This is similar to what I've seen. It is challenging enough being a startup, its even more challenging to try to be a remedial computer science program and get stuff done.
What is strange is the exact same thing happened in the late 90's during the first bubble. In that case it was "webmaster" was the new thing and there were these sorts of boot camps that would turn you into a webmaster in just a few short weeks so you could take your place in the .com revolution. Massive numbers of those folks were doing that because they wanted more money per month and were trying any way they could to get it. They made for really bad web designers because they really didn't care about things and at the end of the day, coding is about caring and interest.
To be fair, learning to code well is HARD and takes a lot of time, and more importantly, practice. Stayin inside coding as a kid was the best decision of my life, career-wise.
I agree with you and parent. I think the real value of programs like this probably ought to be to help identify people who do have an aptitude and interest for this but for whatever reason haven't learned already and want an alternative to a college degree program to get in the workforce. I suspect the net that's cast is often quite wider than that though :)
Totally agree with this. The key is that if you're hiring someone from a bootcamp program you need to carefully build an on-boarding process for them that can effectively spoon feed the critical bits of your infrastructure/platform to them so that they don't waste any time in becoming productive.
At Code Fellows we have quite a few students who use boot camps to switch stacks or they have legacy CS experience that they are getting back into. We also have a lot of newer folks. One of the things that we've seen at Code Fellows is that incoming students need to have a Foundational understanding of data structures, algorithms, and data types—and also a experience in the stack they are going to take a boot camp in. If they have these ingredients and relevant experience then they can take off in those 8 weeks and be prepared and inspired to keep learning, growing, and get a job. We are super clear that this is a HARD life long process—and that's part of the fun/agony of it all :)
>its even more challenging to try to be a remedial computer science program and get stuff done.
I have even felt this pain at a former employer who hired IS majors as devs. The only IS majors that tended hold there own was the ones with CS minors.
What is strange is the exact same thing happened in the late 90's during the first bubble. In that case it was "webmaster" was the new thing and there were these sorts of boot camps that would turn you into a webmaster in just a few short weeks so you could take your place in the .com revolution. Massive numbers of those folks were doing that because they wanted more money per month and were trying any way they could to get it. They made for really bad web designers because they really didn't care about things and at the end of the day, coding is about caring and interest.