reflect everyone, or just reflect yourself, the latter meaning you can learn from others, the former meaning you better get your thinking cap on). Hopefully then over EVEN more time you begin to slowly increase your knowledge base, but this time from a more informed perspective.

The point is, I guess, that it's hard to assess your own knowledge of a topic at this very moment in time unless you've spent a decent amount of time getting your head around it's true complexities (where both, "a decent amount of time" and the true complexity of the topic will vary HUGELY from case to case).

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#22

Post by meaty »

kaonashi wrote: post #18
meaty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I believe learning a skill is an investment, which is why I take my time (sometimes years) and study for a long time before I even put pen to paper. My latest learning exercise was postgresql. I've done a proper engineering evaluation on it which has taken a whole year, but i tell you, i know it inside out now. I am confident i can handle any edge case or problem. Can your 10 week old developers even handle a sim…

What does a proper engineering evaluation entail?

In my case, a simplified view: reading the documentation, building a list of scenarios based on proposed functions and associated risks, testing each one and documenting it in a concise manor. Then building something serious, testing it, breaking it predictably and unpredictably and reworking conclusions from above. Also doing research on best practices, bad practices, performance reducing functions and hints/tips, integration paths etc.

When I reliably can answer most stackoverflow questions on the subject, I am then confident that I know what I'm doing and then will sell my skills.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#23

Post by jerrya »

Is this even legal?

My understanding from the article at techcrunch and the hackbright about page suggests hackbright is charging tuition ($7500) for participation in the program.

It's late for me, so maybe I am forgetting something, but what is the legal basis for being able to discriminate on the basis of sex for an educational program, especially from an organization that doesn't appear to be a non-profit, or accredited in any manner.

Seems like a great program. I know some young men that would benefit from such a program, the intensive environment, the location within the heart of the SF Bay hiring region, the networking, etc.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#24

Post by hayksaakian »

jerrya wrote: post #23

Is this even legal? My understanding from the article at techcrunch and the hackbright about page suggests hackbright is charging tuition ($7500) for participation in the program. It's late for me, so maybe I am forgetting something, but what is the legal basis for being able to discriminate on the basis of sex for an educational program, especially from an organization that doesn't appear to be a non-profit, or accr…

It doesn't seem like they're offering any degree or claiming to, simply giving training for a fee is fair game.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#25

Post by zedshaw »

meaty wrote: post #7

10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for t…

> 10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill.

What? So, all of the military training methods don't exist? Military bootcamps are 6-8 weeks and you learn a massive fuck-ton of skills.

Hell, college courses are less than this in hours spent and people learn crazy amounts of stuff.

So how can you conclude that it's not possible to learn any skill despite a fairly huge amount of available evidence to the exact contrary proving you wrong?

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#26

Post by rdl »

meaty wrote: post #22
kaonashi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a proper engineering evaluation entail?

In my case, a simplified view: reading the documentation, building a list of scenarios based on proposed functions and associated risks, testing each one and documenting it in a concise manor. Then building something serious, testing it, breaking it predictably and unpredictably and reworking conclusions from above. Also doing research on best practices, bad practices, performance reducing functions and hints/tips, i…

I think it would be insane for someone with little or no experience in the field to devote years to a specific skill (say, complete mastery of Postgres), before working on problems in the real world.

Even in areas where failure has high costs (say, medicine, or war), you don't go off and try to master a specific skill before doing anything -- you master some basic skills, practice using those (in increasingly realistic environments), then learn more advanced skills. For one thing, you don't even know beforehand where you may have particular strength, and you also don't know what opportunities will arise.

Even a junior developer with basic knowledge can make meaningful (and thus compensated) contributions during the learning process. I'd rather spend 10 weeks or 6 months or whatever building some skills, then get a job and learn while being paid, vs. spending my whole life in isolation trying to become a zen master and write the one perfect line of code.

Breadth first, then depth.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#27

Post by zedshaw »

jerrya wrote: post #23

Is this even legal? My understanding from the article at techcrunch and the hackbright about page suggests hackbright is charging tuition ($7500) for participation in the program. It's late for me, so maybe I am forgetting something, but what is the legal basis for being able to discriminate on the basis of sex for an educational program, especially from an organization that doesn't appear to be a non-profit, or accr…

There's quite a few same-sex educational organizations around. I think you're confusing this with equal opportunity employment, which only applies to certain sized companies or ones that take Federal money.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#28

Post by jerrya »

zedshaw wrote: post #27
jerrya wrote: post #23

Is this even legal? My understanding from the article at techcrunch and the hackbright about page suggests hackbright is charging tuition ($7500) for participation in the program. It's late for me, so maybe I am forgetting something, but what is the legal basis for being able to discriminate on the basis of sex for an educational program, especially from an organization that doesn't appear to be a non-profit, or accr…

There's quite a few same-sex educational organizations around. I think you're confusing this with equal opportunity employment, which only applies to certain sized companies or ones that take Federal money.

Well, I think I am comparing it to any company selling any product, of which very few seem allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#29

Post by meaty »

zedshaw wrote: post #25
meaty wrote: post #7

10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for t…

> 10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. What? So, all of the military training methods don't exist? Military bootcamps are 6-8 weeks and you learn a massive fuck-ton of skills. Hell, college courses are less than this in hours spent and people learn crazy amounts of stuff. So how can you conclude that it's not possible to learn any skill despite a fairly huge amount of available evidence to the exact contra…

In military boot camps, you learn enough not to get killed or court martial, not how to do a job properly.

(ex British territorial army)

I'm not saying it's not possible, but the marketed result versus the actual result here is disparate.

Re: Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks

#30

Post by eLobato »

Will sound like an asshole to many people, but:

  Hackbright Academy Turns Men Into Developers In 10 Weeks

  Hackbright Academy Turns Blacks Into Developers In 10 Weeks

  Hackbright Academy Turns Whites Into Developers In 10 Weeks
Do we really need MORE discrimination? If I go ahead and try to join in, they will say "sorry, no men accepted"? That sounds equally as bad to me as "sorry, no woman accepted" or "sorry, no latinos accepted".

Can anybody explain?

I honestly hope the girls will get the skills they're looking for in 10 weeks, and I support that, but I truly don't get why do they have to discriminate against. Maybe so they get media coverage?

Post reply on HN