Re:Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?
by josephg on Monday January 02, 2023 @05:23AM
(#34216352)
> Nothing prevents bootcamps from having those classes though.
Time.
They don't have time for things like that. If they took the time to teach low level programming, data structures and algorithms, security, operating systems, networking and so on, they'd need to teach students for 3 years instead of 3 months. And then you may as well get a degree.
The sales pitch for bootcamps is that they can teach you enough to get started in a career in CS in 12 weeks. Then you can get a job and learn the rest while working. This breaks down when you don't learn things that you'll need. And it breaks down around areas you'll probably never pick up on the job, like (for me) learning how page fault handlers work in the kernel by implementing my own. Or how you can use gdb to reverse engineer C programs.
There's only so much you can learn in 12 weeks. And there's only so much your job will take the time to teach you.
Time.
They don't have time for things like that. If they took the time to teach low level programming, data structures and algorithms, security, operating systems, networking and so on, they'd need to teach students for 3 years instead of 3 months. And then you may as well get a degree.
The sales pitch for bootcamps is that they can teach you enough to get started in a career in CS in 12 weeks. Then you can get a job and learn the rest while working. This breaks down when you don't learn things that you'll need. And it breaks down around areas you'll probably never pick up on the job, like (for me) learning how page fault handlers work in the kernel by implementing my own. Or how you can use gdb to reverse engineer C programs.
There's only so much you can learn in 12 weeks. And there's only so much your job will take the time to teach you.