7 ms·

This has been my experience, and I'll add I have noticed there is a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software is. I remember b

This has been my experience, and I'll add I have noticed there is a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software is. I remember beginning my career what I think used to be a quite common experience of being quite a bit overwhelmed by how much I had to learn, very aware that I didn't even know what I didn't know and this definitely motivated me. This awareness is completely absent from 100% of the boot camp grads I've encountered, who have been sold and apparently internalized the idea that "everything is easy" and are quite resistant to the suggestion that they might not fully grasp the scope and difficulty of the situation. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I also suspect these people would have found their way into software development without going to a boot camp.

mothsonasloth 7y ago
Completely agree, I would like to blame it on this dichotomy of "frontend and backend development". Most of the bootcampers did three months of "frontend" work and are oblivious to what goes underneath in the murky world of business logic and services. Until they have been able to demonstrate they are confident in: * Presenting data to a user * Validating inputs * Making correct requests and understanding the interactions of an API (whether its REST, RPC, programmatic, internal) * Processing requests * Persistance and access of data * Basic security * Be able to document and explain all areas to a basic level. * Debug and provide a root cause analysis. Then they will remain a junior developer and I think that will be many of these bootcampers fate, as they are either unwilling or incapable of doing work outside their comfort zone.
- jen20 7y ago
  > Then they will remain a junior developer and I think that will be many of these bootcampers fate This is a fair assessment - not just of boot camp developers but of all developers. I don't think I agree that it is a problem that some people working as a junior developer today will never become a Technical Fellow, however. I've personally found (especially in the "enterprise") that many senior developers do not actually have fifteen years of experience - but one year of experience fifteen times, and are functionally junior developers with the wrong title. Educational background does not tend to be an indicator of this.
  - Kalium 7y ago
    I think it's worth bearing in mind that people who sign up for bootcamps generally expect to have a normal career trajectory. They do not expect to spend their careers as effectively junior developers. They genuinely believe they will become Technical Fellows, and expect that a bootcamp will get them started. Few bootcamps seem to do a good job of teaching students what to expect in a career path or what they'll need to do to advance in it. I think our industry is headed for a collective reckoning, though I would not begin to speculate on a timeline. We're going to have to square seniority as a measure of skill with seniority as a measure of time, and no matter how it happens a number of people are going to be unpleasantly surprised.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lowercased 7y ago
    I'm reading job posts for "sr foo engineer" and requirements are typically "4 years of foo", and no other experience level mentioned. Yes, we all know someone who's done something for 2 years and is amazing, a true genius/savant who redefines what's possible. They're the exceptions. I've been in professional software around 25 years, and was recently talking with a colleague (roughly same years of experience). He's just started a new job, and is working with people coming out of a bootcamp, and is frustrated because they're both currently being put on the same tasks - some basic FE JS work - and the bootcampers are actually slightly more productive than him. It's because that's literally all they know - they happen to know the same versions of everything the company is using, because it's what the bootcamp used. They can't do anything else, but both parties are being judged by this one ability right now, and he's questioning his own value now. It's giving the junior folks sort of a weird view of what 'old people' are capable of (which, as an old person, bothers me some!)
- MattyRad 7y ago
  I think frontend has such a low barrier to entry and such a high degree of fault tolerance that it makes sense that people misjudge their capability.
- megaremote 7y ago
  Why? If someone can just do FE development, that is not a problem, and they can get a job as a junior.
- phillipcarter 7y ago
  > Then they will remain a junior developer Isn't the point that they _are_ junior developers after completing a bootcamp? Juniors can be some of the best people in your organization if your org is willing to take them on and teach them things.
  - hermitdev 7y ago
    I'm not disagreeing, but I think the implication is that the bootcamps tend to leave their students without the fundamental knowledge to progress further in their career. Not saying you need a full 4 year program and a CS degree. I don't have a CS degree, but 2 degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering. That gave me a very solid and low level concept of computing that most CS grads dont get. Programming languages are a dime a dozen. Some are better suited for certain tasks than others. Someone going to a Ruby on Rails or Node/JS boot camp isn't going to get that exposure to multuple languages. They're not going to know that, say Python is a better language/ecosystem than JavaScript for scientific analysis. They're not going to be exposed to C, C++, C#, Java, Rust or Go. Personally, I wouldnt even interview someone that's taken a boot camp in C or C++. The languages are too nuanced and complex to even get a foothold in 3 months. Sorry this ended up very rantish, and I didn't mean for it to be so. I'm trying to make the point that while, yes, boot camps serve a purpose and may be useful to some folks, they will not and are not designed to give you enough knowledge to truly excel in the industry with the knowledge gleaned from the boot camp alone. It will take an extremely passionate and aggressive self learner to be more than a junior after a boot camp.
