Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>I think people underestimate how difficult it is to teach yourself,

I wanted to give some counterpoint to that. The point is not to argue with you because you clearly felt that it was "difficult" so by extension, it makes sense to project the learning obstacles out the world so we know they are there. You felt there were hurdles and that's all in the past so we can't argue with what you felt.

(Hopefully, the above was said with enough empathy to not sound critical because one has to be open-minded about the following observation...)

There are others[1] who think that the discipline for self-teaching is the baseline skill for average computer programmers and that attending "coding bootcamps" is a negative signal. I believe the thinking is... if one requires coding bootcamps to learn Javascript/Ruby/Mongo, it doesn't instill confidence in the hiring manager that the person will be able to learn new topics on-the-job that will be more difficult, with an undefined curriculum, under tighter deadlines.

If people still want to say "fuck off" to the types of people that look down on coding bootcamps, that's fine as long you're aware that the hiring prejudices are out there and you have consciously chosen to ignore those companies.

[1] examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7600307

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12940314

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11732885

My point was not that the material itself was difficult to learn, but that knowing which direction to go in, or knowing what material to learn, was the more difficult part.

>, but that knowing which direction to go in

But the coding bootcamp's curriculum and sequencing isn't necessarily superior. It could be as arbitrary or suboptimal as any low-rated 1-star book on Amazon.

A curious programmer would actually be skeptical that the bootcamp has the proven syllabus for learning.

Therefore, find a 5-star book on Javascript/Ruby on Amazon, and start with Ch 1. What evidence (not marketing materials) would the novice programmer see that makes the coding bootcamp's sequencing superior to that?

It's not that it's superior, it's that it exists. Now I could easily go back and burn through what I learned in 1/10 the time, but in the beginning I didn't know where to start or what I needed to learn, and spent an insane amount of time flailing and jumping around. Imagine not knowing Java from JavaScript.

You get caught up in all the arguments about which language/framework/tech of the day is the best because you don't know any better. For example, my initial Google search led me to learn Haskell because it's "the best language", using Vim because it's "the best editor." Looking back that's silly and absurd, and most people would agree that's not a wise way to start (inb4 'Haskell is actually...') but I didn't know that then. You're flying completely blind.

Plus you are ignoring the social aspects of learning.

Straight book-learning is not a fit for everyone.

I hire junior engineers. When I am looking at a resume, I am looking for something that indicates success possibilities.

Many times I see the only programming experience as the bootcamp.

A 4 year CS degree means that the candidate had to stick with the CS for 4 years: 12x longer than the bootcamp. (I am assuming summer internships as well)

This time allows concepts to sink in, be reenforced by later classes, implications of choices to all be seen.

Human beings require a certain amount of time. Its not just the 10000 hours (or whatever) of training. I feel that it is the duration of time that the learning takes place that is also important.

Bootcamps are too short for the deep, deep learning needed.

I haven't yet interviewed a bootcamper (only) candidate that can answer questions beyond the basic phone screen. My only guess is that they have had all this knowledge thrown at them, and their brain hasn't yet sort things out.

Why take a candidate like this if I can get a BSCS candidate? And if I can't get a CS grad? I rather trim the work. I am not in the business of giving a 4year CS education.

You're comparing apples to oranges - of course 4 yrs is better than 3 months. Consider the same person at some point in the future, and it would be bootcamp grad + 3 years experience vs CS grad.

You could make a case for both at that point, but I'd guess many would be inclined to opt for a bootcamp grad + experience, all things being equal.

But you're suggesting that the employer should be paying for the remaining 3.75 years of experience. I'm certainly not going to hire someone who's going to require that sort of investment in comparison to a fresh college grad. You may as well just grab seemingly clever people off of the street.

Yup, that's one of the flaws of bootcamps. But that said, there's lots a bootcamp grad can do with relatively little training, and some of that are things that CS grads may struggle to do day one. A college grad, of course, will require some training too. Just a different level of it.

While a bootcamp graduate would require more investment than a college grad, it wouldn't be anywhere as high as 3.75 years, because college teaches you a lot of skills that aren't directly useful (Turing machines) or not in your domain (compilers or image processing) or not for several years. Training customised for your needs will be much more time-efficient.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com