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I'm not sure if this is what you're hinting at, but parts of what you say are very good reasons why the whole "Learn to Code" movement is not going to take off

I'm not sure if this is what you're hinting at, but parts of what you say are very good reasons why the whole "Learn to Code" movement is not going to take off (nevermind be successful). It's not a "simple" matter of "just do this". The nuance, understanding and being able to think and reason abstractly is tucked deeply into the craft. Actually giving a damn goes a long way, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

songzme 6y ago
"Learn to Code" is very different from learning to become a good, reliable software engineer. The skillsets are very different. I think alot of technical schools are optimizing for "Learning to Code" with modern frameworks used at work, leaving much to be desired if I want to hire a bootcamp graduates. I'm experimenting with a system where students only learn the bare minimum and built up what they know by asking questions and working together as a team to build a product with the intention that another student will take over their product one day. This mimicks an engineer's workflow better: asking questions because documentation is lacking, working with other engineers, being receptive to feedback, writing code with the intention of somebody else taking over your code, etc. It seems to work so far, the last batch of students did some really amazing work and built cool open source products that I use: https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%... https://github.com/garageScript/myProxy/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/garageScript/myProxy/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3... Unfortunately, these students have a hard time finding jobs and so I'm currently getting stumped there. It seems that the more I try to validate my theory, the more questions I have. All in all, my point is that it is very hard to apply the "sharing publicly by default" mindset to practice.
- jfim 6y ago
  > I'm experimenting with a system where students only learn the bare minimum and built up what they know by asking questions and working together as a team to build a product with the intention that another student will take over their product one day. This mimicks an engineer's workflow better: asking questions because documentation is lacking, working with other engineers, being receptive to feedback, writing code with the intention of somebody else taking over your code, etc. That's a great way to learn, since a lot of the day to day work does require working in ambiguous, not always well documented, situations. > Unfortunately, these students have a hard time finding jobs and so I'm currently getting stumped there. Keep in mind that finding a job and learning to be a good software engineer are somewhat orthogonal things. The former can be achieved by reading CS books and grinding Leetcode to pass the interview, but doesn't achieve the latter. Some tech companies have non-traditional hiring pipelines nowadays, I know that Linkedin used to have one where they'd do more of a apprenticeship-style period where they'd often give full time offers to people in that program. That may be a better fit for your students than just going in through the usual tech interview process, which is mostly geared at traditional candidates.
- troughway 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing that, actually. What kind of problems have they encountered finding jobs?

songzme 6y ago

"Learn to Code" is very different from learning to become a good, reliable software engineer. The skillsets are very different. I think alot of technical schools are optimizing for "Learning to Code" with modern frameworks used at work, leaving much to be desired if I want to hire a bootcamp graduates. I'm experimenting with a system where students only learn the bare minimum and built up what they know by asking questions and working together as a team to build a product with the intention that another student will take over their product one day. This mimicks an engineer's workflow better: asking questions because documentation is lacking, working with other engineers, being receptive to feedback, writing code with the intention of somebody else taking over your code, etc. It seems to work so far, the last batch of students did some really amazing work and built cool open source products that I use: https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%... https://github.com/garageScript/myProxy/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed https://github.com/garageScript/myProxy/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3... Unfortunately, these students have a hard time finding jobs and so I'm currently getting stumped there. It seems that the more I try to validate my theory, the more questions I have. All in all, my point is that it is very hard to apply the "sharing publicly by default" mindset to practice.

jfim 6y ago
> I'm experimenting with a system where students only learn the bare minimum and built up what they know by asking questions and working together as a team to build a product with the intention that another student will take over their product one day. This mimicks an engineer's workflow better: asking questions because documentation is lacking, working with other engineers, being receptive to feedback, writing code with the intention of somebody else taking over your code, etc. That's a great way to learn, since a lot of the day to day work does require working in ambiguous, not always well documented, situations. > Unfortunately, these students have a hard time finding jobs and so I'm currently getting stumped there. Keep in mind that finding a job and learning to be a good software engineer are somewhat orthogonal things. The former can be achieved by reading CS books and grinding Leetcode to pass the interview, but doesn't achieve the latter. Some tech companies have non-traditional hiring pipelines nowadays, I know that Linkedin used to have one where they'd do more of a apprenticeship-style period where they'd often give full time offers to people in that program. That may be a better fit for your students than just going in through the usual tech interview process, which is mostly geared at traditional candidates.
troughway 6y ago
Thank you for sharing that, actually. What kind of problems have they encountered finding jobs?