“Coding bootcamps are intensive, full-time, months-long programs designed to train students for a full-time job as an entry-level developer. They are run by elite, professional developers who would otherwise not be available to you as a mentor”
Anyone familiar with them? Thoughts?
Who is the audience? Folks who have done zero coding? Is just language?
I know this is semantic, but I distinguish between “Developer” and “Programmer”.
Links to any of these bootcamps?
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Who is the audience? Folks who have done zero coding? Is just language?
I know this is semantic, but I distinguish between “Developer” and “Programmer”.
Links to any of these bootcamps?[/quote]
This is one of the well known ones.
Many guarantee job placement.
Here is a list with descriptions and links.
I don’t think it’s worth it. They can’t guarantee you a job, and you can find the same resources online for free.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
I don’t think it’s worth it. They can’t guarantee you a job, and you can find the same resources online for free.[/quote]
IDK, I do not think it can compare. It is never going to be the same to working with both instructors and students pushing each other to learn and be better. The job placement comes from established industry connections that you will not get when learning on your own. The job placement of many of these camps is really high.
OP, A friends younger brother did one of these with his friend and one thing I took away is that they are really hard and time consuming 12 hr days 6 days a week. It is very challenging. They learned mostly open source like Ruby on Rails and Python. I can not remember the name of it but, it was in northern CA.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Who is the audience? Folks who have done zero coding? Is just language?
I know this is semantic, but I distinguish between “Developer” and “Programmer”.
Links to any of these bootcamps?[/quote]
I agree with your distinction, and I think it is an important one. When I think developer, I think of someone with a broader skill set than a programmer. In the context of business enterprise software, a developer is going to bring the skills necessary to fulfill business requirements with customized or home-brewed software.
You don’t learn that at any boot camp.
Sample syllabuses:
Sample Day:
[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
This is one of the well known ones.
Many guarantee job placement.
[/quote]
Here’s a testimonial from the front page of that site:
"These academies are a great way
to identify programming talent, but
Hack Reactor is the Harvard of them all
Steve Newcomb. CEO of Famo.us, as quoted in Infoworld"
Prior to that quote, had you ever heard of famo.us? I hadn’t.
I was reading an article about this in the WSJ awhile back. The gist of it was if you’re young (like, fresh out of HS) and absolutely know you want to program, it’s probably a better option than college. It’s even a bit of a badge of honor in silicon valley to drop out of HS or college and get through one of these, but if you end up not wanting to code, it’s a waste.
They may be a bit oversold, though. My little brother, who was never really into computers or all that great at math, was considering one.
I’d also imagine there’s a bit of a bias from the 4-year CS majors who feel like they did more work. They did, and probably have a greater conception of what’s going on under the hood and the theory; however, coding is a technical skill and I don’t see why it couldn’t be taught as such… somewhat along the lines of becoming a mechanic vs. an engineer. If you are particularly young, I don’t see why you couldn’t give it a go and put off college for a year or two.
Maybe this analogy helps:
Two mechanics. One was trained from the beginning to fix DeLoreans. Anything you could ever possibly want to know; anything that could ever possibly break or need fixed, he’s your guy. He can disassemble and reassemble the whole care in a matter of hours, blindfolded, with one arm behind his back. But give him a Ford and he has no idea what to do. Or any other car.
Another mechanic was trained to just “work on cars”. He has a very general knowledge about a lot of cars, and can fix most things on most cars. There’s a few he’s seen a lot, which he’s very good with, and there’s a few he sees very rarely, and he has to do some research and ask around. He knows what he knows, and he knows what he doesn’t know. And, equally importantly, he knows where to go and who to ask when he runs into a problem. Over time, he actually becomes an expert in a few different cars.
When they both start out, the DeLorean guy finds it really easy to get a job. A few garages needed a DeLorean expert, and he showed up one day and was hired on the spot. He had a specialized skillset, and they had the need, and his starting pay was excellent.
The “car guy” had a lot more trouble. Every shop has a bunch of car guys, and nothing made him stand out. After months of looking, he finally convinced someone to hire him, at a relatively low starting pay.
A few years down the road, it turns out that DeLoreans just weren’t that popular. There are less and less jobs for the first guy, but he’s too wrapped up in the idea that he’s the expert to even notice. A couple years later, they let him go since there just aren’t enough DeLoreans around to justify his job.
