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This will always be a divisive subject and my opinion will likely be equally divisive. For the record, I took a bootcamp over doing a master's in CS: the clinc

by yomly 11y ago

This will always be a divisive subject and my opinion will likely be equally divisive. For the record, I took a bootcamp over doing a master's in CS: the clincher for such a decision came when an engineer friend at a tech unicorn said he'd take a smart bootcamper over a regular CS grad on the basis that from hiring experiences: - you don't use most of the stuff you learn from CS at work (when was the last time you proved root two was irrational, or used red-black trees on the job?) - a bootcamper will write cleaner code and is less likely to have some of the stereotypical traits engineers are prone to having (e.g. takes feedback badly/doesn't communicate well/takes feedback badly) he attributes this to the more diverse pool of people boot camps attract To be frank, I think the aversion to bootcampers primarily stems from individuals' need to validate their own life choices thinking things like "I studied CS for four years to become a Software Engineer so how could someone come close to playing catch up in 3 months!?" But really this style of thought is flawed - people underestimate the fundamental value of doing a degree, which teaches you way more than just knowledge. Think how much less developed you were intellectually coming out of high school than post college. With that said, it's also probably true that there are plenty of bootcamp graduates out there with an inflated sense of worth and companies that have hired/rejected poor bootcampers and now have a set opinion about bootcamps. To these people it's worth noting that bootcamps have only been around for a couple of years, and as is the case in any good startups, the product improves as the companies grow and mature and have time to iteratively improve it. Graduates from a bootcamp today are probably of appreciably higher quality than they were back then.

mitchty 11y ago
> - you don't use most of the stuff you learn from CS at work (when was the last time you proved root two was irrational, or used red-black trees on the job?) Used them yesterday in fact. Then again, using red black trees and knowing when you need to isn't uncommon in kernel programming. I'd couch this more: you generally don't need to care about using red-black trees. Until you do need them that is. The key is knowing and realizing when that time has come. Just thought I'd put my $0.02 in on that one as it is both my opinion and experience.
- dagamer34 11y ago
  It takes a really special person who hasn't gone through a CS education to be aware that when faced with a problem that have an obvious solution, they realize that there are things they don't know and either seek out resources to learn them or identify people that can ask for help beyond a simple "I'm stuck, solve this for me!" response. And that's why of you're a good software engineer, your job is secure. Because most people definitely aren't that and just end up making a real mess of things.
  - yomly 11y ago
    Do you think that level of independence and self awareness is restricted to special people or CS grads? Is it so unlikely that someone who has earned a decent degree (which involved self study) and gone through a bootcamp to foster that behaviour in a software context may also have it?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - BWStearns 11y ago
    I think after a certain amount of time writing code you get a feel for that though, even without a CS degree. Anyone who's opened a terminal knows they don't know everything, but it takes a few iterations of shittily reinventing the wheel before you internalize it. After that things start to smell(?) like someone solved them and then it's a matter of finding the right chapter in a book or set of google search terms.
  - loco5niner 11y ago
    ... did you mean "faced with a problem that DOESN'T have an obvious solution" ?
- yomly 11y ago
  Fair enough, thanks for the input! Though you raise (inadvertently) a related issue in mentioning kernel programming: When asking a friend whether I should learn C, he posited: Do you want to be a programmer or do you want to be a coder? If you want to be a programmer you should look at C at some stage. His stance being that "programming" involved writing lower level code while "coding" involved working higher level with scripting languages and frameworks. There was no value judgment in his use of the words programmer and coder btw. So really it's a case of realising what you want to do with your code: If you're interested in working on kernels, OSs or videogames then CS is probably going to be more useful than a bootcamp If you want to work on building webpages and apps, a bootcamp could be a fast means of getting you onto the first rung of the ladder. The world of software is large enough for both CS and bootcamps to coexist.

by yomly 11y ago

mitchty 11y ago

> - you don't use most of the stuff you learn from CS at work (when was the last time you proved root two was irrational, or used red-black trees on the job?) Used them yesterday in fact. Then again, using red black trees and knowing when you need to isn't uncommon in kernel programming. I'd couch this more: you generally don't need to care about using red-black trees. Until you do need them that is. The key is knowing and realizing when that time has come. Just thought I'd put my $0.02 in on that one as it is both my opinion and experience.

dagamer34 11y ago
It takes a really special person who hasn't gone through a CS education to be aware that when faced with a problem that have an obvious solution, they realize that there are things they don't know and either seek out resources to learn them or identify people that can ask for help beyond a simple "I'm stuck, solve this for me!" response. And that's why of you're a good software engineer, your job is secure. Because most people definitely aren't that and just end up making a real mess of things.
- yomly 11y ago
  Do you think that level of independence and self awareness is restricted to special people or CS grads? Is it so unlikely that someone who has earned a decent degree (which involved self study) and gone through a bootcamp to foster that behaviour in a software context may also have it?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- BWStearns 11y ago
  I think after a certain amount of time writing code you get a feel for that though, even without a CS degree. Anyone who's opened a terminal knows they don't know everything, but it takes a few iterations of shittily reinventing the wheel before you internalize it. After that things start to smell(?) like someone solved them and then it's a matter of finding the right chapter in a book or set of google search terms.
- loco5niner 11y ago
  ... did you mean "faced with a problem that DOESN'T have an obvious solution" ?
yomly 11y ago
Fair enough, thanks for the input! Though you raise (inadvertently) a related issue in mentioning kernel programming: When asking a friend whether I should learn C, he posited: Do you want to be a programmer or do you want to be a coder? If you want to be a programmer you should look at C at some stage. His stance being that "programming" involved writing lower level code while "coding" involved working higher level with scripting languages and frameworks. There was no value judgment in his use of the words programmer and coder btw. So really it's a case of realising what you want to do with your code: If you're interested in working on kernels, OSs or videogames then CS is probably going to be more useful than a bootcamp If you want to work on building webpages and apps, a bootcamp could be a fast means of getting you onto the first rung of the ladder. The world of software is large enough for both CS and bootcamps to coexist.