nealsales
Joined 16 years ago
Karma
19
Submissions
15
Member since
Apr 16
Recent submissions
Comment · 2 months ago
Breathing new life into old hardware is such a refreshing feeling!
Comment · 2 months ago
I'm more excited to get up and use my computer on Omarchy. Working on it feels more like a video game where I have to solve fun puzzles everyday.
I run it on a Framework Laptop 12, an old MBP, and a recently built gaming PC (VR primarily). There are tradeoffs, but I haven't enjoyed working on computers this much since the 2010 era, first learning to build web apps with Ruby on Rails. The distro is merely 6 gigs and takes minutes to install. And the video DHH just released Quattro with is worth a watch to get a feel for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7fe9pa8OeE
Comment · 12 years ago
Founder of Code Academy (now The Starter League) here. Thanks for clarifying this! It seems we'll never live it down. Happy to share more about our experience and how we dealt with the conflicting name.
Comment · 14 years ago
We definitely have an affinity towards our original Code Academy brand, but unfortunately we had some confusing overlap with another awesome company - Codecademy. Zach Sims and his team are great and he and I have been good friends since we've discussed how to resolve our name confusion. I'm happy that we'll be able to support each other going forward. We encourage our students to use resources like theirs and Treehouse in order to prepare for some of our in-person courses.
As far as the name change not having the same semantic meaning, I completely agree, however "teaching people to code" was never our only purpose. We wanted to provide a path for people who wanted to start change -- in their industries, in their communities, in their lives. To us, being a Starter means so much more than just being able to write code; it's about being driven to do something meaningful with it. A Starter is an innovator, a disruptor; someone who is burning to solve problems and is willing to bust their ass to learn what they need in order to do so.
We are also not a place that you visit for three months to acquire a skill and then leave. You don't just attend, graduate, and then disconnect. To be a member of The Starter League means to have earned a permanent place in a team of people dedicated to supporting one another in ongoing efforts to learn and build, to solve meaningful problems for ourselves and others.
We are not simply an academy for coders. We are a League of Starters.
Comment · 14 years ago
We're very supportive of Shereef and his team at DevBootcamp. Thankfully we've got the Ruby Dojo http://starterleague.com/dojo (which also sports an 8:1 student/instructor ratio) this quarter which serves a similar audience to DevBootcamp's cohort with training for people aspiring to become software engineers. And class/hours/ratio comparison is a bit different, since it's a full time commitment for our students as they often work in our space at http://1871.com 24/7 and practice around the clock with mentors, fellow students, and the many startups that are looking for development support. While we aren't explicitly jobs/placement focused, our outcomes have been similar to that of DevBootcamp for our students that have aspirations to become software engineers.
Comment · 14 years ago
The application at http://starterleague.com/apply is the first step. As we review applications we choose people to interview either in person, via skype, or by phone. We are looking for passionate and persistent people that are willing to spend three intense, immersive months in Chicago.
Comment · 15 years ago
Just a quick correction to your comment - they are CodeCademy www.codecademy.com, not Code Academy www.codeacademy.org
Comment · 15 years ago
Our top Code Academy student Geoff Massanek had 2-3 years industry experience (and had even been dabbling in rails for 9 months before) and got a ton out of the program. You can check out his perspective on the experience here http://refactoree.tumblr.com/
Comment · 15 years ago
Getting hired isn't always the goal, and some people (people who didn't have the luxury of a CS degree and/or college) want a better place to seriously get started once they exhaust online tutorials and books.
Comment · 15 years ago
It's all about what the needs and expectations of the individual is - and properly setting them. As one of the founders of http://codeacademy.org I can say first-hand that it is possible to get people to a point where they are happy with their progress. But rather than asserting - our students' own perspectives is the actual evidence: http://codeacademy.org/culture
If anyone would like to know more about our experience starting and running this program - I'd love to help you however I can. It's great that there are so many people getting passionate about the issue of educating more people on how to solve problems through software.
Drop me a line at neal at codeacademy dot org.
Comment · 15 years ago
Thanks. Both http://codemountain.org and http://codeacademy.org are doing very well!
Comment · 15 years ago
Yep...that was intentional.
Comment · 15 years ago
How so? And we're definitely providing much more than just "learning rails."
Comment · 15 years ago
We are going after the same problem with a different solution - http://codeacademy.org
Looks great, looking forward to seeing it develop!