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I think a well-run bootcamp is a better coding education than college computer science. The only thing most grads have on bootcamp people is algorithm knowledg

I think a well-run bootcamp is a better coding education than college computer science. The only thing most grads have on bootcamp people is algorithm knowledge. This is easy to fix. Just teach algos in bootcamp. It really isn't that hard to understand. Ideal bootcamp: -css/html/javascript -angular or any mvvc data mirroring framework -OOP and ntier patterns -Stored Procs/ORM/SQL training -Algos -Webservices SOAP/REST The college grads I work with tend to have written a couple shitty programs that don't really do anything, and their "final project" was hooking up a database to a business logic layer. source: I have taught in bootcamps before and work with lots of new college comp sci grads now.

DougWebb 10y ago
How long is a well-run bootcamp? Getting a CS degree takes many, many hours of course work, plus typically a bunch of non-CS course work. I'd think a college grad would (should?) be much better rounded. That depends a lot on the quality of their CS program, obviously. What you describe college grads doing sounds more like a 1-semester high school CS class to me.
- cstejerean 10y ago
  A CS degree takes 4 years, two of which are usually not related to CS at all. Still valuable stuff to learn, but also a lot of bootcamp students might already have a degree in another field so they already have the gen eds out of the way. The remaining stuff in a CS degree, only some of it will ever be directly relevant to what most programming jobs entail. Sure, you may end up in a job where compiler design comes in handy, but most people won't. If you focus on just the parts that are going to be relevant to most programming jobs, you may need a program a bit longer than the current bootcamps but much shorter than 2 years of CS classes.
- humbleMouse 10y ago
  > How long is a well-run bootcamp? If I were put in charge, I would make it 6 months long. I could definitely teach people how to write coherently designed CRUD apps in 6 months (ie. 95% of all programming businesses in the wild).
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    In another comment I wrote that bootcamp-trained developers are learning to do jobs that will be automated soon. It's interesting that you mention teaching them to write coherently designed CRUD apps, because my company's product is a tool that writes a coherently designed CRUD app based on querying your database schema. Using my company's product, I can spend 15 minutes to do the job that you spent six months training someone to do. It'll do the job better too; this isn't a simple Ruby-based admin app that gets generated. We generate a feature-rich enterprise-class system with both Windows desktop and web-based UIs, that could be deployed into production as soon as the code generation is complete. (Typically there's customization work done before deployment, but for a lot of tables that's not necessary.)
    - humbleMouse 10y ago
      That's cool you made that app - but you are still going to have to have people think about the architecture, manage servers, maintain the app, implement custom business logic, talk to business people, etc. I feel like a common theme on this comment page is that bootcamp people are trained to do XY - therefore they cannot do Z or learn Z quickly. People who are actually into computers will learn all the other computery stuff on their own. Things like compilers, how RAM works, heaps, stacks, sorts, networking, security, etc. Just because you are only taught how to make a CRUD app with modular principles doesn't mean your learning will stop there... I guess this argument is very personal for me because I came into programming without a CS degree. I taught myself all the fancy tech guy dick swinging bullshit by myself by guess what - wait for it - ordering CS books on amazon.com and learning this shit