Seriously, though, after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life...and that was by far my most productive period of time as far as keeping up on general tech news, personal projects, academic research/reading/conferences, etc...
A non-code day job can be a great way to have the mental energy to spend on non-job code. :)
My point isn't that non-programmers can't or don't read HN. My point is that there are more programmers reading and posting on HN than Starbucks baristas. If you hated your boot camp, the odds of you reading HN is lower. Selection bias doesn't mean absolutes, it means probabilities.
> after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life
I really respect that. I think I'd like to do the same, but the mortgage can't be paid on minimum wage.
I'm sure my specific case isn't that common, but I'm fairly confident that there are a non-trivial number of people out there who can code but choose not to as a career path.
I'm not questioning the argument about frequency, I'm questioning the underlying assumption that "success" in a bootcamp is only measured by employment as a developer.
Why would someone that doesn't want to code as a career path go to a coding boot camp? I'm sure there are a few managers that want to understand the technology they are managing, but by and large, I can't believe that non-coders make up a significant fraction of attendees.
If you don't measure the success of a coding boot camp by "employment as a developer", what would you measure it by?
I was running a brick and mortar business. I just wanted the coding skills for more leverage. After finishing a bootcamp, I did take a job at a large tech company and then one at a YC startup but I never had any intention of a "coding career". I just wanted to continue learning and see the industry from the inside and to assess what the level of competition truly was in SF/SV.
It's been 4 years since my bootcamp experience and I very, very much doubt I'll ever seek "employment as a developer" again except in the case of failure as an entrepreneur.
I just met two vets at a makers faire. One was a cop for 8 years, the other doing sales for his small biz. They both are now enrolled in a local code camp (sorry, spacing name). They LOVE it. They're both deeply chagrinned they had never tried that "math geek" stuff before.
Now they're talking about starting code camps targeting other vets, help with transitioning to civilian life, build community, mitigate PTSD, work with kids, etc.
You could be strict and limit this conversation to formal boot camps, but the reality is that this training is happening in a lot of different places.
I've been mentoring a number of our senior support folks on coding, and they've been doing something along the lines of a boot camp. My management finds that support team are able to better understand how things work, attempt to debug things they'd have been afraid of, and ask better questions of software engineers. Support engineers get to do something different and are building skills. They have seen "coders" move quickly through support to the engineering team. Another group manages our tools, but I hope they'll be able to hack on some tools for our team. Some people will stay in support, but it should be less stressful because they can understand how things work better. From a distance you can see how the online communications have changes between the two organizations.
From my past experience in Pharma I know there was similar interest from scientists to learn to code (if they didn't already). I also know that some of the designers working on electronic detailing apps for sales at the time really wanted to learn to code because they had to transition from Flash to HTML 5 and JS.
For these reasons, I think that the make up of coding boot camps may surprise some. A differentiation may be related to where someone is in their career. Someone laid off, or without a job is probably more like to jump to a boot camp than someone who has a job. Quitting to take part in a boot camp is probably a huge jump for people, if they are in the tech sector because they may have more awareness of what is involved, or other means to make the jump to coding.
No bootcamp myself, but I think more people learn to code than are employed as developers, although it may not be widespread. I switch between Product Design, development, and Program Management, based on market opportunity. Development is my least favorite, and I know many PMs and designers who take a short course with no intention to strictly switch gears (becoming a higher paid technical PM is a good example).
You are missing the point. It's not whether there are a trivial number or not. It's about the relative sizes of the groups in the population versus the sample.
The fact that there is not a single negative response is basically proof positive that people who don't succeed at coding boot camps do not read HN. Unless you happen to believe that almost everyone does succeed after coding boot camps. I find that notion incredible, personally.
People who have careers in tech are likely to read an internet forum whose readership is directed at people who have careers in tech. So we aren't going to get much "people who don't have careers in tech" side of the story.
Hypothetical example: Say only 1% of coding bootcamp graduates find the program to be a "success" for them. All of that 1% read hacker news and zero of the 99% read hacker news. If you ask about bootcamp on hacker news you'll only get HN reader's perspective, then you'd believe bootcamps are wildly successful whereas the real number is the opposite.
I think that OP point was not that there is something special about Starbucks. It was that people who were unsuccessful after bootcamp or had otherwise bad experience are less likely to read these forums.
There is a YouTuber I like to watch sometimes because he
occasionally uploads videos demonstrating really unique and high level programming skills.
His day job? A bus driver.
I saw that in the comment section of YouTube, people always ask him "why don't you go code for a job and make tons of money!". His response is that coding is something loves to do, and he wouldn't want to risk losing that love for it, by making it a job.
I love the idea but sadly in the US, living on a bus driver salary would be very difficult. He was based in Finland I believe, so I assume their bus drivers make more money.
living on a bus driver salary would be very difficult
As is often mentioned, that depends on where you choose to live. Around here, I know someone who was a bus driver and a homeowner. She was quite happy with it.
I suppose that's true, and I should keep that in mind more often. I live in California, and though some rural areas do reach that kind of affordability, they're also so remote and disconnected from society that I don't consider them an option.
I second that a non-code day job can be a great way to have the mental energy to spend on non-job code. I am a SAP consultant at IBM and my morning starts with checking out HN.
I search for next books to read by searching first on HN and also the constructive discussion that takes place here always leaves me being a bit smarter.
Seriously, though, after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life...and that was by far my most productive period of time as far as keeping up on general tech news, personal projects, academic research/reading/conferences, etc...
A non-code day job can be a great way to have the mental energy to spend on non-job code. :)