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Comment by msoad | Hacker News Reader

My wife applied to one of those "Coding Academies" to learn basic web development. They had a phone screening interview and they asked my wife to write HTML and CSS code! Then later they replied that she is no qualified for the course. While their website had no indication that you need to know any programming language or specific computer related background, they rejected my wife. I was suspicious that this might be a racist discrimination so I look around to see who regulates them. Guess who? No one!

I'm glad that they are facing mandatory regulation. Also I think the way they try to teach computer science is wrong. You can't be a good Rails developer in 6 months if you don't know basic computer science.

My wife no is going to San Jose state university and leaning boring Operation System basics and Assembly. But that's the right way of starting you career in computer science world.

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> "They had a phone screening interview and they asked my wife to write HTML and CSS code! Then later they replied that she is no qualified for the course. While their website had no indication that you need to know any programming language or specific computer related background, they rejected my wife. I was suspicious that this might be a racist discrimination so I look around to see who regulates them. Guess who? No one!"

Barely more charitable explanation: rejecting people who are not already familiar with the subject matter might be how they 'manage' such high success rates.

I think that's a given. I don't think any school has ever claimed to take someone from 0 to developer in 3 months. That's unrealistic.

There's obviously a baseline below which any short, high intensity training course isn't viable.

A similar analogue would be baseline fitness levels expected out of candidates at, well, real bootcamps. If you can't jog more than a block or do 1 pushup, chances of making it through are relatively slim.

Yeah, on second thought the "barely" in "barely more charitable" is going to far. Universities definitely do the same thing (though to the credit of universities, they are up front (or even brag) about having stringent admission standards).

Your standard university CS department has no problem accepting freshman who have never even heard of HTML, but they are also operating on a different timescale. In universities it is reasonable to spend a few months getting freshman up onto their feet. When the entire program is a few months, you have to operate differently.

> Your standard university CS department has no problem accepting freshman who have never even heard of HTML, but they are also operating on a different timescale.

Moreover, HTML has very little to do with CS. You can probably graduate with a CS degree and know virtually nothing about HTML (and that's not a bad thing.)

Also I think the way they try to teach computer science is wrong. You can't be a good Rails developer in 6 months if you don't know basic computer science.

So...you're suggesting they should pre-screen people, say, on the phone, to make sure they know the basics of computer science?

They want to get student that are actually programmer but don't have enough confidence to get hired.

I'm sorry that your wife had a bad experience, but your statement "that's the right way of starting [your] career in computer science" is ridiculous. There are many paths my friend.

But if you want to go to "school" there is just one right way that is build upon many years of experience.

Just because your doctor does basic screening and tells you you have flu doesn't mean you can be a doctor if you learn those basic screening skills, my friend

I highly doubt that it's racial discrimination, but I'm not going to back that sentiment with 100% certainty, because you never know. However, the whole concept of a "coding bootcamp", literally they're bootcamps that can be mentally exhausting. They're going to try to expose you to an intense array of information in a short period of time, from the basics (HTML/CSS, JS) to intermediate/advanced subjects/languages (Ruby, Python, PHP, etc.). So it's not farfetched for them to reject applicants who would struggle to keep up if they don't know the basics.

And another thing, they're not trying to teach CS. CS is a discipline all its own. Code bootcamps focus on web development, so you can have the practical knowledge and skill for entry level web development positions.

> My wife no is going to San Jose state university and leaning boring Operation System basics and Assembly. But that's the right way of starting you career in computer science world.

Disagree. Without proper context, low level system implementation details are pretty dry and uninteresting.

There's certainly a level of abstraction that's too high for beginners (rails, I'm looking at you). However, there's also a level of abstraction that is far too low.

So since your wife didn't join a coding academy, lets ban all of them.

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