myself. It's not that hard. Anyone who is capable of abstract thought and has a little bit money and time can learn all this CS stuff on their own. People with the academia mindset of thinking they know so much more than everybody else are doing themselves a disservice. This line of thought will only lead to boxing yourself in because you have only been taught to do things like a horse that has been broken to run races. I personally think people who have experienced hardships and not had the silver CS spoon in their mouth make much more well rounded programmers than the typical CS dick waving upper middle class white guy that seems to be so pervasive in all the companies I have worked for.
eropple 10y ago
> The only thing most grads have on bootcamp people is algorithm knowledge. "Just teach algorithms." Do you have two years to spare to do so? Because I'm a platform engineer and I regularly use the extent of my CS mathematics education to write better code--you'd think this'd just be Ruby slinging, "what sort of math do you need to automate systems", but it ends up being remarkably more than that! But you know what else I use, while doing my day job? I use the lessons from my economics courses. I use the lessons from my sociology courses. I use the lessons from my political science courses. Are you gonna bootcamp those, too? Or are you going to turn out a marginally skilled worker with a worse educational foundation? The only thing a civil engineer has over a carpenter is physics knowledge. Obviously. Don't get me wrong: bootcamps are fine for some purposes, but in my experience they (and there are certainly exceptions in that experience, though rare--I'm thinking of a couple mid-career switches here) turn out mostly-employable workers with a shallower improvement curve and a relatively low ceiling by comparison. There are definitely roles for which I'd hire most of the folks I know who've gone into tech via boot camp classes. But, in my experience, those roles tend to be ones that are more junior than I'd other expect for their tenure and unless I need immediate productivity (and why would I be building a pipeline where I need that, but not the wisdom that comes with experience?), I will prefer somebody who is educated and not merely trained. Code and "coding" are stump-dumb simple and filtering for those minor applicative skills would be a disaster. Because I can teach skills, even if it requires an investment of effort on my part (heaven forfend!). I can't, practically, teach how to think.
- humbleMouse 10y ago
  I like your post and agree with most of what you said, except about the algorithms. I don't think you need 2 years to teach them. You need a highschool level understanding of Math and about a week. Obviously this varies from person to person - but I learned them extremely quickly. I think where we are not seeing eye to eye here is that I envision a bootcamper that has a high aptitude for abstract thought, can read quickly, has a good understanding of math, and is motivated to keep learning and read books outside of "class". If we are talking about two people who both do no outside reading other than what they are assigned - then yes, the college grad will be more prepared for abstract ideas/thought. However, if you take an otherwise smart person who reads lots of books and can learn things on the fly - then I think the sky is the limit.
throwayasdft 10y ago
The bootcamp I went to (app academy) actually had free algorithm lectures for this reason. While it was helpful, I'd say that it's difficult to teach beyond a skin deep level since algorithms can require a math background that many grads don't have. I'd hoping to learn more algorithm stuff on the job (bc I want to work on stuff like computer vision) but to be honest in my 8 months of web dev work I've only had to think about using an advanced data structure or algo once.
somecodemonkey 10y ago
Only if it is a sub par school. Any decent school with a solid CS program will teach in depth programming.

