Post: #1

Has anyone ever been to one of these coding bootcamps or considered it?

The ones I have browsed are 8-10 weeks and cost 5-12k. They also place a high emphasis on helping you find a job afterwards.

Most of them are located in San Fran, with a few in Austin and Montreal.

Overall it seems like a solid deal, at least compared to college.

So has anyone tried this?

Post: #2

I like the idea. The ones I've seen are focused on web development. Yes, if you want to be a web developer, they beat a CS degree certainly.

BTW though web development is a relatively easy branch of programming, and it's very learnable on your own. You could probably give yourself a similar bootcamp experience, this guy learned web dev from scratch and got a RoR job ater six months:
http://learnwithjeff.com/blog/2012/08/21...ix-months/

I'd be interested in any you find that teach meatier stuff - focus on tougher languages (C++ etc), algorithms and data structures, etc, please post it here!

Post: #3

I'd considered one for a minute. There was one in SF that was even offering guaranteed job placement or your money back. But not just anyone is accepted. They have some sort of test they give you up front to see if you're capable of the work, from what I read.

Post: #4

(06-27-2013 02:38 AM)speakeasy Wrote:  I'd considered one for a minute. There was one in SF that was even offering guaranteed job placement or your money back. But not just anyone is accepted. They have some sort of test they give you up front to see if you're capable of the work, from what I read.

Yeah, I think the reason they guarantee a job is because there's such a shortage of competent developers.

The question should really be whether a bootcamp beats teaching it to yourself, which is pretty doable I think.

Post: #5

(06-27-2013 02:54 AM)RichieP Wrote:  

(06-27-2013 02:38 AM)speakeasy Wrote:  I'd considered one for a minute. There was one in SF that was even offering guaranteed job placement or your money back. But not just anyone is accepted. They have some sort of test they give you up front to see if you're capable of the work, from what I read.

Yeah, I think the reason they guarantee a job is because there's such a shortage of competent developers.

The question should really be whether a bootcamp beats teaching it to yourself, which is pretty doable I think.

The only advantage I can think of is the guaranteed job placement. Otherwise, yeah teaching yourself to code can easily be done at home. But some people lack the discipline unless they are in the classroom.

Do you guys think RoR is the way to go? Or Python?

Post: #6

Paying for a programming degree of any kind is something I, personally, wouldn't bother doing. It's easy enough to learn from home. This is one of the industries where some of the most talented in the field are completely self taught, and a lot of companies realise that. Only comes down to whether you're prepared to fork out to have them help you find a job. I'm actually doing some programming right now to get some cash (about $10k+ as soon as I'm done, with more potential money to follow, for what is essentially a couple of weeks of easy work - if that). If you're slightly above average in the intelligence/logic department, it shouldn't be a difficult endeavour at all.

@speakeasy: I'm the other way. If I'm doing something at home, I'm far more likely to follow through than if a teacher tells me to do it lol.

It's also a very easy area to either work from home/around the globe, or start earning passive income

Post: #7

Echoing what others are saying. You can probably learn a web development language like Ruby on Rails on your own. Consider that Snowdon fellow. The snarky news reports never fail to mention that he is a "high school dropout". Now if said dropout can get a job high up enough on the food chain that he can bring the whole dam world down when he decides to flip out, with the POTUS making repeated statements about him and what he did, then I'd say formal qualifications may be overrated in IT.

Post: #8

(06-27-2013 02:35 AM)RichieP Wrote:  I'd be interested in any you find that teach meatier stuff - focus on tougher languages (C++ etc), algorithms and data structures, etc, please post it here!

Business opportunity.

WIA

Post: #9

If it's of any assistance to anyone wanting to get into programming, I'd personally recommend starting out with C++, Java, or C#. All of those languages are very functional in any area you can think of, and once you have the fundamentals of programming down (you'll probably gain the most knowledge with something like C++), it becomes very easy to start applying your ideas to other languages. The only real difference is in the syntax and libraries, until you get down to microsecond performance standards. It helps if you really put on emphasis on how things work and why they're done a certain way, rather than just copying and pasting from the internet or a textbook. Very logical subject, well suited to the minds of men, but not so much to the body and soul - make sure to do things other than sitting behind a computer all day, especially if you end up working in the industry. It is, however, one of the easiest ways to make money (in my opinion), especially if you have a decent level of knowledge regarding what is going on behind the scenes of your code.

Post: #10

Programming is really pretty difficult, I'd say harder than practicing medicine although med school requires more memorization. In medicine, the ultimate decision isn't up to you, patients die no matter what. If your program doesn't work, it's on you. 99% correct sucks-- the program will be unusable.

I've got a math IQ of about 130, about top 5%, and was a professional programmer for a while, and was struggling. Guys who really clean up have quantitative IQs more like 140+ , and also the personality, youth and liking for programming to sit there and get results.
HOwever, because programming is very tedious and means actual real solitary work learning, most Americans don't have the determination, and you will probably always be able to get some kind of job-- just not maybe 6 figures.

