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Can a New Type of School Churn Out Developers Faster? (dice.com)
Nerval's Lobster writes: Demand for software engineering talent has become so acute, some denizens of Silicon Valley have contributed to a venture fund that promises to turn out qualified software engineers in two years rather than the typical four-year university program. Based in San Francisco, Holberton School was founded by tech-industry veterans from Apple, Docker and LinkedIn, making use of $2 million in seed funding provided by Trinity Ventures to create a hands-on alternative to training software engineers that relies on a project-oriented and peer-learning model originally developed in Europe. But for every person who argues that developers don't need a formal degree from an established institution in order to embark on a successful career, just as many people seem to insist that a lack of a degree is an impediment not only to learning the fundamentals, but locking down enough decent jobs over time to form a career. (People in the latter category like to point out that many companies insist on a four-year degree.) Still others argue that lack of a degree is less of an issue when the economy is good, but that those without one find themselves at a disadvantage when the aforementioned economy is in a downturn. Is any one group right, or, like so many things in life, is the answer somewhere in-between?
Yeah, schools can't churn out qualified software engineers in 4 (and in many cases 5) years already. What makes you think you can do a good job in 2 years?
But it is possible to take someone with no experience and turn him/her into a code monkey in only 2 years.
And I think that that is the point with this. They aren't looking to educate new "engineers". They want cheap, fast labour. Code monkeys.
If one of those people goes on to learn more, on their own, so much the better.
If not, well the CxO's of those companies will claim that it is the fault of the workers.