davidbalbert

We're looking for people of all experience levels. Our goal is to make Hacker School the best place to improve as a programmer no matter what level you're at.

We've had a number of Ph.D.s and postdocs in various subjects including CS go through Hacker School. We would be happy to have any of our residents as Hacker Schoolers if they wanted to.

So in short: you should apply to Hacker School :)

The short answer is because we were living in New York when we started Hacker School.

As to why we were living in New York, I can only answer for myself, but here you go: I grew up here (city and suburbs), most of my family still lives in the area, my friends live here, and I love the energy of the city. It feels like home.

Unfortunately admissions decisions are final for this batch. I'm sorry this felt like rubbing salt in the wound :(. On the bright side, as long as you continue to improve as a programmer, you can apply for the next batch, hopefully with different results.

We have plans to better communicate what we're looking for in admissions and our thoughts on becoming a better programmer, which will hopefully be helpful when you apply again.

We're working through applications as quickly as we can, generally in the order that we got them. You're guaranteed an admissions decision by May 17th, so you should hear back about your application well before then.

One thing to add to this: It very well might be worth applying to this batch. Even if you don't get in, We'll get to see how much you grew as a programmer on your own between batches. If we have this information during admissions, we put a lot of weight on it.

Hi, I'm one of the founders of Hacker School. I'm happy to answer questions that anyone might have.

It looks like OP it's just a founder profile. The company's home page[1] is much closer to what you would expect. I was initially thrown off too, though.

[1]http://wevorce.com/

Thanks. I was first exposed to this in Zed's Learn C the Hard Way: http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/. I think it's quite handy.

I think you're largely correct, but you're probably underestimating how much societal pressure goes into making things this way. Parents taking away the rocket ship is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only are young girls pushed away from science and other subjects that are considered masculine, but they're also socialized to have a "broad range" of interests and not to obsess over any one thing, which is the exact trait that enabled me and many other programmers I know to get ahead in programming. I underestimated it too until I read Unlocking the Clubhouse (http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=8515...) a few months ago.

For problems this large and systemic, significant corrective action and positive reinforcement are required.

I do it a lot also. I try to catch myself, but I only succeed part of the time.

One of the best things I've done was giving it a name thanks to Miguel's blog post. With a name, others can call me out for doing it ("did you just well-actually me?") and I can also call myself out ("sorry, that was a well-actually").

I think programmers generally care too much about correctness at the expense of feelings, community, and personal relationships. Very often correcting someone is really about showing how smart you are. While I wasn't at the event in the article, it certainly seems that Yehuda could have been doing that, and he shouldn't have done it. I just don't think this is a productive way to fix the problem.

This is a touchy subject. I think this kind of behavior is very counterproductive and we (programmers) seem to do it a lot. It's something that needs to be talked about and fixed. Miguel de Icaza wrote a great blog post about "well-actuallys" a year ago and it's definitely worth reading: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

That being said, it makes me uncomfortable that an article called "Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting" near the top of HN, especially because he seems to have become a bit of a punching bag lately (see Rails.app). I really wish we as a community spent less time dragging people down, especially ones who contribute so much great code.

This shouldn't be about Yehuda. This should be about all of us being nicer and better people. It's sad to see an opportunity for discussion be used to bring down one person.

Unfortunately, there's no real answer to this. If you're good, you won't have trouble finding a job, but that's a question only you can answer. I plan on writing a longer post about this later, but the best way to answer this for yourself is to ask "do I really love programming?" People who love programming and have gone through Hacker School have had no trouble getting a job afterwards.

If you do love programming, you should apply!

We mean hacker in the pg (http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html) esr (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html) sense of the word, namely an awesome programmer who loves learning, groks hacker culture, and self identifies as a hacker. Not a cracker. Certainly learning about computer security is part of being a good hacker, but it's not primarily what Hacker School is about.

Incidentally, have you ever read Hacking: The Art of Exploitation (http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-The-Art-Exploitation-Edition/d...)? It's my favorite book on the subject.

We haven't done this primarily because we think you'll improve the most when becoming a better hacker is the top idea on your mind (http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html). Doesn't mean it wouldn't work though. Just maybe not as well. I'd love to see what would happen if someone organized it.

Thanks! It means a lot to hear such kind words. We'd love to have you apply :).

Agreed, but you have to start somewhere. I think one of the things that turns lots of people off from CS education, and programming in general, is how long it takes to get from just starting out to making something cool.

I don't think it's too early to apply for YC. We hadn't built anything when we applied (although we had spent a few weeks brainstorming ideas). We built our prototype between when we were accepted for interviews and when we actually interviewed. Even if you don't apply, filling out the YC application is a great way to think clearly about your idea.

YC accepts good people who's ideas they don't like and then try to convince you to do something else. We fell into this category. I wouldn't spend too much time writing a business plan though. Start building things and experimenting.

Thanks for the kind words Zack!

A quick correction: Hacker School application page is actually http://www.hackerschool.com/apply. If you just want to talk or are looking for a job, Zack's link is the way to go.

30 people, 10am to 8pm, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Feb 13 through May 3. Thanks!

You don't necessarily have to have been coding for a long time. You just have to be smart, love programming, and be willing to learn. If you're not sure, apply anyway :)

Today is actually the first time I heard of both the bootcamp and Ars Digita University (http://adiuni.org). I'm going to spend a bunch of time looking at both of them. Thanks!

It's not necessarily vocation. It's just building things. Craft is the word I use in my head. I enjoy CS a lot, but I primarily want to be a better craftsman. CS is a useful tool for me to get better at my craft, but my primary interest is in being good at building things.

Thanks. This is a big part of it. We'd love it if the end result was that we had put a few more good hackers out into the market.

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you like it.

Totally agree, but don't tell them. We want to do it first ;)

We have made an effort to make sure that Hacker School is not about startups and products. This is mostly from experience in prior batches: students who worked on producty or startupy ideas didn't get nearly as much out of the batch as students who were working on more technical stuff.

Also, in NYC specifically, we feel that there isn't as much of a pure "hacker" scene. It's too intermingled with the startup world. We're trying to do our part to fix that.

Thanks!

In our experience, computer science and programming are two different things. Being good at one, doesn't necessarily make you good at the other, but they are certainly complementary (computer scientists will tell you that programming is a tool to do their studies; programmers will tell you that computer science is a tool to help them write better code). We have had students with advanced degrees in CS (M.S., PhD) and students who never studied it before. All are welcome.

So far, we have not generated any materials. If we do in the future, we'd absolutely love to put them online. I'd like to start video taping our guest speakers who we have from time to time and put those online. Just have to get our hands on a video camera.