    - wyclif 7y ago
      I also don't have a CS degree, but I tend to agree with you that something quite serious in terms of scale and scope is missing in most bootcamps. For instance, it doesn't make sense to expose people who have never written a program before to RoR or Node if they haven't yet learned how to do basic tasks like command line functionality, learning the *NIX file system, text and data manipulation, etc, let alone if/then statements.
    - throw-away-2346 7y ago
- swoongoonz 7y ago
  It annoys me that front-end is sold as "easier". Getting started is "easy", building front-end applications at scale is a completely different ballgame.
clarry 7y ago
> I have noticed there is a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software is. There's also a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software needs (not) to be. That said I agree that some 3-month bootcamp probably isn't enough time to really internalize the basics of programming (unless you're really smart or have prior exposure), let alone learn to design and write nontrivial programs.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Well, if the bootcamp is going to spend 3 months teaching you how to make a website using the industry-standard tools and frameworks, you're going to know absolutely shit at the end. Consider a typical front-end developer setup - with IDE/smart editor, linters, transpilers, packers, package managers, project generators. These are all useful tools, but to be even a marginally competent developers, you have to know what they do and why. Otherwise, you'll be completely lost when some default changes. You'll be flabbergasted when you discover that the project structure you're used to isn't "how the web is made", but just an opinionated pattern that was sort-of fashionable at the time you were learning. I've seen this problem happen with code camps teaching people RoR some years ago; I believe it now happens with Node/React.
  - Kalium 7y ago
    I encountered a particularly egregious example of this recently. I was running a group of recent(-ish) hires through a training course recently. Part of it is penetrating-testing a dockerized application on their machines. One of the things the application is vulnerable to is various forms of form tampering attacks. One of my students just stared helplessly at this. They were absolutely stuck. I had no idea why. I came to find out that one of my students had managed to make it through a bootcamp, and an interview process, and be on the job for several months all without learning a Chrome or Firefox developer console could be used to edit a page's HTML. Or that a page could be saved and edited that way. I hadn't even considered the possibility that a professional engineer in a web development role might be ignorant of how to edit an HTML form by hand. It implies a shocking ignorance of how the whole thing works.
duxup 7y ago
> just how complicated modern software is I went to a coding camp. I sat in a group working with my classmates on our group project and I noted that what we were learning was "just enough so that we can learn reasonably well on our own.... so that maybe later we will be good at this". They looked horrified... Most boot camp students really do not know at all the level of complexity involved, how much you need to just go figure out yourself / learn about ... learning, and etc.
ryanmarsh 7y ago
This. When I started my career all I had to learn to make enterprise grade apps was Visual Basic. True story, there were even big ERP companies built entirely on VB. Today? Modern HTML, CSS, and JS apps with backends in <pick your language and data store> is more off putting than Win32 or GTK+ was. Yes I’m aware of the differences in capability and no I’m not complaining. I’m just saying it was easier back then.
- boilerupnc 7y ago
  Agreed. I'd go a step further and say that "easier" coupled with in-your-face accessibility/visibility (e.g. ubiquity of Macros in Microsoft Tools) made for a powerful combo and provided tangible illustrations to programmers and non-programmers alike of the power of software - especially with simple tactical solutions. This exposure can be inspirational to all involved. At least for me, it was enough to switch careers entirely [1]. My first practical creation of any code in a working context was in response to the inability (lack of skills) of my employer to fix a problematic software data input form - resulting in inefficiency and degradation in my co-workers quality of (work) life. Many of the comments here have focused around the skills and personality traits of coders. I agree with most: problem solving, some level of aptitude and curiosity are all important parts of the basic mix for success. Most of the discussion around motivation either has circled around economic benefits or some self-driven desire to learn. Again, while not invalid motivators - I think a BIG one that's not been discussed is the general allure to the raw transformational power enabled by software (automation). With only a few lines of code, disruption can be created to make things easier, make things faster, make things safer, make things better - with immediacy and impact. In my case, I used it to disrupt inefficiencies and accelerate solving problems. As a factory process engineer, that kinda power was way too intoxicating to look away from. But manufacturing wasn't quite ready to embrace software quite yet - so I made the career jump. For me, I wish coding camps or other channels would have been accessible in small remote towns in the Midwestern part of the U.S. back then, it would have accelerated my confidence and given me a channel to seek a career. Instead the luck of the dotcom boom opened doors in job fairs where I had plenty to offer in the technical realm but little to show in terms of code at the time. Nevertheless, 15+ years and going in software has been a great ride thus far and one that I couldn't have predicted. [1] https://medium.com/@boilerupnc/ten-lines-9a8403984bbf?source=friends_link&sk=add4324020464f2db4da264aec3a14de https://medium.com/@boilerupnc/ten-lines-9a8403984bbf?source...

