I'm all for anyone who wants to learn programming to get that opportunity, and I support non-traditional education as long as it's not a scam. But these hack sc

I'm all for anyone who wants to learn programming to get that opportunity, and I support non-traditional education as long as it's not a scam. But these hack schools and boot camps just can't be graduating significant numbers of developers ready to do real work, unless I'm missing something. I learned how to program in the mid-1970s. I was in high school so I had no bills, no kids, and lots of spare time. My grandparents bought a terminal and dial-up modem for me so I had access to timesharing systems from my room. I had two mentors available who both worked as programmers. I read every book I could find, read and wrote code every day for three years, learned every language I could find a compiler or interpreter for. When I eventually got a job as a programmer I was a junior making decent but not great money. I still had a lot to learn at that time. Programming was much simpler back then. The languages and tools were an order of magnitude (at least) less complicated than today. Getting a terminal and text-based application to work is a lot easier than developing a web application or mobile app today. I've been able to gradually add skills over the years as new technology comes out; I can't imagine how long it would take to get productive with software development today. Maybe the bootcampers and hackers are a lot smarter than I was, but I doubt they are that much smarter, or more motivated, or have more free time and energy. I can't see how anyone who doesn't already have years of programming experience is going to spend a few weeks or months in even intense courses and come out ready to develop something more serious than a Rails tutorial-level to-do list app. If anyone has personal experience with these hack schools and boot camps and can explain how they can cram so much information and experience into such a short time I'm interested in how that works.