# Mailbox

The thing about luring low income career jumpers into coding bootcamps is that, contrary to what market and politicians belief, you can’t simply re-train anyone to be a programmer in the same way you can’t just turn anyone into an Olympic athlete. Learning a programming language is not the same as learning how to program in the same sense as knowing how to hold a paintbrush doesn’t make you an artist. Creativity is not something that can be taught.

Writing software requires abstract thinking and problem solving skills. Coding bootcamps cater to a clientele that prefers to follow step-by-step instructions and is mainly motivated by the prospect of a higher income. So, what could possibly go wrong when we use money to bait people, with a mechanical way of thinking and a willingness to take shortcuts, into that career path, then switch by telling them that they don’t quite cut the mustard, to actually earn an engineer’s wage, were mainly hired to do grunt work and are utterly replaceable, but should probably stick around to pay off their tuition fees?

Yes, of course, I am heavily prejudiced against micro degrees. Why would I not be? That’s basically telling low income people that they could embark on an engineering career within a fraction of the time and employers that they could hire an engineer for a fraction of the cost. Obviously you can’t make that proposal with a straight face when both parties are present in the same room and those who buy the pitch deserve each other anyway, but comeon!

Would anybody take a “doctor” serious who says that he used to deliver pizzas and didn’t attend med school because 4 years of studying is way to long, but he really wanted the higher income, so he signed up for a bootcamp where they trained him to handle scalpels in a matter of weeks? That’s the level of ridiculous, everyone involved in bootcamps sounds.

Just had an argument with a career jumper about signing up for a coding bootcamp and becoming a software developer. Sure software engineers are in high demand and well paid, but here’s the catch: you can’t become an engineer in a couple of weeks (a degree course takes 9+ semesters) and therefore won’t land one of those jobs. If anything, you demonstrate willingness to take shortcuts which is precisely what you are not suppose to do as an engineer. So basically you just pay tuition fees to be rushed through the latest hype and be useless to the industry upon graduation.

Of course, there are also those bootcamps where the course comes bundled with a job offering, but the thing to understand here is that you are not trained for a(ny) job in the software industry, but exactly this job. You graduate with the narrow skillset that particular employer is looking and willing to pay for. In other words, you end up locked into the job no one else wanted.

I just had a horrible business idea:

1. Create a shitty, low effort Android app (dunno, something like a weather widget, horoscope, or calculator knock off).
2. Publish on Play, let it rot ripen for a couple of months, then buy 100k+ installs (see email spam folder for offers), add some 5* reviews for good measure.
3. Sell that app to those asshats that keep spamming me about buying my apps for a song.

Yes, those scavengers DO annoy me. Especially when having a disclaimer in their footer, informing me that I received their offer because I subscribed to some mailing list.

App Download error on Google Play

Broken GSF ID?!

Manually installing split APK files (App Bundles) via ADB

Can't really recommend doing it this way, but sometimes you have no other choice.

The aftermath of "No, 'Open Source' does not mean 'Includes Free Support'"

Got some hilarious reactions. Gotta share.

No, "Open Source" does not mean "Includes Free Support"

We need to talk.

A reader asks:

Can Google delete apps from my Android smartphone?

Eh, yes, of course! There’s a push message and a mechanism for that implemented in the Playstore app. In case you find that surprising: how did you think Play would handle a cancelled payment for paid content? Return the money and let you keep the item?

In case the question was if you could buy an app, use Raccoon to download the APK to your PC, then refund, the answer is: yes you can do that (shame on you), most paid apps safeguard against this by performing an online license check.

Getting more emails from Indians these days wanting to sell me 5 star app reviews on Google Play. Curiously they are all using Gmail addresses for contacting me.

If you are offering to cheat the system (in particular one that’s known for scanning your communication), shouldn’t you use a communication channel that’s outside of the system?

shrugs