Here's an anecdote. I have two friends who decided to take advantage of some COVID downtime to learn to code. I suggested they start by doing some HTDP, and they did. Now one is doing a bootcamp and the other is building his own apps. Both are doing Javascript, React, Ruby, a bunch of popular stuff.
I've interviewed and hired dozens of junior devs in my career, many of whom had already been on the job for a couple years. Most had only gone through a bootcamp. My two friends are far surpassing what any of those folks were capable of. They are able to understand these modern tools on a deeper level, not just copy-pasting or memorizing parts of an API.
I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to code. Once you know fundamentally how to design functions, you can learn any of the trending technologies that might snag you a job. And you'll probably end up with higher quality, higher output, fewer bugs than your peers.
I'm curious about your comment. I'm no longer a junior but I'm trying to invest more time into FP as I hear that it might make me a better problem solver. I see a lot of people recommending HTDP and SICP.
My question is, in your opinion what makes HTDP so good to make your friends learn unrelated things quicker than others? Do you think that is only a matter of designing functions or there's some other transferable skills too?
As a concrete example, not too long ago I saw an engineer spend a few days trying to use a React plugin for some UI thing. Another engineer eventually took it over and implemented the same UI thing from scratch, in about 50 lines of CSS and JS, in about 30 minutes. There were clearly two different approaches to the problem there!
What I see from many people (especially coming out of bootcamps) is that they learn one tool. They make one or two apps with it, the apps work fine, and so they believe they can do anything. That works great until they come up against something they haven't seen before. Once they do, they have no framework in their mind as to how they can move forward in solving the problem. All they know are those one or two tools. So if they can't find a plugin or something to copy/paste into those tools, they become lost.
HTDP is genius because it shows you how simple the fundamental process really is. They literally call it a "design recipe". It's basically understanding the shape of your data, defining inputs and outputs, and writing tests. With those ideas and some practice with that methodology, you can handle any situation that comes your way, forever.
It's not the junior engineers' fault, though. A lot of people in the industry speak in terms of tools. "We're looking for React people", etc. The idea that your skills are defined solely by the tools you know is widely accepted in startup circles. It's no wonder that bootcamps operate the way they do.
From what I have seen, the mythical "10x" programmers really do exist, and they're the ones who are really great at keeping it simple. They're not necessarily FP-oriented, just focused on writing simple code to accomplish a goal (and very good at it). HTDP is a great way to start down that path.
Here's an anecdote. I have two friends who decided to take advantage of some COVID downtime to learn to code. I suggested they start by doing some HTDP, and they did. Now one is doing a bootcamp and the other is building his own apps. Both are doing Javascript, React, Ruby, a bunch of popular stuff.
I've interviewed and hired dozens of junior devs in my career, many of whom had already been on the job for a couple years. Most had only gone through a bootcamp. My two friends are far surpassing what any of those folks were capable of. They are able to understand these modern tools on a deeper level, not just copy-pasting or memorizing parts of an API.
I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to code. Once you know fundamentally how to design functions, you can learn any of the trending technologies that might snag you a job. And you'll probably end up with higher quality, higher output, fewer bugs than your peers.