# Computer Science Guys...what do you think of this 9 week intensive?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-science-guys-what-do-you-think-of-this-9-week-intensive/651989>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 4, 2013, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-science-guys-what-do-you-think-of-this-9-week-intensive/651989 "2013-03-04T12:23:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-science-guys-what-do-you-think-of-this-9-week-intensive/651989/21 "2013-03-06T00:11:28Z")

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What makes programming different from many other pursuits is that it is somewhat unforgiving. You can take a class on business management or marketing or making Powerpoint slides or whatever, and you will probably pick up enough to get by. Even if you don’t, it’s not like your mistakes will cause the world to grind to a halt.

With programming, just because you complete a course, doesn’t mean you can build a web app, or create an ETL feed, or translate my complex business logic into C# code.

To be honest, I think it’s difficult to just “teach” someone computers with a couple of classes at the local learning annex. I saw a lot of that in the 90s where people would take classes in Java or VB or C++ or whatever so they could jump on the dot-com tech consulting bandwagon. A lot of them spent a lot of time staring at their computer screens.

Most of the people I know who are good programmers had an interest in computers from an early age and just gradually taught themselves stuff over the years.

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**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-science-guys-what-do-you-think-of-this-9-week-intensive/651989/22 "2013-03-06T19:49:53Z")

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> [@panaccione](#):
>
> Yeah, but is it on-par with the bootcamp discussed in the OP?

It’s difficult to compare the two because codecademy is a self-driven independent learning scenario while the bootcamp has live instructors. It’s apples and oranges. Reading a textbook and doing the sample lessons yourself is a lot different than enrolling at a university and taking courses from profs.

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