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This should be rebranded "Learn to produce Average Code in 3 months or how to make the real programmers on your team miserable". I mean seriously, it's one thi

This should be rebranded "Learn to produce Average Code in 3 months or how to make the real programmers on your team miserable". I mean seriously, it's one thing to have some cute blog summarize trendy tutorials in one place, but to have it appear on the front page of HN is disappointing to say the least. I honestly expected to open the comment and see people bashing this. In 3 months, with serious dedication (assuming no background in science), you will at best be able to run a CRUD-app prototype on your laptop, you have no feel of "real world" problem, let alone do more "serious" (as in go beyond generating a couple of forms with your web framework) programming. (Yay! you learned to type in ... a Unix command!) The crazy thing is that I thought this was already settled 15 years ago, when Amazon started selling books a la "teach yourself programming in 2 hours (and be insanely rich for the rest of your life!)". Don't trust me, I'm a young old-fart. Take this guy's word instead. I bet HE knows a thing or two about programming. http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html

oskarth 14y ago
I don't understand this attitude. Would you feel the same way if someone put up an ad saying "learn to drive in 3 months"? A couple of years back I went to one of those "driving camps". It was enough to land me a driver's license in Sweden, which has comparatively high standards. Did I become race driver? No. A professional driver then? No. Do I know all the parts of my engine? No. I can drive my car from point A to B relatively safely and I know how to check the oil, but that's pretty much it. You have to start somewhere. A lot of people aren't getting exposed to programming in a useful way - compared to say, driving, counting, reading and writing - and this is a good way of starting out. What's the problem with that? If you are starting a delivery business, perhaps it would be useful if you delivered the packages yourself rather than hiring a professional truck driver. As for the reason of this being on the front page of HN: One thing to keep in mind is the fact that it, along with a gazillion other articles on the same subject, represents a change in availability of education in our industry. That and link-bait for the Zuckerbergians.
- mtrn 14y ago
  I can understand the attitude - and your counterexample. I know a few people, who have law or humanities degrees, who can come up with some working Wordpress installation or some web form much more quicker than I could (I've been programming since 12). And I would love to see more people being able to automate their everyday tasks - and more and more people can. But the problem of programming I guess is that the limit is really your mind, and that's a bottomless pit. I'm still learning to develop an instinct for code, a feeling for balance between necessity and clarity. And I don't feel my journey will end sometimes soon.
- babarock 14y ago
  Because filling the road with half-accomplished drivers is a pain in the derriere. The average driver is already annoyed and tense on the road, I can only imagine professional drivers get very frustrated by poor driving when they're outside the tracks. (On a side note, driving is much more vital than programming, so the analogy stops here. You should have the right to drive, even at a non-professional level. Can the same be said of programming?) Just like less-than-average drivers will annoy the pros, the less-than-average programmer will limit the field. If you look at my original comment, I clearly mentioned: "How to make the real programmer on your team miserable". If the less-than-average programmer sits in his parents basement working on his own racoon-loving social network using the most mind numbing technologies, that's okay. But as soon as he interacts with others, he will inevitably cripple the advances of the field. Think of what happens each time a standard comittee reaches the conclusion: "It's a great idea, but too complex for people to grasp". I know I sound very elitist, and I wish I wasn't. The truth is programming is hard. Very, very hard. Sure you can use your favorite framework to generate an html form and read DB fields, but this is not programming. Dijkstra has written extensively about the subject, calling programming "one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics" or saying about BASIC (whose usage then is very analogous to the subject at hand now) "the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery". EWD was an extremist, he argued that CS students should focus on symbol manipulations, prohibiting them to manipulate computers for the first few years, focusing on an abstract formal language instead. He criticized universities for "[lacking] the courage to teach hard science" and their "infantilization" of the "radically new" idea that is computer science. I won't go as far. If what he suggests is an extreme, a website promising you to learn code in 3 months is the opposite extreme. A 4 year CS degree, a couple of open source projects and the deliberative practice Norvig talked about should be a good moderate middle-ground. In short, do I encourage people to start programming? Of course I do, it's the most fun I've ever had in my life. Do I agree that three months worth of learning and couple of RoR pre-fabricated functions is enough to say they learned how to "code"? Absolutely not.
gyardley 14y ago
I wish there was a completely different word for self-taught people without a formal computer science background. If there was, the people with computer science backgrounds could stop grousing and moaning, and the self-taught people could get on with using their skills as best they can to improve their lives without being subjected to all the hostility and snark.
- babarock 14y ago
  To be fair, my diatribe is not geared at self-taught programmers. I have a lot of admiration for the people who learn programming that way, and I personally consider that most of the (theoretical, formal, CS) knowledge I got came from self-teaching, picking up a book and personal experimentation despite having earned a Masters in Engineering that taught me more about corporate bullshit like "Project Management" or "Work Ethics" than it did on programming - The sad state of engineering schools in France, a whole different subject. What I'm merely pointing out is the ridiculously short amount of time the article is promising its readers. 3 months? Really? I have been programming for a while now, borderline obsessing about it for the past 2 years and a half, and frankly, I feel like I still know so little. When yet another blogger tells her cool marketing friends that they too can learn to code with such few efforts, it makes me chuckle. And cry a little.
cafard 14y ago
""Learn to produce Average Code in 3 months or how to make the real programmers on your team miserable"." What team? If they had any say on the interview, they'll have brought it on themselves. I really don't see the harm here. Within three months one can have learned something, and have a notion of what coders really do. At that point, one can decide either to give it up or to learn more. It is written in what seems to me a women's magazine style, but male old-old farts are evidently not the target audience.

