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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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