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Coding Academies -- Useful Or Nonsense? (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Stephen Nichols, CEO of a platform that helps non-coders create simple video games, thinks that so-called coding academies are essentially snake oil. "In 20+ years of professional coding, I've never seen someone go from novice to full-fledged programmer in a matter of weeks, yet that seems to be what coding academies are promising, alongside instant employment, a salary big enough to afford a Tesla and the ability to change lives." His point is reminiscent of Peter Norvig's in "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years."
Nichols also thinks coding tools will become powerful enough in the next decade that the demand for actual, dedicated coders will diminish (perhaps not surprising, given his business). But he's probably right that the people likely to go to a coding academy are likely to be the ones using those tools, when they arrive. "Put succinctly, coding is writing text files in foreign languages containing instructions suitable for an absolute idiot to follow. ... For a little while, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a coding academy might feel like a good way to surmount the intimidation. ... More likely, it is just a new pathway into debt."
Nichols also thinks coding tools will become powerful enough in the next decade that the demand for actual, dedicated coders will diminish (perhaps not surprising, given his business). But he's probably right that the people likely to go to a coding academy are likely to be the ones using those tools, when they arrive. "Put succinctly, coding is writing text files in foreign languages containing instructions suitable for an absolute idiot to follow. ... For a little while, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a coding academy might feel like a good way to surmount the intimidation. ... More likely, it is just a new pathway into debt."
It's called attrition rate. For any profession there's a relatively small amount that stay within that profession for 10, 20, 30 years. The counterexamples to this rule are the professions that tend to be taken by people that wanted to be in that profession for all of their lives. i.e. an MD or a lawyer. I'm sure coding academies will attract a high amount of novices. But from that influx there will still be some percent - perhaps even 0.001% - that just springboard after it.
Is it enough to call it not snakeoil? Probably not. In my totally unscientific and personal experience, programming languages and frameworks usually have sufficient information for me to figure them out and know how to use them. That includes the very basic stuff of learning java, for example. If you name a programming language there's a way to teach yourself it for free. So the coding academies are vying for a portion of a market with a "free" and viable enough alternative. I'd call THAT snakeoil.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
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Masonry and carpentry is an apprenticeship. I wish that more people in the software business realised that software is too.
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Once upon a time many of the sciences where too. Back around the second world war, my grandfather who was around 14-15 started an apprentiship with the local national science organization (Cant remember if it was the CSIRO back then) as an industrial chemist. Because university places where largely for the wealthy, as a working class lad his only option was to work as an apprentice chemist and work his way up. Eventually he worked up to becoming a qualified chemical engineer (And yes, they actually awarded bachelor degrees, but they where not as prestigious as ones from a university) , and ultimately ended up at BP designing process control systems for oil refineries.
Personally I think for practical programming that makes a lot of sense. Of course theres still a role for the research side of it , that still belongs at a university, but there really isn't anything in programming as a tool that precludes it being taught in the same way an electrician learns his trade.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
I'd like to share my own experience, since I'm self-taught programmer.
I started programming 35 years ago, on a pocket calculator (TI58-C), then moved onto some micro-computers.
At this time, I realized that that's what I wanted to do as my job.
So I spent a lot of time disassembling code, in order to understand how it was done.
Then I started to write my own games.
I finally got hired into a video game company, but I realized that working in a company could not provide me enough software education.
I bought the Art of Computer Programming, and I passionately read it.
Later, I entered programming contests, where I could explore combinatorial algorithms by practicing them.
Now, I'm equivalent to a software engineer, though I'm underemployed given my experience.
So yes, you can practice programming and acquire theoretical bases afterwards.
But most coders I met were satisfied with their level, never trying to challenge their knowledge.
I don't speak about learning new languages, but new ways to solve problems.
They are more dedicated to build their career.
Coding academies are nonsense and attract the kind of mind that becomes a lawyer because they want money, or becomes a doctor because they want money. Real programmers have gravitated towards their field long before ever having a formal education in it. Also, I highly doubt you can teach the computer science concepts that back up this field in a few weeks. Really, these places just produce code monkeys who don't really understand what they're doing but glue pieces of code from Stack Overflow together.
I know most people on Slashdot won't admit this and this will probably get moded down.... But... Coding is nothing like being a doctor or a lawyer. Coding is a blue collar profession that pays poorly. Creative and intelligent people go into medicine, law, etc. Sorry for all of you who thought you were gifted because you wrote a hello world program while in middle school.