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I suspect the majority of those coding boot camp customers do not want to code, but want money, and see coding as an easy way to get it.

• onion2k 10y ago
  You have no evidence for that, and it's a pretty horrible thing to say about the people who take those courses.
  • mrob 10y ago
    What's horrible about that? People doing things for the money is the driving force behind capitalism, the best economic system yet invented. It improves everybody's quality of life. I have no objection to people going to coding boot camps because they think it will help them make money, and I hope they succeed. But I don't think coding boot camps are evidence for great love for coding for its own sake. People who really want to code will find some way to do it no matter what. They don't need paid tuition.
    • onion2k 10y ago
      People wanting money is fine. It was the assertion that they "see coding as an easy way to get it" that's too harsh. In my experience people who have been through coding bootcamps are very aware that they're learning something hard and that they'll need to put in a lot of effort, and that they're starting a new career where they'll be a junior in their first role unless they're very lucky.
    • dwaltrip 10y ago
      Seriously? Paying to learn a skill is a sign of impure motives? That seems like a very unfair assumption. Not everyone can learn on their own in their spare time.
• jholman 10y ago
  Why do you suspect that? Having talked with over 200 of them, I'd suggest that just like people in most career training programs, there's something about the job (as they imagine it) that attracts them relative to other jobs. "Huh, that looks like a good job, and I suspect I can do it, maybe I should invest some time and money into finding out!" I don't think anyone thinks it's a get-rich-quick plan; no one expects it to be easy. And if they do think that, they revise their estimates on the first day of bootcamp. But many of them DO suspect that as a career, coding pays well relative to the amount of work it is, and has good growth prospects. I too believe that, so I'm sympathetic to their perspective, although I doubt it's the BEST career in those aspects (I hear trades are really quite lucrative). The degree of "passion" for various particular aspects of the career is variable (e.g. desire to do the act of coding, e.g. desire to produce software, e.g. desire to work in startups, e.g. desire to make mad bank, e.g. desire to have flexible working conditions, e.g. desire to get paid to do math). Few of them have had wildly successful careers in other domains (I believe that between 1% and 3% of my sample were already making six figures in another career), so the majority are hoping that this will be their successful career. In summary, it is true that all of them expect that learning to code might be somewhat economically productive, but your phrasing is condescending and nasty. Don't be nasty. Disclaimer: I have a vested interest in bootcamps being at least somewhat successful.