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Bootcamps I swear train cargo cult programmers. It may work for some, but in my experience they lack the understanding of why they are typing what they are typi

by umvi 8y ago

Bootcamps I swear train cargo cult programmers. It may work for some, but in my experience they lack the understanding of why they are typing what they are typing. They can go through the motions of what they've been trained to do, but they get stuck extremely easily and have no idea how to help themselves. So then when you start explaining why their program does not work, their eyes glaze over when you start talking about the stack, heap, etc. They are like cargo cultists. They go through the motions, imitating what the boot camp taught them, but without real understanding of what the computer is doing...

fromthestart 8y ago
It wouldn't surprise me. They cram a ton of material into a handful of greuling rushed weeks. Then again apparently many if not most devs leave college with a four year CS degree and can't code either, so maybe it's just a reflection of typical ability.
- mb389 8y ago
  The point of a CS degree isn't to teach you to code. Also the amount of time spent in class is roughly equivalent between a 4 year CS degree and a rigorous, full-time bootcamp. 2 hrs of class, 4 days/week, 28 weeks/year in most universities vs. ~10 hrs/day, 6 days/week over 13-17 weeks in bootcamps.
  - faissaloo 8y ago
    The point of a CS degree is to make you give them money. That's it.
  - bdcravens 8y ago
    Personally, I'm anti-bootcamp, but I'd argue that many bootcampers are more employable in a junior role on day 0 than many CS grads. (Perhaps the solution is a bootcampish "finishing school" for CS grads where they are taught an in-demand framework or 2?)
  - zerohp 8y ago
    This is a false equivalency because in a bootcamp most of the learning is in class. In a CS degree program most of it is not. At a top university, students put in 60 hours a week for 16 weeks every semester.
notus 8y ago
This is actually just how I learn. I never understand anything abstract the first time I read about it or use it. In fact there were many things in software that I just did because it was "best practices" without understanding why. I could read about the Why all day long but until I experience the Why it will never really click for me. I eventually understood why because I kept trying things out, asking questions, and didn't give up. I don't think you can expect most juniors to understand the Why to a lot of the things they are doing and one could argue that there isn't much value in ensuring they understand it right away. What matters is that you have processes in place to allow juniors to slowly learn why we do things the way we do. Seniors need to also understand that not everyone comes from a CS background nor is it necessary to come from one and be an effective worker. The work that 90% of programmers do out there is not complicated and anyone with a rudimentary understanding of algebra could do it.
- umvi 8y ago
  I think you need a particular type of personality for the bootcamps to be effective. Like you said, you need to thrive on curiosity and have a thirst for knowledge. Not everyone is like that. I have a few friends who think programming is like learning how to solve a rubik's cube: you go to the training, learn how to do it, and bam, you are now trained and can solve any rubik's cube.
013a 8y ago
I think you're right, and I think it just comes down to Time. A lot of people sneer at traditional university CS degrees as being wasteless and unnecessary, but that's one thing they do right; the combined total time of CS courses you take might rival the time spent in a 6 month intensive bootcamp, but its spread out over more Time. People need Time to understand abstraction. Most engineers start with the abstraction ("how do I write an API in Node") then work their way down when problems arise ("wait, why is my app slow? what's an event loop?"), but if all you have is the 6 months you simply aren't going to get very deep. Then you're on the job, while simultaneously adulting (if you weren't already adulting during the bootcamp). So you're set up to evolve at a much slower rate than your coworkers because you're missing fundamental understanding of the lower levels of abstraction and how they fit together. I really think it comes down to having two classes of software engineer, just like electricians vs electrical engineers and nurses vs doctors. Each role has a very important place in our modern economy, and you can make a blue collar living in the more easily accessible ones. But you simply can't replace deep domain knowledge of low-level abstractions, nor the many specialized fields in CS like performance engineering, authentication/authorization, machine learning, cloud engineering/infrastructure, etc.
faissaloo 8y ago
This, I often find people unable to debug more complex issues because they have no real understanding of what the computer is doing, it's a black box to them.
bdcravens 8y ago
I think it's a bit better than cargo culting; I'd say it's more like assembly line work. They learn a series of steps for a typically shaped problem.
jiveturkey 8y ago
which is totally fine! the majority of software only needs that level of skill.

