
Show HN: Learn to code by being coached by an experienced developer for free - ab_thomas
http://www.askadev.com
======
jordanlev
I'm an experienced developer who would be interested in helping others. But I
have no idea who it is I'm helping here, and also I'm not sure what the
company's role is or how they benefit, etc. I'm happy to volunteer my time in
some situations, but not if I feel others are profiting off it in some non-
explicit way. Would love to see more info about who exactly you are, what your
plans with this thing are, what your financial motivations are, how my contact
info is to be used, etc. before I commit to offering help.

~~~
fat0wl
Yeah I may help out a non-profit team but nothing like this. When you work for
a company teacher/student relationships are somewhat natural, its part of what
the company is paying for (senior devs should mentor juniors). Even then there
is the worry "this guy could take my job..." but you expect the company to
reward your teaching ability and promote you. In a case like this it just
seems like a way for the hobby market to steal more work from solid engineers.

I know guys who do this for $$ or for close friends knowing that they'll get
something in return (help on a startup idea?) but teaching for free is odd --
tutors in other fields get paid, why should comp sci keep racing to the
bottom?

I would be much more comfortable with "Code my startup project: I retain
property rights, you get to learn". It's a much more even agreement. Not super
exploitative given that the tutor probably could code everything they are
teaching, but they let the student do it at a slower pace in exchange for some
oversight (hopefully a lower time investment for the senior than coding the
project themselves).

~~~
nmrm
I think the standard view is that this is exploitative, and I doubt you would
find many students opting in.

The closest analogous scenario: there are pretty strict _ethical_ rules
against e.g. professors offering extra help to students in exchange for labor.
Doing so would probably be grounds for inquiry and possible dismissal, even
from a tenure position. I realize it's not exactly the same scenario, but it's
probably as close as you can get where there are codified rules.

~~~
Machow
This seems to be exactly the case in psychology. Undergraduate students often
assist with experiments in return for research experience on their resumes.
Depending on the degree to which they were involved in a project, they may be
thanked in a paper, but not listed as a coauthor.

~~~
nmrm
Research is significantly different from private, for-profit business.

And those studies are _always_ IRB-approved. The IRB takes into account the
conflict of interest, and will sometimes protest if you don't pay the student
subjects (e.g. if the study involves a significant time commitment).

~~~
Machow
I'm not talking about students who participate in experiments as subjects. The
students who are research assistants are sometimes unpaid, and might not
receive course credit for RA work, but contribute code to projects for
research experience. It's relevant to working for a private, for-profit
business in the sense that the alternative is often doing an internship for a
private company.

The IRB only monitors study participants, not research assistant work.

~~~
nmrm
Ah, I misinterpreted your comment. Sorry.

> It's relevant to working for a private, for-profit business in the sense
> that the alternative is often doing an internship for a private company.

I still think there's a pretty significant ethical difference between not-for-
profit research and a for-profit business. Even without the student-teacher
relationship, unpaid internships in CS are pretty ethically dubious and
uncommon.

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malditojavi
Good intentions, difficult scalibility for being free. Stackoverflow works
because users who give answers earn reputation - something that they can
include in their CVs. If there is not something that you can offer (material
or inmaterial) to the ones who are going to make great your service - devs
willing to teach - this will be just a good intentionated initiative, badly
executed. Not trying to be negative, just what I see imho.

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josephschmoe
I would think the number of people who want to learn to code outnumber the
people who know how to code and can teach it 10:1.

Without pricing to reduce the first number to manageable levels, how would you
plan to succeed?

~~~
bengali3
good point, but i guess they could differentiate between

want to _know_ how to code (9/10 individuals)

willing to _learn_ how to code (1/10 individuals)

I like the idea of some simple 'can you follow instructions' coding examples
to get the basics out of the way (parenthesis, braces, int x = 1; etc). Make
this test be the gate to taking up a humans time, and alter the difficulty of
the test as you need to throttle.

~~~
ab_thomas
Interesting idea. We brand new and were not expecting the several hundred
signups. Right now we're 1:2(students:mentors) with signups.

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scopendo
Rather than direct learning assistance, I'd be interested in a review service
as most of the time I can get stuff to work just fine, but there is likely a
better or more idiomatic way. Particularly relevant in a new dev space and
unfamiliar with respected frameworks and libraries already out there.

~~~
ab_thomas
You mean like code review on stack exchange?

~~~
scopendo
Possibly (I wasn't aware of that), however I'd prefer something a bit larger
in scope, taking in the larger application and even the architecture.

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cdnsteve
I like the idea, however I don't like that there's no transparency. Where's
the privacy policy, what are you using my data for? Why is this free? Where's
an example of how this works before I give you my info? Why should devs give
up their time (as others mentioned), with examples.