oskarth 14y ago

I don't understand this attitude. Would you feel the same way if someone put up an ad saying "learn to drive in 3 months"? A couple of years back I went to one of those "driving camps". It was enough to land me a driver's license in Sweden, which has comparatively high standards. Did I become race driver? No. A professional driver then? No. Do I know all the parts of my engine? No. I can drive my car from point A to B relatively safely and I know how to check the oil, but that's pretty much it. You have to start somewhere. A lot of people aren't getting exposed to programming in a useful way - compared to say, driving, counting, reading and writing - and this is a good way of starting out. What's the problem with that? If you are starting a delivery business, perhaps it would be useful if you delivered the packages yourself rather than hiring a professional truck driver. As for the reason of this being on the front page of HN: One thing to keep in mind is the fact that it, along with a gazillion other articles on the same subject, represents a change in availability of education in our industry. That and link-bait for the Zuckerbergians.

mtrn 14y ago
I can understand the attitude - and your counterexample. I know a few people, who have law or humanities degrees, who can come up with some working Wordpress installation or some web form much more quicker than I could (I've been programming since 12). And I would love to see more people being able to automate their everyday tasks - and more and more people can. But the problem of programming I guess is that the limit is really your mind, and that's a bottomless pit. I'm still learning to develop an instinct for code, a feeling for balance between necessity and clarity. And I don't feel my journey will end sometimes soon.
babarock 14y ago
Because filling the road with half-accomplished drivers is a pain in the derriere. The average driver is already annoyed and tense on the road, I can only imagine professional drivers get very frustrated by poor driving when they're outside the tracks. (On a side note, driving is much more vital than programming, so the analogy stops here. You should have the right to drive, even at a non-professional level. Can the same be said of programming?) Just like less-than-average drivers will annoy the pros, the less-than-average programmer will limit the field. If you look at my original comment, I clearly mentioned: "How to make the real programmer on your team miserable". If the less-than-average programmer sits in his parents basement working on his own racoon-loving social network using the most mind numbing technologies, that's okay. But as soon as he interacts with others, he will inevitably cripple the advances of the field. Think of what happens each time a standard comittee reaches the conclusion: "It's a great idea, but too complex for people to grasp". I know I sound very elitist, and I wish I wasn't. The truth is programming is hard. Very, very hard. Sure you can use your favorite framework to generate an html form and read DB fields, but this is not programming. Dijkstra has written extensively about the subject, calling programming "one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics" or saying about BASIC (whose usage then is very analogous to the subject at hand now) "the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery". EWD was an extremist, he argued that CS students should focus on symbol manipulations, prohibiting them to manipulate computers for the first few years, focusing on an abstract formal language instead. He criticized universities for "[lacking] the courage to teach hard science" and their "infantilization" of the "radically new" idea that is computer science. I won't go as far. If what he suggests is an extreme, a website promising you to learn code in 3 months is the opposite extreme. A 4 year CS degree, a couple of open source projects and the deliberative practice Norvig talked about should be a good moderate middle-ground. In short, do I encourage people to start programming? Of course I do, it's the most fun I've ever had in my life. Do I agree that three months worth of learning and couple of RoR pre-fabricated functions is enough to say they learned how to "code"? Absolutely not.

gyardley 14y ago

I wish there was a completely different word for self-taught people without a formal computer science background. If there was, the people with computer science backgrounds could stop grousing and moaning, and the self-taught people could get on with using their skills as best they can to improve their lives without being subjected to all the hostility and snark.

babarock 14y ago
To be fair, my diatribe is not geared at self-taught programmers. I have a lot of admiration for the people who learn programming that way, and I personally consider that most of the (theoretical, formal, CS) knowledge I got came from self-teaching, picking up a book and personal experimentation despite having earned a Masters in Engineering that taught me more about corporate bullshit like "Project Management" or "Work Ethics" than it did on programming - The sad state of engineering schools in France, a whole different subject. What I'm merely pointing out is the ridiculously short amount of time the article is promising its readers. 3 months? Really? I have been programming for a while now, borderline obsessing about it for the past 2 years and a half, and frankly, I feel like I still know so little. When yet another blogger tells her cool marketing friends that they too can learn to code with such few efforts, it makes me chuckle. And cry a little.

cafard 14y ago

""Learn to produce Average Code in 3 months or how to make the real programmers on your team miserable"." What team? If they had any say on the interview, they'll have brought it on themselves. I really don't see the harm here. Within three months one can have learned something, and have a notion of what coders really do. At that point, one can decide either to give it up or to learn more. It is written in what seems to me a women's magazine style, but male old-old farts are evidently not the target audience.