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Comment by mxschumacher | Hacker News Reader

if you have a STEM degree, what value can you derive from short introductory classes on linear algebra, Python and relational databases?

Countless truly excellent and free/cheap resources on these topics exist and you don't have to give a way a significant percentage of your yearly salary.

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I think the value is similar to the value of a personal trainer. There's no rocket science involved in maintaining fitness, but many people find value in the added accountability and planning support.

serious question: Why isn't there a service "personal trainer for coding"? Not so much for juniors looking to get into the industry, but... I'm sure there's a continuous pipeline of high-value people who would pay $$$ to keep them accountable to doing say three coding exercises a week while they are getting ready to switch jobs or are between jobs.

Perhaps because one of the "three virtues of great programmers" is hubris - which Larry Wall optimistically defined as "The quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad things about." but which also/really means "Excessive pride or self-confidence."

I suspect many/most coders think a "personal trainer for coding" is a great idea - for other people (especially their idiot co workers). But they obviously don't need one themselves, and would never need to pay for new...

http://threevirtues.com

Hubris drives you to re-build things you shouldn't... which is how you learn why they work the way they do. And maybe to try things you "shouldn't", which end up working out OK fairly often.

Is my take on how that's a virtue.

This actually exists. I would link to a specific example, but it's run by an individual and I'd feel weird doing that. "Software coaching" might be a useful keyword?

There are programming tutors on wyzant and other services. I suspect a lot of people learning to code who already have a coding friend/person in their life do this informally.

Then you may have a business model.

Damn, build it and I'll be your first signup as a trainer.

I think you could find someone on codementor.io

I really like the idea of a talented tutor helping with subjects I struggle with. Even if it costs thousands of dollars this can be a great investment. The offer would have to be focused, customized and beyond the basics. Given the materials that are out there (MIT open courseware comes to mind) it is really beyond me why people spend so much.

You can procrastinate away your entire life with "someday I'll surely take advantages of all the free resources on X that are out there and finally learn X and maybe even shift careers!"

Just think of all the things you never bother to learn despite having a latent interest even though you can open a new Youtube.com tab right now and fire away. It's hard to start, and then it's overwhelming when you do, and then you feel like a failure when you don't stick with it.

Isn't it worth quite a lot to snap out of it and finally do it? It doesn't surprise me that people find this to be worth thousands of dollars. When you consider how fatally expensive it is to procrastinate your goals forever, maybe these schools are a bargain.

>You can procrastinate away your entire life

This is literally me, although today I finally found the motivation to actually put together two of the parts I 3d printed a while ago. Maybe some day I'll finish the robot.

You can hire a grad student to do this with you.

I've thought about the Lambda School model, sure the funding model is good, however the problem is what that funding is being used for. If you could work on the material on your own and hire a TA paid by the hour to grade your assignments, give feedback and provide assistance, basically only pay for the services that you actually need then the cost for a degree would go down massively.

What Lambda School is trying to do right now is just fish for good students and hope they graduate as quickly as possible so they can collect as many ISAs as possible for as little cost as possible.

Exactly. Some people need a structured environment to get that kind of work done at a decent pace. It also helps to have feedback from a teacher, just like a personal trainer helps you with form.

If they're good they also have a pipeline to a job for you.

You’ll get through the hazing at a few companies.

Some companies only hire people from specific colleges.

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