One hint for anyone who wants to do it is how HUGE the environment factors are. A lot of getting things working is outside of the IDE; it's how your system connects to other systems, is the network carrying all the stuff configured correctly, etc. All stuff outside the actual logic of your program, and which has to be working before you can even start your program sometimes.

If you're USA, It might be better to go into network security, they more often might have to hire US citizens (without dual citizenship) plus it may involve being physically on site, doing things like installing hardware. These are more difficult to outsource to cheaper foreign countries.

Post: #11

I think some of the more important aspects would be securing a job.


Most of these boot camps are teaching Ruby.

http://www.bootcamps.in/programming/job-...ssistance/

Post: #12

(06-27-2013 10:55 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  I've got a math IQ of about 130, about top 5%, and was a professional programmer for a while, and was struggling. Guys who really clean up have quantitative IQs more like 140+ , and also the personality, youth and liking for programming to sit there and get results.

That's an interesting comment, I'm curious - what aspect(s) of it did you struggle with?

Post: #13

Slightly off topic, but this site is absolutely awesome, especially the information on the forum after you solve the problems. Focuses solely on algorithms.

http://projecteuler.net/

Post: #14

Those prices are way to much IMO. But reading books & learning at home will not be enough to give you the skills to be a professional coder/programmer. You need to go to classes, conferences, seminars, etc and mix it up with other people to really learn by being in the environment. It's also harder to really learn something in such a short time frame.

You also need to have the mental chops as iknow said. I've talked to guys who were system/network engineers with certifications (MCSE, CompTIA A+, CCNA, etc) and they tried programming and just couldn't do it.

I say this because I've successfully done it. I graduated with a business degree and was working as a business analyst when I came up with an idea for a tech startup but needed to be technical so I took computer science/software development classes at UC Berkeley thru their Professional Courses program. I also went to several developer conferences and seminars. The classes were around $300-600 each and the conferences & seminars were around 1k-1200 each. I also bought a whole bunch of books.

From all this, I was able to get part time gigs at around $50 per hour. I had quit my day job to work on my startup and these pt gigs were supporting me. I'd say books gave me around 20% of what I needed to do these jobs. However, once you become good at it (programming theory such as general syntax, logic, constructs, data structures, patterns, etc), learning from a book becomes easier. I taught myself C# all from books. Bought 3 books on it, sat down for 3 days and that was it. No conferences, classes or seminars. Six months from reading those books I got a job making $115k.

From your link I clicked on another link to this:

Nashville Software School: 24 weeks programming boot camp
http://www.bootcamps.in/nashville/nashvi...re-school/

6 months for $1000 though there's a caveat:

“Our goal is to charge students no more than $1,000 out of pocket. The rest of our cost is reimbursed by our partner companies and is structured like a recruiter fee. We have had about 15 partner companies interview the graduates from November The students negotiate a salary for themselves and then those companies pay 20% of the first year’s salary back to the school. Really, it’s a reimbursement for the cost of training.”

The Nashville Software School is a non-profit but it is designed to be a self-sustaining program. Students are not obligated to work for a partner, though if they end up finding a job with a non-partner company, they are asked to pay back the basic cost of their training.

Ok, enough for now. I hope all that helped.

Post: #15

I'm curious for you guys on the web-development end of things, do you still feel that PHP is a valuable skill to learn or that one should just skip straight to Ruby or Python? Most the code on the web is still PHP.

Post: #16

(06-27-2013 02:35 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  I'm curious for you guys on the web-development end of things, do you still feel that PHP is a valuable skill to learn or that one should just skip straight to Ruby or Python? Most the code on the web is still PHP.

Atleast in Finland php is still very popular, mostly due to wordpress and drupal.

Post: #17

(06-27-2013 09:40 AM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  

(06-27-2013 02:35 AM)RichieP Wrote:  I'd be interested in any you find that teach meatier stuff - focus on tougher languages (C++ etc), algorithms and data structures, etc, please post it here!

Business opportunity.

WIA

I am especially good at these kind of topics. During college i participated in several programming contests that focus on these.

As others have told you, you really can become very good on your own and now with the internet you can practice and compete in places like Topcoder, project Euler and other online judges, lots of free info.

However, as WIA said, this may be a good business opportunity, so if any of you guys are interested on some guidance, feel free to PM and we can arrange some tutoring, my spoken english is not the best, but i can communicate very well in written email or IM.

Post: #18

(06-27-2013 12:26 PM)RichieP Wrote:  

(06-27-2013 10:55 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  I've got a math IQ of about 130, about top 5%, and was a professional programmer for a while, and was struggling. Guys who really clean up have quantitative IQs more like 140+ , and also the personality, youth and liking for programming to sit there and get results.

That's an interesting comment, I'm curious - what aspect(s) of it did you struggle with?

I think I was just not that good, devising the logic, and also just trying to concentrate on such dry stuff all day. No talking to anybody, it's completely unnatural to sit there and do math all day for me, although I made it through Calculus 2, I was mediocre.

I did become a good debugger however, probably from being a bad programmer hahha.

