Excellent article. Kudos to you for rethinking things once you saw how the facts on the ground collided with your preconceived stereotype.

From a student’s perspective, there are huge differences in coding camps. Some are indeed scams — here’s a particularly egregious example. Some have better curricula and instructors and/or help more with internships and jobs than others. Some have scholarships available (or like Ada Developer’s Academy are free). If the plans to allow federal funding to pay for them go forward, we’ll see the same feeding frenzy for-profit education so check them out thoroughly.

From a hiring manager’s perspective, it’s crucial to look at the specific individual instead of getting fixated on their credentials. There are great software engineers coming out of coding bootcamps and undergraduate courses and grad school, as well as a range from good-but-not-great to not-yet-ready-to-work-professionally. Different people have different mixes of skills, experience, and knowledge; look at what’s right for your team, not where they got their degree or whether they have one.

And from a blogger’s perspective, the quality of responses here is decidedly mixed and the lack of respect in some of them is really disappointing. I admire your patience :)