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

The Apprentice Programmer

tobi.lutke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 156 posts

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#41

Post by invalidOrTaken »

dxbydt wrote: post #38

I simply do not understand this anti-college anti-credentialling sentiment. I am featured in the latest Hacker Monthly ( print version of HN). So they asked me for a bio. I wrote something about how I learnt everything in college...am not a hacker...and that you should go to grad school if you want to get better at CS. So they edited out all of the pro-college stuff and just said this guy is data scientist. You don't…

Is it intrinsic to this treasure trove that the knowledge it contains must be transmitted for pay, with exercises to be completed on a deadline, and with little choice on the learner's part as to what is learned?

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#42

Post by keithpeter »

doktrin wrote: post #20
templaedhel wrote: post #5

I feel like confirmation bias is in play when you read about successful people who have dropped out of school, succeed, and then blogged about it. You have to keep in mind the hordes of people who have followeded a similar path only to archive not enough to blog about. Self education may appeal to many of us here, but it applies to less than it appeals to.

> Self education may appeal to many of us here, but it applies to less than it appeals to. That's missing the major point of the piece, IMHO. The OP isn't describing "self education", and (coming from a US perspective) is not even a typical drop out. What's being described here is a vocational pattern of learning, where on-the-job experience is backed up with classroom instruction. That's not exactly what "drop out"…

Yup. In the UK we are trying to reconstruct the 'dual system' and we have things that are called apprenticeships but not quite as well organised as the ones they have in Germany. The OP is not a drop-out. He has followed an established path!

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#43

Post by jonheller »

dxbydt wrote: post #38

I simply do not understand this anti-college anti-credentialling sentiment. I am featured in the latest Hacker Monthly ( print version of HN). So they asked me for a bio. I wrote something about how I learnt everything in college...am not a hacker...and that you should go to grad school if you want to get better at CS. So they edited out all of the pro-college stuff and just said this guy is data scientist. You don't…

I agree. I feel as though my time spent in computer science courses in undergrad and, even more so, graduate school, helped me be a better programmer than I could have hoped than if I had spent those years just programming instead. It taught me to think differently.

Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone. A huge number of people skip computer science degrees and are still highly successful.

But one swallow does not a summer make, which seems to be the approach of many of these articles: Hey, look at me, I didn't go to college and I'm successful!

This seems to be an argument that is very difficult for either side to argue, because I don't see a way you could really look at a statistical analysis of the careers of CS grads versus non grads and make some kind of conclusion.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#44

Post by Fargren »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #41
dxbydt wrote: post #38

I simply do not understand this anti-college anti-credentialling sentiment. I am featured in the latest Hacker Monthly ( print version of HN). So they asked me for a bio. I wrote something about how I learnt everything in college...am not a hacker...and that you should go to grad school if you want to get better at CS. So they edited out all of the pro-college stuff and just said this guy is data scientist. You don't…

Is it intrinsic to this treasure trove that the knowledge it contains must be transmitted for pay, with exercises to be completed on a deadline, and with little choice on the learner's part as to what is learned?

No, it mustn't be transmitted for pay. In Argentina, for example, public college is good and free.

More importantly to your question, teaching a hard curriculum to a lot of students at the same time is a hard problem, and exercises with deadlines and relatively tight syllabus are a method that has been shown, for many years, to work for a large number of people. It certainly doesn't work for everyone, it certainly isn't the best way to learn, but it's an effective tool for the problem at hand.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#45

Post by soneca »

jmduke wrote: post #39
dxbydt wrote: post #38

I simply do not understand this anti-college anti-credentialling sentiment. I am featured in the latest Hacker Monthly ( print version of HN). So they asked me for a bio. I wrote something about how I learnt everything in college...am not a hacker...and that you should go to grad school if you want to get better at CS. So they edited out all of the pro-college stuff and just said this guy is data scientist. You don't…

I agree with what you're saying, but I think that sentiment is more present in HN's comments on the submission than the submission itself.

Exactly. I feel like every topic that enters HN become a replication of some of the old HN discussions. The post is much more about creating an institution of educating people that is alternative to high school/college than about diminish the value of college. The author actually explicitly says that this is common in Germany.

