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They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

nytimes.com

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Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#81

Post by GordonS »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #43
DoctorOetker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree about the 16 weeks = 4 months being insufficient: I think we can all agree that most of the coal miners went to school in a different era, and so probably never had much of a high school education, and even if they did we can all agree that half a career in the coal mines (combined with the prospect of working there until retirement) would pretty much obliterate the motivation to keep up your high sch…

I think people need to realize that these boot camps are a start, not an end. They give you the minimal viable education to do the job. After that, you need to keep educating yourself.

> They give you the minimal viable education to do the job

I think they given you the minimum viable education to be employed as a junior dev at some companies - which is a far cry from how bootcamps advertise themselves.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#82

Post by rayiner »

This is a byproduct of the (in my view, very positive) tradition in programming of not requiring a college degree. It offers the political class an easy message for dealing with the ramifications of the jobs exodus in places like Appalachia. Nobody would suggest, for example, training people up as doctors or lawyers or accountants to be a solution to that problem. The degree requirements are a signal: “this is not for everyone.” With programming, politicians have gotten this idea that because there are no formal educational requirements, programming and “tech” jobs are an avenue for employing the large numbers of economically displaced. But of course, programming is hard. Most people don’t have the analytical/mathematical mindset necessary to be even competent programmers. All of these coding boot camps and public programs just capitalize on this misconception and wishful thinking.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#83

Post by coconut_crab »

My experience with code bootcamp trained developers is positive, due to the follow reasons:

- Most of them have engineering background: electrical engineering, civil engineering, petroleum engineering.

- Since they lack formal education in IT, they have to train twice as hard, which our company encourages (2 months of probation = 2 months of training, it's almost impossible to find developer with Scala experience around here anyway).

- We work with the Bootcamp to improve their program: giving reference to 'hard', 'theoretical' books such as Algorithms & Datastructure or Database Design and cutting down some unnecessary parts.

- Most importantly, we strongly prefer people who switched to IT because they actually love programming, not just looking for higher wage.*

* It may sound weird but actually many people here didn't picked their university by themselves but by the guidance of their parent, so they might study something else than their favourite.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#84

Post by esoterica »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #5

I know I'll catch flak for this, but where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from? Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity, without delving into the capability side. What makes anyone think that they can take a bunch of people who never or barely passed highschool and have been working in a mine for a decade+ and teach them this? By all means subsidize a laptop and point them at some great onli…

So you think you can code because you're a natural born genius with a special intelligence that other plebs don't have, and they will never catch up to you no matter how hard they try because their brains just ain't made right? That's not self serving and egotistic at all.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#85

Post by shiburizu »

tyingq wrote: post #36
chillacy wrote: post #3

That’s disappointing. I remember I was very supportive of coding as trade education when I first heard of it but it hasn’t really panned out. I can’t quite decide if it’s because we’re bad at teaching (the example in the article seems like an execution failure) or if it’s fundamentally infeasible (programming is hard and unintuitive for most people).

16 weeks is just unrealistic though. Credible auto mechanic trade schools are a year or so. And once you graduate, there's plenty of low end work for you to earn your keep while you continue to skill up.

This is correct. Actual trade approach to coding basically doesn't exist because people are sold on learning to code in a couple of months versus year or two, which I think would easily land people some jobs in web or junior devs.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#86

Post by ConnorLeet »

Sharlin wrote: post #73
gingabriska wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've no idea why coding should be anymore special than basic reading/writing skills. Code is a way to express solution to the problem which a computer can execute. If you can learn any language, you can learn coding too. Sure, not everyone can understand intricacies of the algorithm design and data structure gotchas but some of that can come as experience and curiousity. Question worth asking is that, does everyone n…

It’s the problem-solving, not the language part, that requires special aptitude. You might speak a dozen languages but it doesn’t help if you don’t know what to say. Besides, have you tried to learn a new natural language in adulthood? A bootcamp won’t get you far. And natural languages are really forgiving in comparison because you’re communicating with a human-level intelligence that’s used to inferring meaning fro…

Are problem solving skills something you are born with? To me the mismatch is that a traditional CS student spends more time practicing problem solving via homework and exam/exam prep.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#87

Post by mothsonasloth »

jen20 wrote: post #77
zaphar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Nothing about that reason has any bearing on whether you will be any good at it. Passion provides motivation to gain skill but it's not the only thing that can provide motivation. It's not even the only reliable motivator. Having a better career or pay can also be pretty reliable motivator.