So he comes on T-Nation and bitches and moans that he’s an expert in his field, but nobody will hire him. He goes on and on about how he’s better than all the other mechanics, and how his DeLorean certifications makes him awesome, because DeLoreans are awesome. But he can’t seem to find a job because he doesn’t know anything about any other cars, so he ends up moving home where there’s a dearth of pasta.
Meanwhile, the second guy slowly works his way up, building his reputation and knowledge. He gets some great experience working with all sorts of cars, and becomes something of a Toyota Camry and Honda Accord expert. He can find a job almost anywhere with those skills. He’s also become an expert in a few “rarer” cars that his shop happens to see a lot, mostly because they were of interest to him and nobody else knew how to do it. He now gets paid very handsomely for his skills.
Which would you rather be?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Maybe this analogy helps:
Two mechanics. One was trained from the beginning to fix DeLoreans. Anything you could ever possibly want to know; anything that could ever possibly break or need fixed, he’s your guy. He can disassemble and reassemble the whole care in a matter of hours, blindfolded, with one arm behind his back. But give him a Ford and he has no idea what to do. Or any other car.
Another mechanic was trained to just “work on cars”. He has a very general knowledge about a lot of cars, and can fix most things on most cars. There’s a few he’s seen a lot, which he’s very good with, and there’s a few he sees very rarely, and he has to do some research and ask around. He knows what he knows, and he knows what he doesn’t know. And, equally importantly, he knows where to go and who to ask when he runs into a problem. Over time, he actually becomes an expert in a few different cars.
When they both start out, the DeLorean guy finds it really easy to get a job. A few garages needed a DeLorean expert, and he showed up one day and was hired on the spot. He had a specialized skillset, and they had the need, and his starting pay was excellent.
The “car guy” had a lot more trouble. Every shop has a bunch of car guys, and nothing made him stand out. After months of looking, he finally convinced someone to hire him, at a relatively low starting pay.
A few years down the road, it turns out that DeLoreans just weren’t that popular. There are less and less jobs for the first guy, but he’s too wrapped up in the idea that he’s the expert to even notice. A couple years later, they let him go since there just aren’t enough DeLoreans around to justify his job.
So he comes on T-Nation and bitches and moans that he’s an expert in his field, but nobody will hire him. He goes on and on about how he’s better than all the other mechanics, and how his DeLorean certifications makes him awesome, because DeLoreans are awesome. But he can’t seem to find a job because he doesn’t know anything about any other cars, so he ends up moving home where there’s a dearth of pasta.
Meanwhile, the second guy slowly works his way up, building his reputation and knowledge. He gets some great experience working with all sorts of cars, and becomes something of a Toyota Camry and Honda Accord expert. He can find a job almost anywhere with those skills. He’s also become an expert in a few “rarer” cars that his shop happens to see a lot, mostly because they were of interest to him and nobody else knew how to do it. He now gets paid very handsomely for his skills.
Which would you rather be?[/quote]
thats easy,
I’d rather be the guy who can work on the time machine cars…go back in time and pick winning lottery numbers
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Maybe this analogy helps:
Two mechanics. One was trained from the beginning to fix DeLoreans. Anything you could ever possibly want to know; anything that could ever possibly break or need fixed, he’s your guy. He can disassemble and reassemble the whole care in a matter of hours, blindfolded, with one arm behind his back. But give him a Ford and he has no idea what to do. Or any other car.
Another mechanic was trained to just “work on cars”. He has a very general knowledge about a lot of cars, and can fix most things on most cars. There’s a few he’s seen a lot, which he’s very good with, and there’s a few he sees very rarely, and he has to do some research and ask around. He knows what he knows, and he knows what he doesn’t know. And, equally importantly, he knows where to go and who to ask when he runs into a problem. Over time, he actually becomes an expert in a few different cars.
When they both start out, the DeLorean guy finds it really easy to get a job. A few garages needed a DeLorean expert, and he showed up one day and was hired on the spot. He had a specialized skillset, and they had the need, and his starting pay was excellent.
The “car guy” had a lot more trouble. Every shop has a bunch of car guys, and nothing made him stand out. After months of looking, he finally convinced someone to hire him, at a relatively low starting pay.
A few years down the road, it turns out that DeLoreans just weren’t that popular. There are less and less jobs for the first guy, but he’s too wrapped up in the idea that he’s the expert to even notice. A couple years later, they let him go since there just aren’t enough DeLoreans around to justify his job.
