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Comment by butwhy | Hacker News Reader

tl;dr "omg I'm scared of new people learning how to program because it threatens my job. I learned the hard way looking through old textbooks and new entrants shouldn't get to use a nice new service to learn because I didn't have that available to me when I started!"

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Programming has always been accessible to new people. The only way it couldn't be is if programmers had organized themselves into some sort of union and then sought and received for it a legal monopoly on their profession as enjoyed by the American Dental Association.

And yes, I am afraid of CodeCademy, bootcamps, H-1Bs visas, and any other scheme blessed by industry, the media, and government that seems tailor-made for reducing my wages and my prestige. Remember that it wasn't long ago that a massive wage suppression cartel in SV was exposed, and its architects were punished with mere wrist-slaps. Quite frankly, you're foolish if you're not afraid.

Further, who are these "new people" you speak of anyway? Most of the "old people" I've met in this industry are there because they love programming, with the high salary being something of a perk. That's why so many of them contribute to open source projects on the side. This new breed of bootcamp and CodeCademy graduates are thoroughly mercenary in character. One of CodeCademy's own success stories is from a lawyer who got into "coding" because the job market for lawyers was so poor - why should I contribute to my own marginalization by supporting people like him?

That's a really naive assessment of his comment. I share a similar sentiment as the OP here, programming (not coding) is hard. A lot of us get paid well to solve complex problems for clients who expect us to do the job right. Institutions like codecademy, and other "learn to code" incentives make it seem like you can just knock some achievements off a list and bang, you're on the way to being a programmer!

Having spent a lot of time around industry vets and people who started doing this stuff in the 80s, these "nice new services" aren't all they're cracked up to be. The freelance coder market is becoming an annoying thing for the reputation of programmers, consultants and companies who know their shit, and do a great job for their paying customers.

Also, as I stated in my post, I don't think CodeCademy actually works that well at all, so your suggestion that I'm envious of new people because they have access to CC when starting out while I didn't is groundless. I tried one of their courses two years ago and found it extremely shallow. If someone asked me today how to learn JavaScript, I would probably direct them to Mozilla's tutorial or to the Rhino book and wouldn't even mention CC.

The glut of free programming books and tutorials on the internet along with open source operating systems and development tools and the Stack Overflow and other Stack Exchange websites have collectively done much more programming and CS education than CC has done and likely ever will do.

So you don't personally like CC based on your experience of it 2 years ago, so what? You don't have to use it. It just so happens that a lot of people really like their service.

If it outputs bad candidates, as you claim, then you should have no problem beating them in job interviews.

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