ohdannyboy

I've come to despise coding boot camps, they are just so predatory. They have no academic standards, no standardization, and they promise the world. I took the more traditional CS degree route but understand it's not the best path for everyone. However, bootcamps aren't the new way and probably never will be (I expect them to take their place next to DeVry and other university level scams advertising on daytime television).

Entry level programmers are told that there is a huge demand. There is a huge demand, but everyone wants at least some experience. Some will do personal projects, maybe work at a chop shop for a few months and work their way in. Others won't or never get past the project phase. Coding bootcamps come in and claim to bridge that gap for an exorbitant price. The attitude is so often "just pay for this piece of paper and get a job." Students pay up front and are left out on their ass when they realize it was a scam.

Unfortunately by the time I see people get desperate enough to buy a piece of paper from a bootcamp I think they should either work on their soft skills or reconsider this industry altogether. I personally know a few people who either have gone or are considering such programs and they all lack passion. They only want to program because they see it as a stable line of employment. Hiring managers can see this from a mile away and lose interest. If it's just a lack of soft skills then learn how to sell yourself and communicate your interest. But if you don't really want this and can't bridge the gap then I'd find something else to do.

Doing a quick review of the literature I can find shows we don't have a completely clear picture yet. The link in young children is definitive and the link in adolescents is murky but it looks like one of many risk factors. I am inclined to entirely disregard the linked study as garbage since it gives a very definitive black-and-white answer that is in opposition to highly cited literature. I think the main reason it is at the top of HN is that we want this to be the simple black-and-white answer.

As someone who grew up with violent video games I think this issue is taken way too personally by most of us. The idea that video games will necessarily make you violent is absurd and not being proposed by anyone (that is mostly a straw man used to dismiss the idea). The question is whether violent video games can push some kids over the edge -- kids who are already predisposed to violence. Imagine an abused kid with no farther figure who would probably be a violent teen anyways. Will playing violent videogames numb him to the idea of killing, give him neural pathways that make the repetitive action more likely and start him with some bad ideas? Could it be the difference between him getting in some fist fights and indiscriminately murdering schoolchildren? The answer looks like "yes."

The case made in the book On Combat is very interesting. That book is considered one of the definitive secondary works on combat psychology and he spends significant time on this question. I strongly recommend the book.

So now we know that Bobby Tables grew up to be a musician. (https://xkcd.com/327/)

Fair enough, I'm probably being overly cynical.

Nothing, it's clickbait that hits on two common HN sentiments (yay Linux and fuck Google).

It's Chromium based so heavily influenced by Google.

I've trained multiple teams to use Git (which means I've been their on-call tech support) and I agree the learning curve is tough. However I argue that the value added is so high that the initial curve is worthwhile. I usually start by explaining that Git was made by kernel coders who like low level access, so git hides nothing from you and provides a very generic solution that works for almost everyones use case. GUI tools will cover you in simplest of scenarios, but it's a matter of time until you need to do something marginally complex and are left hanging out to dry. I advise not using them at all because the details they hide are the only thing that will help you understand the advanced features.

Once you're over the hump the system is very intuitive. I liken it to awk or sed which beginners often find incomprehensible, until they understand what the tools do at which point they become simple. There's a lot of good resources out there and StackOverflow has almost every question imaginable already asked and answered.

Yeah, Windows Update was the main thing that motivated to switch to Linux for daily use. Nothing else presented a big enough pain point to motivate a full switch -- I was mostly happy using Windows and SSHing into Linux to work. I often leave my computer on overnight with the expectation I can pick up whatever I was doing, but Windows Update would force reboot without warning me ahead of time and I'd lose all my stuff. Many times I needed to start my computer and do something right away, but Update decided it needed the next 20 minutes. I remember one particular instance when I needed to shut my laptop down to put in my backback (it was pouring outside) and get to a class, but when I shut down it went into a lengthy update without giving me an option to skip.

On Linux I am rarely if ever compelled to reboot unless I upgrade the kernel and want to use specific features like virtualization. There's just no going back once you get used to this.