mothsonasloth 7y ago

Completely agree, I would like to blame it on this dichotomy of "frontend and backend development". Most of the bootcampers did three months of "frontend" work and are oblivious to what goes underneath in the murky world of business logic and services. Until they have been able to demonstrate they are confident in: * Presenting data to a user * Validating inputs * Making correct requests and understanding the interactions of an API (whether its REST, RPC, programmatic, internal) * Processing requests * Persistance and access of data * Basic security * Be able to document and explain all areas to a basic level. * Debug and provide a root cause analysis. Then they will remain a junior developer and I think that will be many of these bootcampers fate, as they are either unwilling or incapable of doing work outside their comfort zone.

jen20 7y ago
> Then they will remain a junior developer and I think that will be many of these bootcampers fate This is a fair assessment - not just of boot camp developers but of all developers. I don't think I agree that it is a problem that some people working as a junior developer today will never become a Technical Fellow, however. I've personally found (especially in the "enterprise") that many senior developers do not actually have fifteen years of experience - but one year of experience fifteen times, and are functionally junior developers with the wrong title. Educational background does not tend to be an indicator of this.
- Kalium 7y ago
  I think it's worth bearing in mind that people who sign up for bootcamps generally expect to have a normal career trajectory. They do not expect to spend their careers as effectively junior developers. They genuinely believe they will become Technical Fellows, and expect that a bootcamp will get them started. Few bootcamps seem to do a good job of teaching students what to expect in a career path or what they'll need to do to advance in it. I think our industry is headed for a collective reckoning, though I would not begin to speculate on a timeline. We're going to have to square seniority as a measure of skill with seniority as a measure of time, and no matter how it happens a number of people are going to be unpleasantly surprised.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lowercased 7y ago
  I'm reading job posts for "sr foo engineer" and requirements are typically "4 years of foo", and no other experience level mentioned. Yes, we all know someone who's done something for 2 years and is amazing, a true genius/savant who redefines what's possible. They're the exceptions. I've been in professional software around 25 years, and was recently talking with a colleague (roughly same years of experience). He's just started a new job, and is working with people coming out of a bootcamp, and is frustrated because they're both currently being put on the same tasks - some basic FE JS work - and the bootcampers are actually slightly more productive than him. It's because that's literally all they know - they happen to know the same versions of everything the company is using, because it's what the bootcamp used. They can't do anything else, but both parties are being judged by this one ability right now, and he's questioning his own value now. It's giving the junior folks sort of a weird view of what 'old people' are capable of (which, as an old person, bothers me some!)
MattyRad 7y ago
I think frontend has such a low barrier to entry and such a high degree of fault tolerance that it makes sense that people misjudge their capability.
megaremote 7y ago
Why? If someone can just do FE development, that is not a problem, and they can get a job as a junior.
phillipcarter 7y ago
> Then they will remain a junior developer Isn't the point that they _are_ junior developers after completing a bootcamp? Juniors can be some of the best people in your organization if your org is willing to take them on and teach them things.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  I'm not disagreeing, but I think the implication is that the bootcamps tend to leave their students without the fundamental knowledge to progress further in their career. Not saying you need a full 4 year program and a CS degree. I don't have a CS degree, but 2 degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering. That gave me a very solid and low level concept of computing that most CS grads dont get. Programming languages are a dime a dozen. Some are better suited for certain tasks than others. Someone going to a Ruby on Rails or Node/JS boot camp isn't going to get that exposure to multuple languages. They're not going to know that, say Python is a better language/ecosystem than JavaScript for scientific analysis. They're not going to be exposed to C, C++, C#, Java, Rust or Go. Personally, I wouldnt even interview someone that's taken a boot camp in C or C++. The languages are too nuanced and complex to even get a foothold in 3 months. Sorry this ended up very rantish, and I didn't mean for it to be so. I'm trying to make the point that while, yes, boot camps serve a purpose and may be useful to some folks, they will not and are not designed to give you enough knowledge to truly excel in the industry with the knowledge gleaned from the boot camp alone. It will take an extremely passionate and aggressive self learner to be more than a junior after a boot camp.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    I also don't have a CS degree, but I tend to agree with you that something quite serious in terms of scale and scope is missing in most bootcamps. For instance, it doesn't make sense to expose people who have never written a program before to RoR or Node if they haven't yet learned how to do basic tasks like command line functionality, learning the *NIX file system, text and data manipulation, etc, let alone if/then statements.
  - throw-away-2346 7y ago
swoongoonz 7y ago
It annoys me that front-end is sold as "easier". Getting started is "easy", building front-end applications at scale is a completely different ballgame.

