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Ask HN: What should the content of beginner coding bootcamps consist of?

by optbuild on 6/3/23, 5:41 AM with 5 comments

The bootcamp culture for beginner programmers is often looked down upon in the community and sometimes rightfully so. A bootcamp generally picks up a trendy language/framework and teaches beginners how to code a few trendy apps like a todo list, a shopping cart, etc.

But what beginners should learn is how to break a large problem down into manageable chunks and write functions in a language to solve those tasks and finally integrate them to solve the bigger problem with as few points of control as possible.

Assuming the bootcamps is a few months long and is residential (attendees have no other engagements), what other things should a beginner bootcamp cover according to you?

  • by geekodour on 6/3/23, 6:36 AM

    Don't have a good answer but here are some thoughts.

    For total beginners the quicker they can get into mathematical thinking/programmatic thinking the better, so whatever makes that fast for the batch is good imo. Also +1 if it can spark more curiosity about what's about to come.

    Also I think the most important aha is when you can see the difference between an implementation and the original idea and then you see the same idea implemented differently in different places, being able to see the abstract things gives a confidence boost

    If they've done stuff, getting hands dirty is the way to go with something like https://bradfieldcs.com/csi/ syllabus.

    if not looking for fast paced stuff, better to sit down, checkout what kind of jobs/work they look forward to doing once the preparation/study phase is over, reverse engineer the job description of relevant companies into the comp sci fundamentals and then go from there.

  • by austin-cheney on 6/3/23, 12:32 PM

    Whether you are talking about boot camps or a CS program from Stanford or MIT the biggest problem is a focus on how to write code. That is basic literacy. Don't focus on that at all. A competent developer will learn that on their own anyways because otherwise they aren't a developer.

    Instead education programs should focus on something far more important: organizational capacity. Most developers cannot communicate in simple written bullet points and cannot program without some framework to make all their decisions for them, which is an epic fail. The complete inability to apply any level of organizational capacity results in nonsense like imposter syndrome, Dunning-Kruger Syndrome, and rampant emotional insecurity.

  • by thedevindevops on 6/3/23, 9:43 AM

    How to work as part of a team - all the bootcamp candidates that've come to us only did solo projects.

    How to read documentation - I know its not an easy skill to teach but so many of them will ask how to do something rather than investigate the docs themselves.

    Pros and cons of different approaches, a lot of candidates seem to think there's only 1 way to accomplish something - usually because that's the way they were taught.

  • by ssss11 on 6/3/23, 10:35 AM

    A few ideas:

    - how binary works and a high level of how source code gets compiled to an executable - psuedo code logic problem solving - learning if/then etc - basics of one language.. - basics of static html and load the webpage from localhost

  • by b20000 on 6/3/23, 1:33 PM

    that is what CS programs at universities are for.