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Comment by eloisant | Hacker News Reader

Yes, they modelled it after Epita which was also about code, code, code.

Also, while it's nice that Xavier Niel finances a school that is free, most of the universities and Grandes Ecoles (where many developers graduate from) are also free, and financed with public money. They work great and produce really skilled developers and architects.

The reality is that Xavier Niel didn't do a Grandes Ecoles, he's mostly self-taught. When he started to succeed in the telecom industry other companies, full of alumni from Grandes Ecoles didn't see him with a good eye because he didn't have the pedigree (and didn't hire many of them either). So he has a grudge about the Grandes Ecoles system, and creating a school with private money is kind of a middle finger to them.

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> Yes, they modelled it after Epita which was also about code, code, code.

I don't know where you last got your information about Epita, but this has been less and less true for around 10 years now.

They sought to have a state certified engineering degree for a long time and implemented a lot of changes around 2003-2007 that made the cursus a bit less about code a more about common engineering stuff (maths, physics, english, ...) with more structure (they structured classes with a credit system, made more standard student evaluations, ...)

Source: graduated in that era, been in touch with later students.

Coming from Epitech, I would say that you are right. The code, code, code mind is more Epitech and less Epita nowadays.

I've also been through Epitech which is the school that greatly inspired 42 (same founders) and I would like to add some details on top of that.

Even if it's true that Epitech us mainly about coding, the program enforce a coding standard that is a huge part of the final grade of each coding project (small functions, 80 char per line of code...). Fom the second year, components decoupling and basic design patterns are part of the program.

Nevertheless, the school doesn't really make the most to teach basic good engineering practices or at least I don't remember (doc, tests, vendoring, observability...) and this is one of the main pain point.

They have the same rules at 42 to code, 80 columns, 25 lines for a function, ect... Where Epitech is better is that from the middle of the third until the end of the beginning of the five year, you have to work on a end study project. You need to prepare everything before coding, database schema, how will you do your tests, ect.. Even tough I find Epitech better than 42 on this, Epitech is also lacking a lot of things. Some teachers to explain to you the best practices, code review, ect.. would be really nice.

Are you really talking about the EIP?

That totally sounds like gossip to me. I'm very sceptical that "he [created] a school [as a] kind of a middle finger to them".

The personal history of the founders totally supports this narrative.

Their CVs should be findable on the public internet.

I don't think that's the main motive for his creating 42, but he does have a very strong anti-Grandes Écoles bias.

France is still very much an aristocracy.

Niel did not come from the traditional path of the elites (Polytechnique Paris, Centrale, etc.).

He was self taught, and god forbid, earned money through minitel porn. The aristocracy considers him, well, gross.

his grisp against big french institutions is very real and documented. Look at how he started his company Free, telling people that if they stayed at the big telecom companies they were "pigeon".

> Yes, they modelled it after Epita which was also about code, code, code.

Yeah, no. 42 was modeled on Epitech. If EPITA was about "code, code, code", why did Sadirac leave and founded Epitech and 42 ?

For other reasons _in addition_ to that one? Many people make decisions based on a weighted linear combination of criteria.

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