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Comment by romanhn | Hacker News Reader

If a job can be learned in a month to a degree where the learner is now proficient in it, then the barrier to entry is low and the job is either repetitive in nature or has a very low expectations bar (e.g. for junior roles). I highly doubt that's the case for most folks on HN. This is a field where experience can't be entirely replaced with diligent study (doubly true for management roles).

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I've had to train people on basic programming.

I've experienced two outcomes.

The first where they outright did it wrong, imagine someone not understanding basics like variables and parameters, so they just hard code everything and copy and paste all over the place.

The manager said this was fine, since it made our metrics look better, and I ultimately left over this.

In another case, they basically all listened to me and I got to lead a few initiatives. I did have to help out every now and then, but they caught on quickly.

I think Python and JavaScript are learnable within a month. Wouldn't say the same for Java or C#. Personally I still don't touch the most difficult languages, Rust, C++...

Knowing how to code is the most trivial part of a software engineer's job. Making sense of vague (or even conflicting) requirements, knowing when and how to make the right trade-offs, communicating effectively up/down/with peers/cross-functionally, etc etc are what separate an experienced engineer from someone who just learned the language. My 14-year-old can code in several languages, but I don't think he's ready to be hired just yet. The job, at the end of the day, is about delivering business value, not lines of code. Writing less code to deliver more value is something that only comes from experience.

I take it your skeptical of boot camps ?

My logic is that if I'm personally reaching someone for a month that'll be more effective than putting them in a classroom for 12 weeks.

I think many (most?) boot camps are money grabs that overpromise and underdeliver. I've also seen great juniors come out of boot camps. Either way, you're now talking about something different than your original question - most jobs out there are not junior-level jobs, so a month or a few of boot camp or self study just aren't sufficient.

You can teach a person the basics of a programming language like Python in a week... but that doesn't mean they'll be able to code effectively. Programming is at its heart a craft, the more that you actively practice it the more you'll improve. Aptitude and an affinity for logical thinking and problem solving go a long way as well.

It's like a foreign language, you can acquire a vocabulary of several thousand words using flashcards over a month, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to actually communicate.

Does it matter?

I mean we're talking about someone doing my job and just replacing me, not necessarily doing everything I can do. I'm sure there are things they might be able to do that I can't. I'm just a midlevel. I assume there are a fair number of "entry level" folks on here. I'm over 10 years in and "entry level". It seems the bar is quite low for most jobs if you have the right credentials or connections (but I pretty much don't).

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