So he comes on T-Nation and bitches and moans that he’s an expert in his field, but nobody will hire him. He goes on and on about how he’s better than all the other mechanics, and how his DeLorean certifications makes him awesome, because DeLoreans are awesome. But he can’t seem to find a job because he doesn’t know anything about any other cars, so he ends up moving home where there’s a dearth of pasta.
Meanwhile, the second guy slowly works his way up, building his reputation and knowledge. He gets some great experience working with all sorts of cars, and becomes something of a Toyota Camry and Honda Accord expert. He can find a job almost anywhere with those skills. He’s also become an expert in a few “rarer” cars that his shop happens to see a lot, mostly because they were of interest to him and nobody else knew how to do it. He now gets paid very handsomely for his skills.
Which would you rather be?[/quote]
I do not know much about coding but, would not this analogy only make sense it certain languages became completely obsolete?
The camps teach multiple languages HTML, CSS, Java, Python, Ruby, etc.
There are some camps that just teach IOS which may become outdated but, since camps are not years long they are always up to date.
Even then once you know the language is not learning newer versions/new ones easier?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
This is one of the well known ones.
Many guarantee job placement.
[/quote]
Here’s a testimonial from the front page of that site:
"These academies are a great way
to identify programming talent, but
Hack Reactor is the Harvard of them all
Steve Newcomb. CEO of Famo.us, as quoted in Infoworld"
Prior to that quote, had you ever heard of famo.us? I hadn’t.[/quote]
I have heard of Steve Newcomb but, I do not get it your point.
People in the industry know who he is. Who would you prefer give it high praise Brad Pitt?
How many Nobel Prize winners names do you know? Top surgeons? Investment Bankers?
[quote]maverick88 wrote:
People in the industry know who he is.[/quote]
Which industry?
fitness trainers hate him
I think it makes a lot of sense to start learning a language like Python. Why don’t you get started right now?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]maverick88 wrote:
People in the industry know who he is.[/quote]
Which industry?[/quote]
Not going to reply for him but, what about the rest of the posts?
From what I have read a lot of people against the camps come across as elitists because they either went to school or learned on their own.
Since we are using analogies it is like guys hating on the guy who hired a personal chef and a trainer to take care of his diet/training.
or
The kid whose parents paid for a nutritionist, trainer and football coach to get home better prepared.
It is an investment that when taken serious can get your foot in the door. Sure you can learn on your own but, in my opinion it does not compare to having instructors and a structured curriculum, as well as hands on help. On your own I assume it will also take a lot longer I have read 2-3 years.
I was looking into them out of curiosity. I have a friend who went to one in Chicago it was 8 weeks and focused on IOS. Before going he worked as a loader making a little more than minimum wage. A few months after completing he got a job in Irvine, CA. and makes over 2x as much. Is it a risk sure like all things but, 8 weeks, $5000, and willingness to learn…seems like a great payoff. I mean even if it was the same pay it sure as hell beats loading boxes onto trucks.
*Unless you live in San Francisco or NYC I do not think people are starting at 75k-80k as many camps say.
I think they can give you an edge if you already have a base, or give you a start if you’re completely new.
There’s a very real educational gap between theory and practice, and these seem to do a decent job to fill it. That doesn’t mean it’s a substitute for theory, or practice.
If this is your only real education, you run the risk of pigeonholing yourself to a particular technology stack before you actually develop a good base.
There weren’t always “web developer” jobs. There probably won’t always be web developer jobs, at least not the same kind of jobs as these. There’s nothing wrong with being a good web developer when that’s what’s in vogue and that’s what people pay for. Likewise for any other specialty of programming/development.
There weren’t always IOS jobs either, and eventually that particular skillset will become antiquated too. Notice how nobody is advertising Palm Pilot bootcamps? Everyone wanted to be a Perl CGI developer once upon a time. Then PHP. Then Ruby on Rails. Then angular.js. Then…
This stuff comes and goes. Build yourself a good base of knowledge and you can ride whichever waves you want.
[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]maverick88 wrote:
People in the industry know who he is.[/quote]
Which industry?[/quote]
Not going to reply for him but, what about the rest of the posts?
From what I have read a lot of people against the camps come across as elitists because they either went to school or learned on their own.
[/quote]
I have a feeling I’m grouped into this bunch. If it’s elitist to advise someone to run another cost-benefit analysis of a decision that will cost them a lot of money, then so be it. I doubt these camps offer anything that I wouldn’t be able to find for free or at a substantially lower cost.