DougWebb 10y ago

How long is a well-run bootcamp? Getting a CS degree takes many, many hours of course work, plus typically a bunch of non-CS course work. I'd think a college grad would (should?) be much better rounded. That depends a lot on the quality of their CS program, obviously. What you describe college grads doing sounds more like a 1-semester high school CS class to me.

cstejerean 10y ago
A CS degree takes 4 years, two of which are usually not related to CS at all. Still valuable stuff to learn, but also a lot of bootcamp students might already have a degree in another field so they already have the gen eds out of the way. The remaining stuff in a CS degree, only some of it will ever be directly relevant to what most programming jobs entail. Sure, you may end up in a job where compiler design comes in handy, but most people won't. If you focus on just the parts that are going to be relevant to most programming jobs, you may need a program a bit longer than the current bootcamps but much shorter than 2 years of CS classes.
humbleMouse 10y ago
> How long is a well-run bootcamp? If I were put in charge, I would make it 6 months long. I could definitely teach people how to write coherently designed CRUD apps in 6 months (ie. 95% of all programming businesses in the wild).
- DougWebb 10y ago
  In another comment I wrote that bootcamp-trained developers are learning to do jobs that will be automated soon. It's interesting that you mention teaching them to write coherently designed CRUD apps, because my company's product is a tool that writes a coherently designed CRUD app based on querying your database schema. Using my company's product, I can spend 15 minutes to do the job that you spent six months training someone to do. It'll do the job better too; this isn't a simple Ruby-based admin app that gets generated. We generate a feature-rich enterprise-class system with both Windows desktop and web-based UIs, that could be deployed into production as soon as the code generation is complete. (Typically there's customization work done before deployment, but for a lot of tables that's not necessary.)
  - humbleMouse 10y ago
    That's cool you made that app - but you are still going to have to have people think about the architecture, manage servers, maintain the app, implement custom business logic, talk to business people, etc. I feel like a common theme on this comment page is that bootcamp people are trained to do XY - therefore they cannot do Z or learn Z quickly. People who are actually into computers will learn all the other computery stuff on their own. Things like compilers, how RAM works, heaps, stacks, sorts, networking, security, etc. Just because you are only taught how to make a CRUD app with modular principles doesn't mean your learning will stop there... I guess this argument is very personal for me because I came into programming without a CS degree. I taught myself all the fancy tech guy dick swinging bullshit by myself by guess what - wait for it - ordering CS books on amazon.com and learning this shit myself. It's not that hard. Anyone who is capable of abstract thought and has a little bit money and time can learn all this CS stuff on their own. People with the academia mindset of thinking they know so much more than everybody else are doing themselves a disservice. This line of thought will only lead to boxing yourself in because you have only been taught to do things like a horse that has been broken to run races. I personally think people who have experienced hardships and not had the silver CS spoon in their mouth make much more well rounded programmers than the typical CS dick waving upper middle class white guy that seems to be so pervasive in all the companies I have worked for.

eropple 10y ago

> The only thing most grads have on bootcamp people is algorithm knowledge. "Just teach algorithms." Do you have two years to spare to do so? Because I'm a platform engineer and I regularly use the extent of my CS mathematics education to write better code--you'd think this'd just be Ruby slinging, "what sort of math do you need to automate systems", but it ends up being remarkably more than that! But you know what else I use, while doing my day job? I use the lessons from my economics courses. I use the lessons from my sociology courses. I use the lessons from my political science courses. Are you gonna bootcamp those, too? Or are you going to turn out a marginally skilled worker with a worse educational foundation? The only thing a civil engineer has over a carpenter is physics knowledge. Obviously. Don't get me wrong: bootcamps are fine for some purposes, but in my experience they (and there are certainly exceptions in that experience, though rare--I'm thinking of a couple mid-career switches here) turn out mostly-employable workers with a shallower improvement curve and a relatively low ceiling by comparison. There are definitely roles for which I'd hire most of the folks I know who've gone into tech via boot camp classes. But, in my experience, those roles tend to be ones that are more junior than I'd other expect for their tenure and unless I need immediate productivity (and why would I be building a pipeline where I need that, but not the wisdom that comes with experience?), I will prefer somebody who is educated and not merely trained. Code and "coding" are stump-dumb simple and filtering for those minor applicative skills would be a disaster. Because I can teach skills, even if it requires an investment of effort on my part (heaven forfend!). I can't, practically, teach how to think.

humbleMouse 10y ago
I like your post and agree with most of what you said, except about the algorithms. I don't think you need 2 years to teach them. You need a highschool level understanding of Math and about a week. Obviously this varies from person to person - but I learned them extremely quickly. I think where we are not seeing eye to eye here is that I envision a bootcamper that has a high aptitude for abstract thought, can read quickly, has a good understanding of math, and is motivated to keep learning and read books outside of "class". If we are talking about two people who both do no outside reading other than what they are assigned - then yes, the college grad will be more prepared for abstract ideas/thought. However, if you take an otherwise smart person who reads lots of books and can learn things on the fly - then I think the sky is the limit.

throwayasdft 10y ago

The bootcamp I went to (app academy) actually had free algorithm lectures for this reason. While it was helpful, I'd say that it's difficult to teach beyond a skin deep level since algorithms can require a math background that many grads don't have. I'd hoping to learn more algorithm stuff on the job (bc I want to work on stuff like computer vision) but to be honest in my 8 months of web dev work I've only had to think about using an advanced data structure or algo once.

somecodemonkey 10y ago

Only if it is a sub par school. Any decent school with a solid CS program will teach in depth programming.