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Yes and perhaps your bias clouds your perception or desires a more positive reception of your “alma mater”. Boot camps generally illicit a negative reaction fro

Yes and perhaps your bias clouds your perception or desires a more positive reception of your “alma mater”. Boot camps generally illicit a negative reaction from experienced programmers. Primarily because their primary stated goal is to give a “student” enough experience in an extremely compressed amount of time for them to enter the workforce as productive developers. The issue is that experience, by definition, can only be gained over time and with diverse trials and tribulations. Only the most motivated bootcampers can achieve this during their program by supplementing with copious amounts of self-learning. Unfortunately even then a boot campers “experience” is quite limited but many come out of their program believing they are equals to more experienced mid/senior level programmers which results in those in the industry having animosity to those individuals. I think this explains the general “negative tone” you see in this comment section. Are boot camps bad? No, I think they are quite useful but I think we need to acknowledge that they really only effectively create a pipeline of junior developers and replace the need for corporations to have internal education/training programs.

sidlls 4y ago
The experience argument seems thin: new grads have a similar issue, and yet companies have hiring programs targeting these individuals, sometimes aggressively. It seems the core of your argument is not that they are inexperienced, but rather that the bootcamps somehow convince them they are not and this leads to friction in the positions they seek and the expectations around the work they're capable of accomplishing.
- lazypenguin 4y ago
  Comparing to new grads is a strawman argument, I didn’t make that comparison in my orginal comment. I would argue new grads can have the same or more experience (courses, assignments & internships) yet they would still be treated as entry level when entering the industry. Regardless, I wouldn’t classify either cohort as being particularly experienced. Educated? Trained? Practiced? Sure. Not experienced. To make a bad analogy, take a soldier from a 2 year training bootcamp and put them shoulder to shoulder with a 1 year combat veteran and you will see a significant discrepancy in the majority of cases. Yes, I personally believe that the animosity isn’t usually targeted at the fact that boot camp grads went through boot camp. Hell, programmers are most commonly self taught using free online resources for the majority of topics. My impression is because the boot camp is sold as a “get programming experience quick scheme” that most candidates would still be entry level after their program but are led to believe they are more senior.

sidlls 4y ago

The experience argument seems thin: new grads have a similar issue, and yet companies have hiring programs targeting these individuals, sometimes aggressively. It seems the core of your argument is not that they are inexperienced, but rather that the bootcamps somehow convince them they are not and this leads to friction in the positions they seek and the expectations around the work they're capable of accomplishing.

lazypenguin 4y ago
Comparing to new grads is a strawman argument, I didn’t make that comparison in my orginal comment. I would argue new grads can have the same or more experience (courses, assignments & internships) yet they would still be treated as entry level when entering the industry. Regardless, I wouldn’t classify either cohort as being particularly experienced. Educated? Trained? Practiced? Sure. Not experienced. To make a bad analogy, take a soldier from a 2 year training bootcamp and put them shoulder to shoulder with a 1 year combat veteran and you will see a significant discrepancy in the majority of cases. Yes, I personally believe that the animosity isn’t usually targeted at the fact that boot camp grads went through boot camp. Hell, programmers are most commonly self taught using free online resources for the majority of topics. My impression is because the boot camp is sold as a “get programming experience quick scheme” that most candidates would still be entry level after their program but are led to believe they are more senior.