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DarkTree
I know that many experienced developers are willing to forgo their free time
in order to answer questions for beginners, hence, stackoverflow, but I am
curious how the psychological difference of committing 30 minutes to a single
person in a one-on-one experience will play out. Very cool idea if it has
enough liquidity.

~~~
IanCal
One of the nice things when solving things on SO or IRC is that your work is
available for many others to benefit from. Also, since it's public, I can
expect to be corrected if I'm wrong.

I'd see this as being the same as saying "Oh, you commit to open source
projects, so you'd be happy to work on this private project for free!".

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jing
The pairing idea isn't new although it does seem to be very successful -
there's a company called Thinkful
([http://www.thinkful.com](http://www.thinkful.com)) that does online learning
by pairing a mentor who gets paid with every student who signs up and pays for
a course. They apparently have a very good amount of traction with thousands
of paying students. Should be interesting to see how askadev's free model
compares.

~~~
ZanderEarth32
I used Thinkful for a while, and the mentor who they paired me up with was
top-notch. Extremely helpful guy, who helped me tremendously in the short time
I was with the program.

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shijie
I've encountered a flow error on your site. I successfully registered to "pair
with a developer" and listed a few languages I don't know and would love to
discuss with someone. Then, I saw the option to become a pairing developer and
so I tried to sign up for that, but my email address was (obviously) already
taken. Should there be an option to be both, or is each role, learner and
teacher, mutually exclusive on your site?

~~~
ab_thomas
You'll be able to do both in 48hrs. Email me your address at info@askadev.com
and I'll add you as a teacher and student.

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ilaksh
My guess is that the idea is you volunteer to help people for free for 30
minutes with the hope that some of them will give up and want to hire you. Or
they will let you do the "hard" part. Or maybe they will get stuck and need
you to bail them out.

Anyway I think the angle is this is a way to get leads for new clients. The
part I am not sure about is, how does 'askadev' get paid? I am guessing they
charge the coaches a small amount ahead of time for access to the noob
programmers (leads).

Or maybe its simpler. After 30 minutes you have to pay.

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Thiz
I like this idea a lot. I really like it. But not for free.

Charge $5 for 20 mins and give $4 to the dev, take $1 for the biz.

I guarantee you there are plenty, millions of people in this world interested
in a solution like that.

~~~
Thiz
Oh, and make it tiered.

$5 seasoned international developer (cheap third world expert like me)

$20 seasoned american developer

$50 expert developer

$500 Patio11's godly level

Allow ratings so people can attest the expertise of the developer according to
their rate.

~~~
romanovcode
Why you're implying that American developers are better than, let's say
European developers? Or even cheap third world experts like you?

If you're expert - you're expert, country does not matter.

~~~
Thiz
I am not implying they are better, just they know english better than the rest
of the non-anglo world.

And great communication skills is a preferred trait in solving problems.

Btw, I can code fluently in over 10 programming languages, but my fluency in
english is subpar. See? That's why I rather take a cut in the rate as long as
they accept my deficiency in english.

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colordrops
Sounds great, but too bad their site is broken. I tried to sign up and got the
following error message, which is inaccurate:

"Oops, sorry an error occurred! Either you left the languages field empty or
<email address> might be already registered. Please contact us if you require
further assistance."

~~~
ab_thomas
Hmmm... first error like we've had. Please try it again and if you still can't
sign email us at info@askadev.com.

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codygman
I also can't sign up and get the "empty language" form error even though I put
a tag in there.

~~~
ab_thomas
Can you still not sign up? Please email us with the address you use at
info@askadev.com.

~~~
codygman
I could sign up to learn, but not to learn and teach apparently.

~~~
ab_thomas
Thanks for signing up and we're adding that option shortly. Email me at
info@askadev.com.

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jpdlla
This is similar to [http://hackhands.com/](http://hackhands.com/)

~~~
stanzheng
also similar to hackerhours.

[http://www.meetup.com/hackerhours/](http://www.meetup.com/hackerhours/)

hard to connect mentor to mentee efficiently for people of different levels
from beginner to expert or domain specific problems.

------
thebenedict
I'm skeptical because it sounds too good to be true. How can this be a free
service?

~~~
ab_thomas
There's plenty of developers who will happily offer their time for free. We're
bring them into one space we're we can connect them with students.

------
r109
I remember when IRC was cool

~~~
rhizome
Still is, but shhhh.

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sikhnerd
Doesn't appear that you can actually sign up to learn, keep getting error that
I have not selected a language tag

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daimyoyo
Interesting idea, but how will it scale? How many people can one competent
developer mentor?

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stevenhubertron
I got a rails error when trying to to submit for a coach.

~~~
ab_thomas
Can you still not sign up? Please email us with the address you used at
info@askadev.com.

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shire
This is actually a real cool Idea. very nice.

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nickgrosvenor
The team has great facial hair

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myang
unable to register, keeps saying the email has been used.

~~~
ab_thomas
We were updating the site which may have been the problem. Email me at
info@askadev.com if you still can't sign up.

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joeframbach
So, codementor?

~~~
dethstar
community codementor

