Watch and Code

What @Jonathan_Blow describes is precisely the focus of my teaching. It is also by far the hardest and most frustrating part of my work. It truly is the last frontier of programming education. Technical competence is nothing in comparison. I tried to describe the same phenomenon in my essay, "A Brief History of Watch and Code". What makes it frustrating is how few people even think it's a problem. It may be a case where only those that understand the problem can see it. watchandcode.com/essays/a-br… From the last section: "The systems I had built were extremely effective at helping students develop technical competence, but there was one final piece, design. You can think of it as taste, judgment, or something else. I still don't know exactly what I should call it. You have two programs, they are both correct. One is pleasing and simple, but the other is ugly and gives you a headache. This is what I mean by design. It turns out, good design, at least the type I'm describing, is chiefly a symptom of clear thinking. The headaches are a symptom of muddled thinking."

Big issue w/ full-time coding bootcamps: 3 mo is followed by a 12+ mo job search (if lucky) that creates a large gap that has to be explained. Companies become concerned & think, "there's likely a reason this person isn't having any luck", so the problem keeps getting worse.

From a conversation this morning: "To be merely competent, you have to stay with something until you understand it. To go beyond that, you have to stay far longer, until all the newness and excitement has worn off."