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Coding academies are nonsense

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Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#51

Post by captn3m0 »

bjwbell wrote: post #12
captn3m0 wrote: post #2

While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks), it tries almost too hard to scare people away from programming. >Would I like to type text files for hours a day? The bulk of my time is spent thinking, not typing. >Am I comfortable being a digital construction worker? Programming is a creative job that the author is trying to sound so mundane and boring. Yes,…

I like to think programming is about being creative...but reality has stared at me too long. The large majority of it IS mundane and boring. I just looked at the commit log for my current project, https://github.com/bjwbell/gensimd/commits/master (SIMD in Go), and ~90% of the commits are boring. I still feel very excited about it, perhaps I'm unbalanced.

For me, even if the smaller portions might be mundane, its the whole itself that is a creation by me. Look at that website: I made that. That tiny wiggle animation that brings a smile to your face: I made that happen.

Sure, it took me 10 minutes of googling and hunting stack-overflow to workaround some weird browser issue, but the end result is definitely creative. Its not about programming as an activity, but the end-result of the activity, which is a creation.

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#52

Post by captn3m0 »

apitaru wrote: post #30
marvel_boy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a programming bootcamp and I can tell you that is a complete scam. Yes, everybody knows the wonderful feeling of having your code.... but this is related with a marketing scam where students pay thousands of dollars for nothing.

Yes, as in any field I'm sure there are scammers out there, or even just poorly conceived programs. So maybe what we need is a review site for these academies.

I'd love to see something like this. I mentor a lot of people and I'm always asked about particular programs, but I can rarely recommend anything in particular because I am not aware of anyone else who might have graduated from there.

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#53

Post by trowawee »

>In 15 years, those hard-won skills will be obsolete — if they ever stuck in the first place.

Whoa, holy shit, if you don't learn new things, you'll stagnate? Who could have guessed? Good point, bro, no one has made that observation ever before and it totally only applies to people who graduate from bootcamps, not to, oh, I dunno, literally any coder in the world.

Know why I like coding bootcamps? Because I left teaching, went to a bootcamp, and doubled my salary. And my job's fun and rewarding and I get to learn stuff constantly and then go home and put that stuff to use on projects that I do for myself.

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#55

Post by trowawee »

AlbertoGP wrote: post #50
asdfzxc wrote: post #5

Writer quotes Scratch and NLTK , as state-of-the-art tools which will take my coding jobs way... How afraid should I be?

:-) I know that's a rhetorical question, but I can say that I tried Scratch briefly on a Raspberry Pi and not the slightest worry about keeping my job ever crossed my mind, and that from using NLTK the following blog post is spot on: http://spacy.io/blog/dead-code-should-be-buried/ I've tried teaching programming to friends with STEM university degrees that were doing it as part of their jobs, and the results are in…

I don't believe that there's a tiny percentage that have the talent for it; coding is a skill like most skills that can be learned and improved via practice. I'm not trying to be mean, but you're probably not a great teacher. That's not a knock on you, it's just that teaching is hard (and it's a skill that can be learned and improved via practice).

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#56

Post by phpnode »

scotty79 wrote: post #48
phpnode wrote: post #3

> Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Stopped reading there, despite predictions this has not happened in the last 20 years and I see no evidence that it will happen in the next 20.

Like good enough voice recognition? The fact that we dreamed about computers and robots since first mechanical automatons, perhaps earlier and for many years we couldn't crack it doesn't mean that we haven't and we won't. I think the author is wrong but not because we won't have visual building blocks and flexible language interfaces. Rather because event if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does f…

> even if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does for you using visual building blocks and English language you still end up with pretty tangled mess that only real programmer could have patience for.

Sorry, I should have been less succinct - I totally agree with you, visual languages already exist and are improving all the time. I don't believe that they will lead to a world without programmers for the reasons you state. They are just another way to express syntax, they don't reduce the complexity of the actual problem being solved.

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#57

Post by djur »

scotty79 wrote: post #48
phpnode wrote: post #3

> Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Stopped reading there, despite predictions this has not happened in the last 20 years and I see no evidence that it will happen in the next 20.

Like good enough voice recognition? The fact that we dreamed about computers and robots since first mechanical automatons, perhaps earlier and for many years we couldn't crack it doesn't mean that we haven't and we won't. I think the author is wrong but not because we won't have visual building blocks and flexible language interfaces. Rather because event if you try to describe what you induction cooking plate does f…

Voice recognition is not "good enough" yet. It is better at simple commands than it used to be, and more ubiquitous, but it is still incredibly limited. Frankly, it's right up there with visual programming as a technology that's been touted as 5-10 years away from a breakthrough for decades.

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#58

Post by jseliger »

captn3m0 wrote: post #2

While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks), it tries almost too hard to scare people away from programming. >Would I like to type text files for hours a day? The bulk of my time is spent thinking, not typing. >Am I comfortable being a digital construction worker? Programming is a creative job that the author is trying to sound so mundane and boring. Yes,…

While I agree with some of the premise of the article (you can't become a great developer in a few weeks),

I don't think coding academies or the people in them would argue that you could become a great developer in a few weeks or even a year.

The other day I was talking to a friend who is doing one of the better reputation coding academies in NYC. She's learned a lot but also realizes how much more there is to learn, and she's also gone from knowing very little to understanding that coding academies operate primarily in one, high-level part of the tech stack. Over time she'll keep learning but she does have a job as a junior developer—which means someone, somewhere thinks she knows enough to be productive. AFAICT, that's what coding academies offer.

Which is, I suppose, what you say here:

The fact is that programming is a highly rewarding job (both financially and mentally). As long as there is a demand-supply gap in the industry, people will try to bridge that gap, by whatever methods. Coding academies are just one such method.

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#59

Post by wturner »

slavik81 wrote: post #4

> Visual content creation tools such as Scratch, DWNLD and Telerik will continue to improve until all functionality required to build apps is available to consumers — without having to write a line of code. > Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Advances in natural-language processing and conceptual modeling will remove the need for traditional coding fro…

The way I like to phrase it is that humans are in a perpetual loop of creating things that make life easier in one way yet inherently more complicated in others. Then the cycle repeats to compensate for the new situation. The more granular your understanding of this in a particular discipline ( it doesn't have to be programming but it can be ) the more valuable you will be. :)

Re: Coding academies are nonsense

#60

Post by dennisgorelik »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #9
slavik81 wrote: post #4

> Visual content creation tools such as Scratch, DWNLD and Telerik will continue to improve until all functionality required to build apps is available to consumers — without having to write a line of code. > Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Advances in natural-language processing and conceptual modeling will remove the need for traditional coding fro…

This is very true. The idea of visual programming has been around forever and there is nothing wrong with it inherently. It certainly hasn't quite delivered as expected. But even established visual programming environments (e.g. LabView) are a skill itself now.

> nothing wrong with it inherently

1) Code diffs are pathetic with visual programming.

2) Sharing code examples is very limited with visual programming.

3) Full-text search capabilities are pathetic with visual programming.

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