vinkelhake, you seem to be dead (for no discernible reason).
641 karma · joined August 11, 2011
I developed the original curriculum, taught the course, and trained several hundred students who subsequently became software engineers. It was very fun, and a privilege to work with so many talented and highly motivated students.
If you want to reach me, my email is ruggeri@self-loop.com.
PS: I'm extremely happy with Uber. My experience with calling cabs was forged on the south side of Chicago, where they seldom ever actually came. It was miserable.
Go is interesting and I really enjoyed channels, but no generic programming really disappointed me. I guess supporting the generic paradigm is pretty tricky (C++/Java templates/generics aren't dear to my heart), but not being able to implement map/filter/reduce functions...
This[0]?
[0]: http://serverfault.com/questions/385920/disable-networked-ta...
Others, if you haven't had a chance to read many legal journals, they are frequently filled with insightful, closely-researched discussions of interesting topics.
The scope of the law is very broad, and you can learn a lot about topics outside the law by reading legal journals.
The quality of the discussion and scholarship, as well as the level of debate, often puts mainstream journalism to shame.
I like how you ignore where I respond to a prior comment, describe the commenter's arguments as fair, and then address them one by one. Maybe you notice where I don't insult the guy who disagrees with me? You've now written 500+ words of arrogant moralizing premised on a single rhetorical question which you intentionally misconstrued.
> Now, it should be clear that there is nothing irrelevant about an overlooked weakness that exists in a speaker who is busy arguing that people who are unprepared to discuss their weaknesses are either lazy or dishonest.
In point of fact, it is clearly irrelevant.
Let's be honest: like everyone, I surely have many failings I am blind to. Probably these including massive, debilitating personal failures. And still, I am aware of at least some of my many flaws, and I'm willing to talk about how I am trying to improve with an interviewer. Perhaps not the weaknesses which you would impute to me, but other ones.
The question is not to correctly identify an applicant's greatest weakness (how would the interviewer verify this?), or for the applicant enumerate every weakness. It's to discuss one weakness. So whether I'm oblivious or idiotic or anything else you call me has nothing to do with anything, except as an expression of your own incoherent anger.
This this really bugs me. You needn't ask at all; it was your choice to make an ad hominem attack.
We merely disagree about the utility of an interview question; I think it's revealing and you don't. You're offended because I've said that I think failing to answer this question well may be indicative of personal flaws. That's the position of anyone who uses this question, not an attack on any poster here, most of whom disagree with me.
If you want to sit in an echo chamber, go somewhere else.
Edit: Not sure why I've been downvoted. Feel like this was a pretty moderate response to someone who directly and personally insulted me.
The "worst" part of the question is the worst part. I talk to people about "one" weakness. I also ask for how they are trying to improve, which is actually the key part of the question to me.
This is not intended as a pressure question. The point is not to learn about a weakness so I can disqualify an applicant. If people ask this question in the hopes that an applicant will incriminate himself, they're doing it (interviewing) wrong. I think this misperception about the intent of the question is what drives a lot of the fuss about it.
I think an interview process that is focused on filtering only people who aren't bad enough to obviously reject is going to net a company a lot of bad hires. You're right, plausible lying can be difficult to distinguish from truth. But the kind of hire I'd like to make is one who can speak fluently and with clear honesty about an area where he/she would like to improve.
To your last point: really don't think this is fair. If an applicant isn't comfortable with discussing a single weakness without feeling totally compromised, then I'm truly sorry, but their poor self-esteem is likely to get in the way of co-workers being honest with them. I say that as someone not characterized with excessively high self-esteem.
Most of us write code; it's a technical occupation, and none of us are great at everything. Are you super amazing and proficient with 100% of the technologies you'll ever need to interact with? Can you not talk competently about how you have been trying to get better at something? Are you not capable of admitting a weakness without crippling insecurity?
Since you know this will be asked, are you so disorganized that you can't think in advance to come up with an honest answer?
The only way to answer "too honestly" is to admit incompetence with the basic skills I'm hiring for, or reveal massive personality problems. You score an "A" if you talk about how you're trying to improve.
More commonly, applicants reveal themselves as someone willing to lie to my face with a bullshit answer. I've never hired someone like that and never will.
Edit: Also would never hire someone who was offended by this question. I think another commenter's suggestion that the applicant ask what the worst thing about working at a company is fair, and vital information. Of course, when I've asked this as an applicant I never received anything but bullshit in response.
Maybe this is a sign that they're too tightly integrated.
Stopped reading when I realized the author wasn't going to be reasonable.
I'm really proud of Hugo; he came in to App Academy as an 18 year old kid with no coding experience, and through sheer force of will, learned enough to land a junior dev job in nine weeks.
If you're interested in the course that Hugo took, check us out (appacademy.io). Students only pay us when they find a dev job after the program.
Hugo's fellow students are doing great. 11/15 of our students were unemployed before attending App Academy. 13/15 of our graduates have offers or are working in tech jobs now at an average salary of $83,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepycat_Software
So good...
Certainly it would be safer if pedestrians (like me!) didn't listen to music while walking, but I'm not willing to concede the principle that traffic laws be obeyed.
Just because I didn't do every last proactive thing to avoid an accident doesn't excuse the person who caused it.
Congrats on the launch Catalyst!
It was none of those things. You two merely disagree.
As far as recruiting fees go, when employers make a decision on salaries, they look at the total employee cost. If the employer needs to pay a recruiting fee, that goes into the cost. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, etc, etc. :-)
We have also spent considerable time reviewing traditional CS topics like algorithms and data structures.
We're a couple weeks away from hiring day, but companies including Apple, airbnb, Lytro and Twilio have signed up. These companies are making the investment to send senior engineers to hiring day; they don't do this lightly.
To my mind, we're not underpricing Dev Bootcamp. Our focus in pricing is to change the risk equation for students. We want to lower the barrier to entry for the tech jobs market. We also want students to know that we are really committed/invested in them.
The big difference from student loans: students only pay us if the course actually works :-)
Our first batch students are just beginning their final projects. You can check out what they have to say here: http://appacademy.io/alumni