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A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

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Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this restrict the technology choices of the companies who are employing these apprentices?

The content of an apprenticeship is defined on a higher level and not by technology. So it doesn't really matter what kind of technology the company uses. Examples would be: Can read&write a spec, can develop a program based on a spec and so on. The more theoretical part is usually done in school wich all apprentice from the different companies attend.

How does the student learn the actual programming language in this case? Is that the responsibility of the employer to teach?

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The content of an apprenticeship is defined on a higher level and not by technology. So it doesn't really matter what kind of technology the company uses. Examples would be: Can read&write a spec, can develop a program based on a spec and so on. The more theoretical part is usually done in school wich all apprentice from the different companies attend.

How does the student learn the actual programming language in this case? Is that the responsibility of the employer to teach?

It has changed a lot how this is organized in the last 10 years so I`m not really up to date anymore. I think currently besides weekly school the apprentice will go to multiple week long sessions at the school where all the fundamental things will be thought. But besides that the rest needs to be done by the employer.

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#153

Last year, I tried something new. One of my friends, a Mathematician, and the smartest guy I know, was working at the library. I told him he should get into programming, and hired him as my "Apprentice". I was mentoring him directly. He was working right next to me. He was learning a lot, I was enjoying the teaching, but I could also hand him boring stuff (CSS) and he would love to do it. I paid him peanuts ($12/hr)…

Did exactly this and now he's earning market rate as a Rails developer.

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#154
post #33
post #22

I find it interesting that the list of supported languages doesn't include Java, which is one of the most, if not the most, requested language - at least in the enterprise space.

I don't know anything specific about the site, but that might reflect an aesthetic bias overcoming the realization that Java is ubiquitous. It all depends on the degree to which a site's operators care about teaching what's being used in real-world projects. If I ran such a site, I might want to suppress my own aesthetic preferences, but even I would probably exclude PHP, as one example, only because it doesn't repre…

It's a conspicious omission for something that's being sold as "The Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job".

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#155
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that there's some cross-over in the Python/Scientific community with http://software-carpentry.org/ - which is interesting. I also know that in Chicago 'apprenticeship' is a word that is thrown out there a lot. http://www.8thlight.com/apprenticeship https://engineering.groupon.com/2012/software-apprenticeship... https://www.devmynd.com/jobs/apprenticeship

What distinguishes an apprenticeship from just a standard junior developer job?

Lower pay.

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#156
post #29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i do have a github, but i don't think i would call it "good": https://github.com/mmcru?tab=repositories i can definitely improve it, and that is something i have been working on. thanks for the advice though; i really appreciate it. i agree with you that ideally i would be working under some more senior programmers to improve my skills.

I also took a look at your contributions - looks a bit spotty! https://github.com/mmcru No activity in the last month? Something I personally would pick up on.

Private Repo activity doesn't show up though, so it's not the best metric to take a look at.

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#157
We're actually conducting a survey aimed at measuring the effectiveness of code bootcamps (as far as job placement rates, average salary, etc.)

If you're recently graduated from a code bootcamp, take the survey and share your experiences: http://www.codejobs.io/surveys/codebootcamp/student

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#158
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why I always use PHP as an introductory language if I have to teach web dev; the setup part is much more straightforward than it is for Rails/Django/etc., and you don't have to spend a ton of time teaching dozens of concepts (MVC, routes, templating, git, unit tests, ORMs, etc.) before the students can have mini web apps written. Some programmers balk at the idea of teaching PHP with plain HTML/CSS instea…

Flask. Flask Flask Flask. It's well-documented, in Python, and you can push it to Heroku easy as pie. You can add things like templates (they're built in, and can be really simple) or just concatenate HTML the old-fashioned way. You can program very imperatively and work up to abstractions. It's very friendly. I haven't seen it used as an introductory "language" but I feel like it would work well.

I can imagine Heroku being easy as pie when everything works, but it is a pain in the arse when it doesn't (I have pushed 3 small Django apps to Heroku, its not easy to debug errors).

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#159
post #3

Excellent how this problem is continuously attempted to be solved. As a wannabe programmer, one thing I always lacked from these sites was the ability to somehow see my code live. I.e. it's fun to write html and css on codecademy or python from LPTHW or whatever but how on earth do I get it on the web or assembled into .app? In actuality, the complexity that surrounds DNS providers, server apps (or whatever you call…

>In actuality, the complexity that surrounds DNS providers, server apps (or whatever you call filezilla etc), server providers (here i mean heroku, AWS, Cloudflare etc), those weird githubs and repos that people chat about etc etc, is way more deterring than actually learning what a "class" is. That stuff is 80% of practical software engineering. The other 20% is communicating with other people. If you want to be goo…

The problem is you learn something well, then all the hipsters tell you that it needs to be done in Mongo / Node / / whatever the latest fad is.

Re: A Site That Teaches You to Code Well Enough to Get a Job

#160
Interesting idea - and great that so many are helping in contributing exercises.

  To solve the problem, she created a site last year that presents the
  practice problems and prevents students from being able to move on to the
  next ones without submitting a solution to the previous problem.
I think that Project Euler, https://projecteuler.net/, has a better implementation of this. All problems are available, but they become harder and harder (at least in the beginning - they might level out now). That already is a stimulus to solve the problems in the intended order, in addition to the 'level degrees' awarded after solving a batch of problems.

Additionally, the Project Euler forum in which solutions are shared and discussed is only available once you've submitted the correct solution.

OK, back to Euler. I'm close to a next level award...

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