by umvi 8y ago

fromthestart 8y ago

It wouldn't surprise me. They cram a ton of material into a handful of greuling rushed weeks. Then again apparently many if not most devs leave college with a four year CS degree and can't code either, so maybe it's just a reflection of typical ability.

mb389 8y ago
The point of a CS degree isn't to teach you to code. Also the amount of time spent in class is roughly equivalent between a 4 year CS degree and a rigorous, full-time bootcamp. 2 hrs of class, 4 days/week, 28 weeks/year in most universities vs. ~10 hrs/day, 6 days/week over 13-17 weeks in bootcamps.
- faissaloo 8y ago
  The point of a CS degree is to make you give them money. That's it.
- bdcravens 8y ago
  Personally, I'm anti-bootcamp, but I'd argue that many bootcampers are more employable in a junior role on day 0 than many CS grads. (Perhaps the solution is a bootcampish "finishing school" for CS grads where they are taught an in-demand framework or 2?)
- zerohp 8y ago
  This is a false equivalency because in a bootcamp most of the learning is in class. In a CS degree program most of it is not. At a top university, students put in 60 hours a week for 16 weeks every semester.

notus 8y ago

This is actually just how I learn. I never understand anything abstract the first time I read about it or use it. In fact there were many things in software that I just did because it was "best practices" without understanding why. I could read about the Why all day long but until I experience the Why it will never really click for me. I eventually understood why because I kept trying things out, asking questions, and didn't give up. I don't think you can expect most juniors to understand the Why to a lot of the things they are doing and one could argue that there isn't much value in ensuring they understand it right away. What matters is that you have processes in place to allow juniors to slowly learn why we do things the way we do. Seniors need to also understand that not everyone comes from a CS background nor is it necessary to come from one and be an effective worker. The work that 90% of programmers do out there is not complicated and anyone with a rudimentary understanding of algebra could do it.

umvi 8y ago
I think you need a particular type of personality for the bootcamps to be effective. Like you said, you need to thrive on curiosity and have a thirst for knowledge. Not everyone is like that. I have a few friends who think programming is like learning how to solve a rubik's cube: you go to the training, learn how to do it, and bam, you are now trained and can solve any rubik's cube.

013a 8y ago

I think you're right, and I think it just comes down to Time. A lot of people sneer at traditional university CS degrees as being wasteless and unnecessary, but that's one thing they do right; the combined total time of CS courses you take might rival the time spent in a 6 month intensive bootcamp, but its spread out over more Time. People need Time to understand abstraction. Most engineers start with the abstraction ("how do I write an API in Node") then work their way down when problems arise ("wait, why is my app slow? what's an event loop?"), but if all you have is the 6 months you simply aren't going to get very deep. Then you're on the job, while simultaneously adulting (if you weren't already adulting during the bootcamp). So you're set up to evolve at a much slower rate than your coworkers because you're missing fundamental understanding of the lower levels of abstraction and how they fit together. I really think it comes down to having two classes of software engineer, just like electricians vs electrical engineers and nurses vs doctors. Each role has a very important place in our modern economy, and you can make a blue collar living in the more easily accessible ones. But you simply can't replace deep domain knowledge of low-level abstractions, nor the many specialized fields in CS like performance engineering, authentication/authorization, machine learning, cloud engineering/infrastructure, etc.

faissaloo 8y ago

This, I often find people unable to debug more complex issues because they have no real understanding of what the computer is doing, it's a black box to them.

bdcravens 8y ago

I think it's a bit better than cargo culting; I'd say it's more like assembly line work. They learn a series of steps for a typically shaped problem.

jiveturkey 8y ago

which is totally fine! the majority of software only needs that level of skill.