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They don't accept people who's never coded before, but you don't need to have coded a lot. (I was surprised at this news of someone who'd never coded at all -- I'd still guess it's just a slight exaggeration.)

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I just asked the guy. He had self-taught himself programming on his own for a few months prior to attending the program, but attended in part to make a career change (had done startup biz dev / operations / whatnot prior.) Maybe that counted, or maybe they just tightened the restriction since then.

That said, this was spring of 2012. I'm sure Hacker School has changed a lot since then! Suffice it to say he's a fabulous programmer now. :)

That's in line with my experience (fall '12). I just don't want anyone reading this to be discouraged from applying because they're not 'advanced' -- there was a Hacker School blog post on that pretty recently.

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