381–390 of 449 posts
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My first attempt or two learning Rails ended up this way, but I really got it once I had SQL down. In a/A we built our own stripped down, minimal versions of ActiveRecord and Rails. This ended up connecting all of the dots for me.
What is "a/A"?
Bootcamps teach students programming, definitely not CS. I highly doubt they could teach a student 4 years of CS material in 3 months.
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Perhaps we should think of graduating as simply 'finishing' the curriculum. If you paid course fees and did the work, you should be able to walk out and say 'I am a C student at RoR' with a certificate. A company which hires through boot camps can ask for grades and choose to hire or not. A C level student with other skills may still be valuable because of other skills they have and employable for junior or non dev r…
How does the company/school defend its brand against the C students sending out resumes that say "I am a student at RoR' with a certificate" and leaving out the grade part?
There are several factors that don't enter this analysis. 1. Bootcamps can be selective over a range of non-academic criteria such as interview skills, personal hygene, and prior work experience. Or to put it another way, unlike a public university, a boot camp can select for culture fit both in its internal cohorts and in the workplaces it targets. 2. Bootcamps tend to attract people with previous work experience: s…
I have a different perspective on point 5. One of the things that attracted me to Flatiron School was their audited jobs placement report. Very detailed statistics about how many students graduate, how long it takes them to find jobs, and how much they earn. I've never seen traditional colleges hold themselves to that standard of disclosure. I think there are a couple reasons bootcamps are especially successful compa…
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How are bootcamps any different than vocational schools?
They're not. I've said this before [1], but bootcamps are training programming's equivalent to the technician. Techs have a very needed place. A technician can become a master of a trade, and with experience design something that's awesome (see motorcycle craftsman). However, a technician will likely not design a Turbofan engine from scratch. Code camps are (in my opinion) a sign that programming is bifurcating into…
My understanding of the divide is roughly, "I may not understand all of the theory, but I have a practical understanding of the formulas and how/where to use them to get the job done" vs "I can design a Turbofan engine from scratch".
Since moving to software, it seems there's little preventing anyone who can sling some code from calling themselves Software Engineers, for better or for worse. Personally, since my programming skills are all self-taught, I feel like a technician in my day-to-day work, but I also feel the pressure to present myself as a software engineer for cultural and professional reasons.
Unfortunately, it seems the closest term we seem have to describe something like a "software technician" is the pejorative "code monkey", which doesn't do justice to the actual role of technician.
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I hate to nitpick but I think music is a particularly bad example here. The vast majority of music as we know it is outsider art. The people I went to music conservatory with are largely not the same people who produce either music that you've heard or great works. Sure, the self-taught pop star isn't going to write Rite of Spring anytime soon, but the music business does just fine while being flooded by people with…
Nope, you're just being a snob. Plenty of "outsider pop stars" (and their songwriters and producers) know music theory just fine and many even went to Berklee/Juilliard/whatever conservatory you're thinking of.
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My girlfriend did a bootcamp. It was a very useful experience, and overall we would recommend it. All your points are valid, including the last one unfortunately. That was the one black point about my gf's experience when she was having trouble finding something that suited her: they dangled the threat of dropping her from their network. Also, I should add that bootcamps like hers aren't a "Zero to Hero" offering. Th…
Which bootcamp?
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I did math and physics in undergrad and math in grad school, and IMO they do more for critical thinking than CS. I too mainly care about how someone thinks, since the wrong implementation can be very costly, and strong thought processes can help pre-empt that greatly.
Maybe I'm biased -- my focuses in undergrad were on Theory and Modeling & Simulation -- pretty much I took a bunch of math and algorithms.
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They're not. I've said this before [1], but bootcamps are training programming's equivalent to the technician. Techs have a very needed place. A technician can become a master of a trade, and with experience design something that's awesome (see motorcycle craftsman). However, a technician will likely not design a Turbofan engine from scratch. Code camps are (in my opinion) a sign that programming is bifurcating into…
I came to the comments to see if anyone had already commented on the engineer vs technician aspect of this. My experience is that the divide is much more established in the Mechanical Engineering world, where the difference in what you learn in school and the role that you play in industry is much more pronounced as a result of having e.g. a B.S. in ME vs an associates degree in something like Engineering Tech. My un…
I fully support the development of a "software tech" career that isn't - at least at the start - "software engineer".