69 karma · joined February 19, 2020
Also, you probably don't just want to speak to any human. You probably want to speak to an intelligent, skilled human who can fix your problems. That pushes cost up further.
If great support is a priority to you, I recommend being an early adopter of startup products. These companies get their edge from being customer-focused and will be happy to speak to you for whatever reason.
Of course, there are tradeoffs to that approach too. As customers, we want it all: we want cheap products that add tons of value to our lives and never break. In reality it's necessary to make some tradeoffs
US: We'll bring the software!
China: We'll bring the hardware!
EU: We'll bring the regulation!
"I know it’s kind of a cliché but it comes back to worse is better. If you spend the time to build the perfect framework…release 1.0 is going to take you three years to ship and your competitor is going to ship their 1.0 in six months and now you’re out of the game. You never shipped your 1.0 because someone else ate your lunch. Your competitor’s six-month 1.0 has crap code and they’re going to have to rewrite it in two years but, guess what: they can rewrite it because you don’t have a job anymore."
It's true that Lambda is incredibly disorganised and the build weeks etc are chaotic. Equally true that they don't do a good enough job of ensuring we have something to show for ourselves on our portfolio.
It's also true that their admission standards are seemingly incredibly lax. About 40% of my cohort struggle to code at a fundamental level - I don't mean that harshly, it's Lambda's fault
With that said, I've really enjoyed my time at Lambda overall and it saddens me to see it fail like this. The atmosphere and internal culture that they cultivated is second to none and I have enjoyed my time there a lot.
As with many people at Lambda, I joined them at a difficult time of my life, when I was suffering from pretty severe depression. I knew I loved coding but barely spent any time doing it and struggled with impostor syndrome, etc.
While at Lambda I benefitted hugely from the daily structure and discipline, and from having a community of people in the same position as me. I've made some great friends, and met some very smart and talented people.
What pains me is the embarrassment of appearing like some clueless fool who got caught up in some get-rich-quick scheme. I love programming, and I just wanted a structured curriculum to train as a professional.