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The Apprentice Programmer

tobi.lutke.com

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Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#91

Post by cliftonmckinney »

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 think where the college and credentials bit is failing--for me at least--is the lack of differentiation between "learning to do" and "learning to think." I went to a liberal arts college and spent most of my four years learning to think. Liberal Arts are good for that kind of thing, and depending on your background (I'm not the product of highly educated parents) it can be extremely useful and a completely justified reason for going to college. One can learn to think elsewhere, but college is still a great place to do it.

As recently as ten years ago, it was impossible to learn to do outside of a formal training program, but today it's completely possible to learn to do almost anything via Youtube, iTunes, and the rest of the internet. And the problem is that today's university system--except in fairly rare cases--actually hinders learning to do. The world outside moves too fast for the educational bureaucracy to keep up. Formal education is valuable, but maybe more for learning to think than learning to do, at least in modern times.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#93

Post by hluska »

LVB wrote: post #71
aviraldg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't sound like "anti-college anti-credentialling" at all. All the OP was trying to say was that the traditional method of teaching ie. "all theory" didn't work for him, while a mixed hands-on/practical/theoretical approach did. Your comment, while true, is fairly irrelevant in context of this article.

So what did the OP really mean by this: Not that degrees matter anymore. They do not. Experience does.

I think that it's more useful to look at the whole paragraph that that quote comes from:

"Not that degrees matter anymore. They do not. Experience does. That is one of the things my apprenticeship and the dual education system in general taught me: experiencing and learning things quickly is the ultimate life skill. If you can do that, you can conjure up impossible situations for yourself over and over again and succeed."

This is only my opinion, but when I look at the OP's statement in that context, I think that he's arguing that a credential isn't as important as the ability to trust that you learn your way through hard problems as they come up. In that regard, I completely agree with him. I think we all know some people with great educations who, when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, will spend days finding literature to support the conclusion that the problem can't be solved. And conversely, we also know people with little education who look at insurmountable problems as fun projects. Personally, I suspect that this difference comes down to attitude and experience. On one hand, it takes a really great attitude to consistently stare down difficult problems. But on the other hand, I think that with experience comes confidence and solving really hard problems takes as much confidence as diligence.

That is, of course, all my opinion and there's a high probability that I'm wrong....

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#94

Post by yarou »

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 wouldn't characterize his post as anti-college in the least. It's cheap to say that Tobi's post espouses only one viewpoint; rather, he's giving an anecdote that suggests there's more than one way to do it when it comes to a career.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#95

Post by invalidOrTaken »

tmarthal wrote: post #66
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Have you ever seriously considered PhD programs? No one that I've ever heard of has ever had to pay tuition to attend college for their PhD (myself included). It is usually a "work exchange for education"; a research or teaching assistantship while taking classes and writing a dissertation. And to say that the learner does not get to decide what they will research for their dissertation is just flat-out wrong. It is…

Honestly, that sounds like paradise to me, but for some reason I wish I could fully identify and figure out how to beat, I've been unable to negotiate undergrad.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#96

Post by pascalo »

Good article, and most of it sounds very familiar. I went through the apprenticeship system in Germany after dropping out of Uni (I guess I wasn't cut out for German literature and philosophy after all).

At the time there was a true disconnect between the real industry and the schooling part of things, mainly due to the fact that unlike baker of carpenter, front-end programming was such a new thing, so it got thrown into the same basket as print publishing, and thus I had to spend my once-weekly days at school memorizing various paper-fold patterns and Colorspace and DPI settings which were highly irrelevant to what I was doing throughout my days building websites at a digital media agency.

Like the OP, I got taken under the wing by a guy called Thomas, who was a pretty decent coder, and to whom I owe a lot.

Germany wasn't doing so well economically at the time, so shortly after I migrated to the UK. My three years of industry-relevant experience gave me a great base to build my career upon, for which I am thankful to this day.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#97

Post by MikeKusold »

terhechte wrote: post #13
jmduke wrote: post #9

This is well written, but I feel as though I'm missing something. The best way to get better at being a career programmer is to be a career programmer. This is understandable! And the author's initiative at 16 years of age to identify his passions and stick with them at the exclusion of higher education is commendable. But I've learned a whole, whole lot in college -- and yes, I completely agree with the author that…

I did both, I first did an apprenticeship, and then some time after that went to college. I think that's a great way to do it, because I first learned the pragmatic way, and then could expand it with theory. In addition to that (I think), I had matured enough when college started, to better decide what to do, which courses to choose. I wholeheartedly agree on all the other things you list about college; doing an appr…

I wish I did things this way. In college I formed a lot of uneducated opinions (why would you ever not have a completely normalized database? That's dumb) that only thanks to my extensive coop experience did I retrospectively see the value of.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#98

Post by TheEzEzz »

jmduke wrote: post #9

This is well written, but I feel as though I'm missing something. The best way to get better at being a career programmer is to be a career programmer. This is understandable! And the author's initiative at 16 years of age to identify his passions and stick with them at the exclusion of higher education is commendable. But I've learned a whole, whole lot in college -- and yes, I completely agree with the author that…

Most kids don't actually read Milton or Bradbury in college when it's assigned. On the other hand, people who do want to read classics can do so while also being a software developer.

I'm all for enrichment, and I did enrich myself in college, but no more than I do on my own now that I'm in the real world.

(Edit: Also, I didn't learn how to really party until after college =)

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#99

Post by lucian303 »

Great article. I think this is really the only way to help people learn real world skills. So many college grads have a lot of theory but no real world practice.

It also helps the people who take apprentices on, as teaching is learning.

Re: The Apprentice Programmer

#100

Post by [deleted] »

LVB wrote: post #71
aviraldg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't sound like "anti-college anti-credentialling" at all. All the OP was trying to say was that the traditional method of teaching ie. "all theory" didn't work for him, while a mixed hands-on/practical/theoretical approach did. Your comment, while true, is fairly irrelevant in context of this article.

So what did the OP really mean by this: Not that degrees matter anymore. They do not. Experience does.

[deleted]
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