Dismissing someone as “not serious” because of their reasons for following a particular career path says a lot more about the person doing the dismissing than those being dismissed. By the parent’s criteria, I am “not serious”. My record on OSS and early work at companies which were acquired or have outsized valuations suggests the parent is 100% wrong, however.

Fair enough but what you have said shows to me that you are most likely a 10x'er, therefore I would say you're in a different league altogether.

Tell me, when you typed your first line of "Hello world" in C, Python etc. Was your motivation to have an easy life?

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#88

Post by rahimnathwani »

voidhorse wrote: post #51
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #5

I know I'll catch flak for this, but where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from? Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity, without delving into the capability side. What makes anyone think that they can take a bunch of people who never or barely passed highschool and have been working in a mine for a decade+ and teach them this? By all means subsidize a laptop and point them at some great onli…

I disagree. I think with the right levels of exposure at the early stages of education “coding” can become a proficiency just as common as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Of course, just like those skills, people will pursue programming to varying depths, some will determine to study advanced topics while others will remain “coders at the 6th grade level”. Not everyone will go into CS and develop new data structure…

"I disagree. I think with the right levels of exposure at the early stages of education..."

Right, but that doesn't help today's adults trying to switch careers, as they're past that stage.

"just as most people can perform easy calculations"

That's true by definition, i.e. you would only count a calculation as 'easy' if most people can perform it.

But, based on the results of surveys like the 2015 FINRA financial capability survey, I guess that if you're talking about calculations that >50% of US adults can perform, you're excluding things that most readers of this site would consider 'easy', e.g.:

"What happens if you start with 950, and it grows by 20% each year for 2 years?"

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#89

Post by PorterDuff »

hirundo wrote: post #44
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #5

I know I'll catch flak for this, but where did this idea that "anyone can learn to code" come from? Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity, without delving into the capability side. What makes anyone think that they can take a bunch of people who never or barely passed highschool and have been working in a mine for a decade+ and teach them this? By all means subsidize a laptop and point them at some great onli…

> Coding requires a certain drive and curiosity > By all means subsidize a laptop If you have a certain drive and curiosity for coding the price of a used low-end laptop is unlikely to be a significant barrier, when adequate new ones are available from Walmart for $159. I just found a 3 year old Chromebook on ebay for $57, or around 10 hours work at the federal minimum wage after taxes. And there's a salutary pride o…

Exactly. After years of getting highest-end company-supplied desktops, one of my holy missions is to reduce the cost of home computing. Typing on my eBay Chromebook, desktop box is a $35 i5 Optiplex running Qubes. There's better things to spend your money on.

Re: They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

#90

Post by rayiner »

vsskanth wrote: post #46
erentz wrote: post #20

The “anyone can code” and “just learn to code” phenomena needs to die in a fire. This reminds me of many other scams in our education system, it’s disgusting how much money is being leeched out of people on private “schools”. This “anyone can code” idea is actually an easy thing to test if we were serious and honest about it. But we are not. And I believe boot camps give a false sense that more people are successful…

As a counter-point, I would like to point out India's IT industry. When the IT outsourcing industry was booming and there was a serious programmer shortage, outsourcing firms such as Infosys, Cognizant, Tata would hire college graduates en-masse regardless of major (like, entire batch of 20XX would get a job offer). They would then spend 6 months actually training them and weeding out poor performers. The ones who ge…

That’s not really a counterpoint. As I understand it, the Infosys folks in India are a much more select portion of the population than “displaced former miners in Appalachia.” Well under 10% of Indians even have a college degree, and 80% of those are unemployed at graduation. The folks getting job offers from Infosys, etc., are in a fairly elite set to begin with.
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