Nothing wrong with learning Javascript and Ruby or Python off the bat instead of starting with something like Java or C/C++. But you might want to start the course with stuff like programming language basics, database basics, and SQL if they're coming from non-programming positions.

It's also a little overkill to cover Django, Rails, AND Node.js in one course, isn't it?

I guess I'm not sure if the ad is targeted at Citigroup's software/IT people (who already know a lot of this stuff and are probably not the folks getting laid off) or the other (finance/accounting/admin/sales/customer service/operations) people (who probably need to start from the square-one basics of web programming).

Fair question. We don't think you can learn from scratch any of these topics in three weeks, let alone all of them, to be employable at any of them. What we're talking about are people who are proficient in a given language or topic already, and who want to see a crash course, and get a taste, before deciding what to do next.

Our candidates are basically already very employable, but there's an extra risk we help employers avoid: that a new hire won't enjoy or become proficient in this new subject quickly (read: cheaply).

Thinkful is all about cost savings for employers, and candidates finding what they're really interested in.

Know java really, really well? Maybe you'll enjoy scala. But perhaps give it a trial run for a few weeks (along with some other cool stuff) before jumping in to a job for several years.

I would add regular expressions and anonymous functions to that list.