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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

> I spent twelve weeks, ten to twelve hours per day, of my boot camp working primarily on algorithms and data structures, and was tested on that knowledge every three weeks. So that can’t be the skill I’m missing.

Wow, 3 whole months? I wonder why they didn't want bootcamp applicants...

But, in general, I agree. They should be filtering by ability rather than putting a blanket ban on people who have done a bootcamp. But playing devil's advocate, I can totally see why they put a blanket ban on people who have done a bootcamp.

Also, this article was flagged, and I vouched it as I don't think it's totally unsubstantive. But I would prefer it if we lost the stars from the title.

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I've worked with developers who have 20 years of development on their résumé who haven't spent 3 months thinking about data yet. I've also worked with interns who are weeks in to their first professional role who have taught me things about data I haven't seen before. Time served is a terrible way of measuring knowledge and passion for a subject.

Very true. There are devs that spent years of their careers changing magic numbers in code they never understood. I believe that a lot of comes down to attitude and eagerness to learn. Because some people maybe haven't even had the opportunity yet to think about data but would love to.

At the school I went to, Caltech, a typical computer science class was supposed to take 9 hours per week (3 hours in class, 6 hours outside of class for reading and homework).

12 weeks @ 10-12 hours/day on algorithms and data structures would be more time than one would have put into those subjects getting a CS degree from Caltech [1], so I wouldn't dismiss it based solely on it only being three months.

[1] well, it would have been if Caltech offered an undergraduate CS degree when I was there. At the time, they only had graduate degrees in CS. They had all the necessary classes available for undergraduates, but just didn't have the program. Those of us interested in CS would usually major in math or physics or EE, and simply take all the CS classes as electives.

there's no way those boot camp programs spend 10-12 hours a day on data structures and algorithms. that's hyperbole. they need to give their students vocational education on how to build web or mobile apps...how could they spend 100% of the time on algorithms?

The curriculum she mentions later on says "introduction to algorithms", but maybe she didn't do that bootcamp?

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