#hacker schools

[vbaxendallesmom]

A request for Hacker Schools

It is exciting to see all these #hackers schools cropping up. However, if you really want to get more people coding esp women, make a hacker school that meets post work-day like 6-10pm on weeknights and all day on weekends. Thx

[unqb]

Great resource for comparing the latest information on technical bootcamps that emphasize intensive hands-on learning and getting real-world results in a compressed timeframe. This type of training is the future of gaining new technical skills that can be applied immediately in the workforce.

The sister site to Bootcamps.in — both of which have an interesting story on how they came to be.

[harinilearnsruby]

Finding Purpose

I spent a lot of time today trying to answer questions like:

Why do you want to get back to being a software developer, again?

Will you be a good fit for a programming bootcamp, putting in 90-100 hours of work per week?

Are you sure you really want to do this? But why?

These were not questions asked of me by an interviewer. These were questions I asked myself. I've been struggling with finding purpose and meaningfulness in my life and career over the last few years. I wrote a post a few months ago called Finding What you Love, which detailed my struggle. And as I read it now, I find that this passage jumps out at me:

Meaningful work is something that fills me with joy, makes me look forward to every morning, be it a Monday or a Friday; encompasses my passions, teaches me something new, helps me give back to the people of my community. If I get paid along the way, that would just be an added bonus. For years, I thought this was a tall order. Sometimes, even now, I have a tiny nagging voice in my head that tells me that I'm expecting too much, that meaningful work of this kind is a luxury, attainable only by a few. But I have learned to quell that voice of doubt and convince myself that meaningful work is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity. 

I think I can very strongly say now that I'm reaching the end of the journey wrt my struggle for meaningfulness. This is what I'd like to do. This is my Plan A. There is no Plan B. Because I won't be needing a Plan B. Because my Plan A is going to work. I need it to :) 

[harinilearnsruby]

Programming Interviews

My Skype interview on Monday will have a short coding question. Phone programming interviews are hard - the interviewer can neither see my body language (Is she struggling with the problem? Is she thinking intently?) nor the work that I'm doing on a piece of paper/whiteboard. So it's important to keep the conversation flowing even as I'm mentally solving the problem in the background. I'm planning to keep this advice is mind - The Programming Interview: Keep Talking

To practice the "keep talking" tactic, I'm solving some of the problems from App Academy's mini-curriculum. [And will probably move on to TestFirst.org later]. 

What are your tips for a successful phone programming interview?

[harinilearnsruby]

Hacker Schools

If you've been reading my last few posts, you know that I applied to App Academy, a hacker school in SF & NYC. I'm waiting to interview with them soon & am super excited about it. I did consider applying to a few other schools, but things didn't pan out because of the dates some of these schools were offering classes on. But I wanted to profile these schools in the hope that if anyone else was looking to apply too, then they would know all about these schools and make the choice that works best with their schedule & budget! :)

I'll profile a school per day and hopefully cover all the ones that I considered during my application process :)

[drewbutler]

Nashville Software School - Did he actually get a job?

A couple of people have asked about what happened after I graduated from Nashville Software School.

Let's cut to the chase: Did I get an actual job or where the last 6 months worthless?

Well, I have accepted a full-time job, as of April 8. Super excited. I would have never gotten the job without attending the school. To accept that job, I had to turn down at least two additional interviews for full-time jobs.

Oh, and in my spare time, I am hoping to do some part-time work at a local startup in Nashville and, like any good developer, I already have an idea for my own company.

Also, I am teaching in the second class, at least until I start the new job.

Once again, if you have any questions about the experience. Let me know.

[drewbutler]

How to Survive Nashville Software School By Trying Real Hard part 3/3

This is final part of the three-page series on Nashville Software School tips.

Part 1 had my thoughts at the end

Part 2 had some overall tips about my experience

This will talk about some of the outside tools I used. Everything on this list I would recommend.

Two tips that I forgot.

1. If you can, get the ebook or the Kindle version of the book. Biggest reason: There are quite a few and carrying them everyday can be, um, heavy.

2. Get Google Drive and Dropbox. I saved files, graphics, and books so I could transfer documents from my laptop to home desktop.

3. Other stuff about downloads: For Code editors: You do NOT need Dreamweaver. In fact, I would recommend you move away from Dreamweaver all together. Here is a list of editors I recommend:

Sublime Text 2 (Mac, PC, Linux free)

Vim (free)

TextWrangler (free)

Coda 2 ($75, Mac App Store)

Notepad++ (PC, free)

TextMate ($52, Mac)

Okay, here it is. The master list of stuff I used that helped me during the full six months. I DID purchase all of these (YIKES), except the jQuery: Novice to Ninja book (I won it in a contest). But, hey, I have a great reference library now.

HTML/CSS

---------

Head First HTML5

Head First HTML and CSS

CSS: The Missing Manual

Javascript/jQuery

-----------------

Javascript/JQuery: Missing Manual

Jquery: Novice to Ninja

Wordpress

--------------

Digging into WordPress

Video Tutorials

----------------------

Lynda.com

Treehouse

Udemy

Ruby

-------

Beginning Ruby

The Ruby Way

Programming Ruby 1.9 (aka Pickaxe)

Pragmatic Studio Ruby Video Tutorials - Because I am video person, I looked these videos. Pricey: Yes. Worth it: Yes. You want to learn Ruby before learning Rails.

Rails (MAKE SURE THE BOOKS or VIDEOS DEAL WITH RAILS 3 or you might be misinformed and confused.)

-------

Ruby on Rails tutorial by Michael Hartl. Best Way to Learn Rails (Note: The online book is available for free. But I recommend the video tutorial that is $125. Pricey, but very, very worth it.)

The Rspec book - You are going to learn about Test-Driven Development and pretty much every employer I've talked with use Rspec for testing. So this book is good for that.

Rails 4 in Action - This book walks you through a project using Test-Driven Development. Don't let the name fool you. This book uses the latest version of Rails (3.2.9, as of this writing). Note: This book is in prerelease, as of Dec. 2012, and is a work in progress. The next class will get more use of this book during the class than I did. But I am going this book and the Hartl tutorials now that the school has ended.

Final note: Don't be afraid to email to get my thoughts about a textbook. Also there are a TON of blogs and tutorials that will help you. Best thought I received during the class: Coding is like an open-book test. As long as your code works, it really doesn't matter where you get it from. Book, video, blog, Stack Overflow, etc.