Sorry I can't offer a more definite answer, I guess if I knew exactly what I was doing wrong it would show I have more talent than I do.

Also it seemed so thankless, helping somebody count their money, everything always has a stupid deadline everyone realizes is unrealistic so there's a lot of dishonesty embedded in the process, this was 15 years ago so it might be different now. And the people are extremely schizoid and cold. I worked with one guy for years and every day I would see him and tried to say hi for a while and he would look right through me like I wasn't there. We hadn't had any conflict or anything, he was just a totally socially withdrawn guy. He was the best programmer there-- it helps to prefer machines to people.

What would happen is managers would want to look good so they'd promise things would be done in X amount of time ( which was unrealistic). They had to because upper management would refuse to accept it would take 3X to get done.

Then when the deadline neared they would pressure you to work unpaid overtime etc.

I guess it also was partly because I was comparatively far stronger with verbal stuff-- always scoring top 1% in SAT/GRE etc all my life. Anything verbal I could learn effortlessly, remembering all concepts and how they interacted immediately upon a first listening, and perceiving logic errors in arguments immediately. My math/programming skill was weak by comparison-- I actually had to work!!

Post: #19

(06-27-2013 02:35 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  I'm curious for you guys on the web-development end of things, do you still feel that PHP is a valuable skill to learn or that one should just skip straight to Ruby or Python? Most the code on the web is still PHP.

As long as the internet exists, there's always going to be a market for web developers. If you can combine that with the other rising market - smart phones - dev skills in these areas can potentially net you ridiculous amounts of money from home, for very little/easy work.

Post: #20

FYI: Programming job doesn't mean that you will be dealing with algorithms etc all the time. I am a UX/UI developer and i mostly deal with simple javascript code and HTML/CSS.

Post: #21

(06-27-2013 02:35 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  I'm curious for you guys on the web-development end of things, do you still feel that PHP is a valuable skill to learn or that one should just skip straight to Ruby or Python? Most the code on the web is still PHP.

PHP is and will be a widely used programming language. Hence millions of kids you'd compete against, hence not very attractive salaries or daily rates for contractors.

You could find a niche within PHP. I know guys who specialize in Drupal customizations (Drupal is a CMS framework written in PHP) who command respectable daily rates.

That said I'd say either Ruby and Python are also easy to learn, of not easier, have more potential esp. on non-trivial projects, or you could go hardcore and learn Java / C and the world of mobile app development would open up to you.

I currently hire mobile developers and anyone with a good portfolio of mobile apps can pretty much write their paycheck. The demand is huge.

==

PS I am not convinced coding bootcamps are a good investment. Coding can be learnt independently or through online programs, many of which are free (e.g. Khan Academy, see https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/tutorials...g-basics). Also, it takes time and determination, and if one cannot find the discipline to learn alone, he or she does not have the drive and determination it takes to become a good programmer.

I remember in 2000 when I had my first job (non-programming), I'd print Javascript manuals and sit in cafes at night reading them and trying to memorize things. I did not have a computer at home back then. I was quite obsessed.

Like IKE wrote previously, it's a solitary job. Nowadays I prefer earning money by talking to people rather than writing code. But I'm 30+ so I guess I couldn't compete with the youngsters anyway.

Post: #22

One more thing: if you are interested in learning programming in general and need a good intro to the subject as such, I can't recommend this free book enough: Learn Python The Hard Way. As the name suggests, you can't really do a Dummies book and expect to be a competent programmer by the time you're done with it, you've got to do your 10 000 hours. This book is a great primer into basic computer science topics such as algorithms and teaches you one very practical language along the way.

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

Post: #23

I want to learn how to code because I have ideas in my mind that I want out of my skull and into my little digital hands.

If I wanted to make statues, this would be the equivalent of me going to sculpting class.

Are these courses set up to teach you to build for yourself, or to build for others (i.e. the vast majority of education out there - designed to create employees not entrepreneurs)

WIA

Post: #24

The best way to learn how to program is to have a project. Teach yourself how to code while implementing your project. You'll learn way more than any class will teach you. Project Euler (as recommended above) is a great way to get small projects. I like websites like Hack A Day (http://hackaday.com/) for inspiration.

My brother had an idea for an iPad app a few years ago and with no previous programming experience sat down and made it happen over the course of a few weeks. Now he's got a 6 figure gig making iOS apps. During the interview for his gig the interviewer started out asking the standard programming questions (how do you do a q-sort, etc.). My brother said he had no idea and then explained that he learned how to program to implement his app. He got hired on the spot. Good programming shops would rather have a programmer who can complete projects than one who knows all the stuff you'll learn in classes or at a boot camp.

Post: #25

(06-28-2013 06:11 PM)Ensam Wrote:  The best way to learn how to program is to have a project. Teach yourself how to code while implementing your project.

Not sure if this is still the case, but at one point the Java compiler was written in Java by some random dude that decided to write a compiler, for the purpose of learning the language. Turns out it was actually way better than the compiler that Sun had released at the time, so they ended up using it. But yeah, if there's anything in particular you have an interest in, it's a good way to stay motivated.