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That barrier is dropping. Years ago becoming a developer meant going back to school for another 4-year degree. Expensive, time-consuming, and necessary for most

That barrier is dropping. Years ago becoming a developer meant going back to school for another 4-year degree. Expensive, time-consuming, and necessary for most employers to take you seriously. You could self-train, but having seen the insides of recruitment processes at most companies... that's a laughable thought. For all the wankery that comes out of our mouths about meritocracies, the vast majority of software companies are still extremely enamored with credentialing, especially from prestige schools. But now we have hacker schools - hacker schools where there are actual employers with actual money who are willing to employ the results. I know two people who are going through it right now, and the interest in hiring them from local startups is much, much higher than I ever expected. The level of sacrifice required is dropping, and it's dropping like a rock. We will see more and more conversions, and there will soon be a flood in supply.

hershel 13y ago
>> The level of sacrifice required is dropping, and it's dropping like a rock. What have changed , just ruby on rails type frameworks , or something beyond ?
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Employers. It was never that difficult to become a novice developer, but convincing anyone to hire you was the hard part. No CS degree (or math, or engineering) was a death sentence to any resume at the vast majority of companies. The new model is to skip the CS fundamentals and instead crash-course you on frameworks and languages that are being used in-industry, then toss you into the deep end. If you float, you've now got the "experience" part of the dreaded "experienced required" part of any job posting. The hard part was getting employers to buy into the scheme. "We've got this guy who has next to no idea about algorithms and data structures, but will do fine as a low-level Rails grunt" didn't sound very attractive before, but considering how hard engineering hiring is right now, some companies are biting. I for one am intrigued at the inversion of priorities and curious to see how this will play out. Up until now our educational process has been to fill your head full of theory and leave the practical application up to your own time. This has meant truckloads of CS graduates who aren't actually capable of performing real-life engineering. The new scheme is to get you working first and foremost, and assume that the fundamentals and theory you missed out on will be filled over time. As someone who never got their CS degree to begin with, I'm rather partial to the latter approach.
  - malbs 13y ago
    Good old vocational education.
6thSigma 13y ago
The biggest barrier is making the choice to learn a new skill - which has been a huge barrier for humans since the beginning of time. For example, learning Spanish would be a huge asset where I'm from (Texas). Hardly anybody does it, however, since it is hard to learn a new language. A new website that cuts the time to learn a new language from 6 months to 3 months wouldn't cut it for the vast majority of people.

hershel 13y ago

>> The level of sacrifice required is dropping, and it's dropping like a rock. What have changed , just ruby on rails type frameworks , or something beyond ?

potatolicious 13y ago
Employers. It was never that difficult to become a novice developer, but convincing anyone to hire you was the hard part. No CS degree (or math, or engineering) was a death sentence to any resume at the vast majority of companies. The new model is to skip the CS fundamentals and instead crash-course you on frameworks and languages that are being used in-industry, then toss you into the deep end. If you float, you've now got the "experience" part of the dreaded "experienced required" part of any job posting. The hard part was getting employers to buy into the scheme. "We've got this guy who has next to no idea about algorithms and data structures, but will do fine as a low-level Rails grunt" didn't sound very attractive before, but considering how hard engineering hiring is right now, some companies are biting. I for one am intrigued at the inversion of priorities and curious to see how this will play out. Up until now our educational process has been to fill your head full of theory and leave the practical application up to your own time. This has meant truckloads of CS graduates who aren't actually capable of performing real-life engineering. The new scheme is to get you working first and foremost, and assume that the fundamentals and theory you missed out on will be filled over time. As someone who never got their CS degree to begin with, I'm rather partial to the latter approach.
- malbs 13y ago
  Good old vocational education.

6thSigma 13y ago

The biggest barrier is making the choice to learn a new skill - which has been a huge barrier for humans since the beginning of time. For example, learning Spanish would be a huge asset where I'm from (Texas). Hardly anybody does it, however, since it is hard to learn a new language. A new website that cuts the time to learn a new language from 6 months to 3 months wouldn't cut it for the vast majority of people.