And saying that personal experiences in college was important to oneself, so everybody should try is the same that saying that my personal exeperiences in playing competitive soccer were important to me, so everybody should try.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#46

Post by seferphier »

dxbydt wrote: post #38

I simply do not understand this anti-college anti-credentialling sentiment. I am featured in the latest Hacker Monthly ( print version of HN). So they asked me for a bio. I wrote something about how I learnt everything in college...am not a hacker...and that you should go to grad school if you want to get better at CS. So they edited out all of the pro-college stuff and just said this guy is data scientist. You don't…

Author is simply trying to say that going to college was not for him since he is a kinesthetic learner and prefers learn by doing.

I believe he is advocating a dual system of education with a combination of college or apprenticeship since there are different types of learners out there. College is the 'only way out' for many people, otherwise you would be considered a failure and cannot find a job.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#47

Post by kostya-kow »

ahoyhere wrote: post #24
templaedhel wrote: post #5

I feel like confirmation bias is in play when you read about successful people who have dropped out of school, succeed, and then blogged about it. You have to keep in mind the hordes of people who have followeded a similar path only to archive not enough to blog about. Self education may appeal to many of us here, but it applies to less than it appeals to.

There's also a bias if you look at dropouts as a homogeneous group, because they aren't. It's just as ludicrous to predict the same outcome for someone like me, who was always way ahead and bored to death of school, and a poor kid from the city or country who couldn't read at grade level. I doubt Tobi ever had reading comprehension problems and I bet he was passionate about his hobby leading up to his track switch. A…

I completely agree with you. You expressed exactly what I was thinking.

I am 15, and I am planning to drop out of school.

It is extremely frustrating trying to persuade my parents that dropping out of school doesn't mean I am giving up on life, and that I am not a failure.

I cannot function in this artificial society that exists in schools, and I learn much better by myself. Finishing school would be complete waste of my time, for a stupid piece of paper. During this day and age, it is extremely easy to attain knowledge for free without attending any institutions. Currently, I have several dozen textbooks on my kindle, and I am taking 3 classes at Coursera.

My parents are trying to compare me to all the stupid kids that usually drop out, and I cannot comprehend their close-mindedness and ignorance.

Because of their stupidity and effort to "help" me, I may even end up homeless by the end of this year.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#48

Post by shanelja »

oliverhunt wrote: post #12
shanelja wrote: post #8

I was an apprentice, fairly recently actually, only last year. I loved it - the crappy pay, the meaningless jobs and the terrible teaching aside - I found that I was in my element. Half my life I've been fascinated with computers, for a quarter of it, I've been actively building programs to populate them, replacing the typical childhood experience with code and logic. When I got my first job in programming I had been…

What country do you live in and what company did you do your apprenticeship with?

I live in the UK, in the north, the company was tiny: www.cicsolutions.co.uk, only a small 3 person company, don't get me wrong, they were a great bunch of people, but the teaching style was all wrong - I was punished severely for infrequent mistakes (accidentally deleting a CSS file instead of renaming it, there was no backup system etc in place) - and the money was fairly horrific.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#49

Post by xal »

seubert wrote: post #23
ender7 wrote: post #21

The OP was incredibly lucky to find a mentor like Jurgen. Being handed a thoroughly "proofread" review of your work is perhaps the best way to improve at almost anything. Unfortunately, creating such high quality feedback demands more time than most people are willing to spend, especially if it's above and beyond their normal duties.

I wonder if a company that stressed a role like this up the career ladder as an alternative to a high-level architect role would see much success.

we are actively pursuing this idea at Shopify.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#50

Post by jakobe »

dxbydt wrote: post #38

I simply do not understand this anti-college anti-credentialling sentiment. I am featured in the latest Hacker Monthly ( print version of HN). So they asked me for a bio. I wrote something about how I learnt everything in college...am not a hacker...and that you should go to grad school if you want to get better at CS. So they edited out all of the pro-college stuff and just said this guy is data scientist. You don't…

> Don't downplay education.

Are you saying that training on the job with a good mentor, with classes once a week, does not qualify as "education"?

Post reply on HN