clarry 7y ago

> I have noticed there is a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software is. There's also a massive disconnect from the reality of just how complicated modern software needs (not) to be. That said I agree that some 3-month bootcamp probably isn't enough time to really internalize the basics of programming (unless you're really smart or have prior exposure), let alone learn to design and write nontrivial programs.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Well, if the bootcamp is going to spend 3 months teaching you how to make a website using the industry-standard tools and frameworks, you're going to know absolutely shit at the end. Consider a typical front-end developer setup - with IDE/smart editor, linters, transpilers, packers, package managers, project generators. These are all useful tools, but to be even a marginally competent developers, you have to know what they do and why. Otherwise, you'll be completely lost when some default changes. You'll be flabbergasted when you discover that the project structure you're used to isn't "how the web is made", but just an opinionated pattern that was sort-of fashionable at the time you were learning. I've seen this problem happen with code camps teaching people RoR some years ago; I believe it now happens with Node/React.
- Kalium 7y ago
  I encountered a particularly egregious example of this recently. I was running a group of recent(-ish) hires through a training course recently. Part of it is penetrating-testing a dockerized application on their machines. One of the things the application is vulnerable to is various forms of form tampering attacks. One of my students just stared helplessly at this. They were absolutely stuck. I had no idea why. I came to find out that one of my students had managed to make it through a bootcamp, and an interview process, and be on the job for several months all without learning a Chrome or Firefox developer console could be used to edit a page's HTML. Or that a page could be saved and edited that way. I hadn't even considered the possibility that a professional engineer in a web development role might be ignorant of how to edit an HTML form by hand. It implies a shocking ignorance of how the whole thing works.

duxup 7y ago

> just how complicated modern software is I went to a coding camp. I sat in a group working with my classmates on our group project and I noted that what we were learning was "just enough so that we can learn reasonably well on our own.... so that maybe later we will be good at this". They looked horrified... Most boot camp students really do not know at all the level of complexity involved, how much you need to just go figure out yourself / learn about ... learning, and etc.

ryanmarsh 7y ago

This. When I started my career all I had to learn to make enterprise grade apps was Visual Basic. True story, there were even big ERP companies built entirely on VB. Today? Modern HTML, CSS, and JS apps with backends in <pick your language and data store> is more off putting than Win32 or GTK+ was. Yes I’m aware of the differences in capability and no I’m not complaining. I’m just saying it was easier back then.

boilerupnc 7y ago
Agreed. I'd go a step further and say that "easier" coupled with in-your-face accessibility/visibility (e.g. ubiquity of Macros in Microsoft Tools) made for a powerful combo and provided tangible illustrations to programmers and non-programmers alike of the power of software - especially with simple tactical solutions. This exposure can be inspirational to all involved. At least for me, it was enough to switch careers entirely [1]. My first practical creation of any code in a working context was in response to the inability (lack of skills) of my employer to fix a problematic software data input form - resulting in inefficiency and degradation in my co-workers quality of (work) life. Many of the comments here have focused around the skills and personality traits of coders. I agree with most: problem solving, some level of aptitude and curiosity are all important parts of the basic mix for success. Most of the discussion around motivation either has circled around economic benefits or some self-driven desire to learn. Again, while not invalid motivators - I think a BIG one that's not been discussed is the general allure to the raw transformational power enabled by software (automation). With only a few lines of code, disruption can be created to make things easier, make things faster, make things safer, make things better - with immediacy and impact. In my case, I used it to disrupt inefficiencies and accelerate solving problems. As a factory process engineer, that kinda power was way too intoxicating to look away from. But manufacturing wasn't quite ready to embrace software quite yet - so I made the career jump. For me, I wish coding camps or other channels would have been accessible in small remote towns in the Midwestern part of the U.S. back then, it would have accelerated my confidence and given me a channel to seek a career. Instead the luck of the dotcom boom opened doors in job fairs where I had plenty to offer in the technical realm but little to show in terms of code at the time. Nevertheless, 15+ years and going in software has been a great ride thus far and one that I couldn't have predicted. [1] https://medium.com/@boilerupnc/ten-lines-9a8403984bbf?source=friends_link&sk=add4324020464f2db4da264aec3a14de https://medium.com/@boilerupnc/ten-lines-9a8403984bbf?source...